Starting to see some info become available, so thought I'd start this thread now.
The men's and women's cross country (XC) teams race towards their next goal, qualifying for the NCAA Championships (scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 19th in Stillwater, Oklahoma), by racing at the NCAA Mountain Regional this Friday, November 11th. This regional, one of nine nationwide, is being hosted this year by New Mexico in Albuquerque. (Don't know if it's true in this case, but most XC purists seem to pooh pooh races at golf courses, which seems to be a popular/ common decision, as soft, and this year's regionals are shown as being at the U. of New Mexico's golf course. With Nationals only 8 days later, probably not a bad thing to do anything possible to lessen, however slightly, the wear and tear on the runners who advance.)
The women's race is scheduled to start at 11:00 AM MT, with the men's following at noon. Unfortunately, as usual for regonals, I can’t see any indication that any video coverage planned.
Some notes (just copied from my 2019 regional thread) about qualifying (I did modify the paragraph a little where I change it to note THIS year's situations vs. 2019's.):
"
For this year, the Mountain Region looks to be as challenging for the Buffs as I've ever seen it (maybe partly because they're both ranked lower than normal?), at least near the top, and it typically has already been one or two of the toughest (with the West and or Midwest also periodically being tough) in the country. In the most recent NATIONAL polls (released right after conference weekend), the Buff women are ranked #8 and men #9 in the COUNTRY, but for both their ranking only equates to #4 Mountain regional rankings. (The women are behind #2 nationally ranked New Mexico, #4 Northern Arizona (NAU) and #6 BYU, while the men are behind #2 BYU, #3 NAU and #5 Air Force).) And the women are also VERY close to being regional #5, as right behind them in the national rankings at #9 is Utah, who the women BARELY beat at Pac 12's in a tie breaker. I'd guess it's been quite a few years since the men or women haven't finished in the Top 3. But just to give minimal requirements to advance this year- I believe 4th place finishes for either team will hopefully be enough (although neither team has been as dominant this season as most past seasons) to keep their qualifying totally "in their own hands" rather than having to have "help" from other schools in the involved mathematical (Kolas points) process which is NCAA cross country qualifying. (This is due to the "Pushing" process included in the selection process explained in the detail description linked to above.)
The preliminary list of potential Mountain Region runners selected by the teams was recently released at https://www.rtspt.com/events/ncaa/d1mtnxc22/entries.pdf . It's from this list that the 7 runners per gender needs to be selected for Friday's races. (For the Buffs, 9 women and 11 men are listed as the potential runners Friday. I'm not sure and too lazy to confirm rather anyone not on the regional selection list can run at the Championship FINALS or not?)
A few other Links:
Host New Mexico regionals homepage - https://golobos.com/2022-ncaa-cross-country-albuquerque-regional/
Mountain Regional Participant Manual (with schedule, course maps, spectator and team info, etc.) - https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ch.../2022-23D1XCC_NexMexico_ParticipantManual.pdf
NCAA's regionals' link and information page (for ALL regions) - https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2013/11/7/division-i-men-s-and-women-s-cross-country.aspx
Live results - https://www.rtspt.com/events/ncaa/d1mtnxc22/
The men's and women's cross country (XC) teams race towards their next goal, qualifying for the NCAA Championships (scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 19th in Stillwater, Oklahoma), by racing at the NCAA Mountain Regional this Friday, November 11th. This regional, one of nine nationwide, is being hosted this year by New Mexico in Albuquerque. (Don't know if it's true in this case, but most XC purists seem to pooh pooh races at golf courses, which seems to be a popular/ common decision, as soft, and this year's regionals are shown as being at the U. of New Mexico's golf course. With Nationals only 8 days later, probably not a bad thing to do anything possible to lessen, however slightly, the wear and tear on the runners who advance.)
The women's race is scheduled to start at 11:00 AM MT, with the men's following at noon. Unfortunately, as usual for regonals, I can’t see any indication that any video coverage planned.
Some notes (just copied from my 2019 regional thread) about qualifying (I did modify the paragraph a little where I change it to note THIS year's situations vs. 2019's.):
"
- 9 regional races will determine which 31 teams for each gender get selected for the Championships.
- The top 2 finishing teams in each of the regions are the 18 auto-qualifiers.
- The remaining 13 teams are "At-large" selections. Unlike the team sport selection process most of us are familiar with (with their selection committees), the at-large teams in cross country are selected almost totally on a mathematical calculation based on how many wins the next highest regional finishers have accumulated over the 18 auto-qualifiers, and any other teams that have earned at-large berths earlier in the process (with a few exceptions). (The wins over other all ready selected teams are called "Kolas points".)
- The at-large calculation has quite a few rules. For those interested, here's what looks to me like a couple decent descriptions of the process and rules - https://www.thestridereport.com/understanding-kolas . (The link to the left was the most succinct and isolated explanation I could find. The full explanation can also be found starting on page #14 at https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ch...crosscountry/2022_23D1XCC_PreChampsManual.pdf .)
For this year, the Mountain Region looks to be as challenging for the Buffs as I've ever seen it (maybe partly because they're both ranked lower than normal?), at least near the top, and it typically has already been one or two of the toughest (with the West and or Midwest also periodically being tough) in the country. In the most recent NATIONAL polls (released right after conference weekend), the Buff women are ranked #8 and men #9 in the COUNTRY, but for both their ranking only equates to #4 Mountain regional rankings. (The women are behind #2 nationally ranked New Mexico, #4 Northern Arizona (NAU) and #6 BYU, while the men are behind #2 BYU, #3 NAU and #5 Air Force).) And the women are also VERY close to being regional #5, as right behind them in the national rankings at #9 is Utah, who the women BARELY beat at Pac 12's in a tie breaker. I'd guess it's been quite a few years since the men or women haven't finished in the Top 3. But just to give minimal requirements to advance this year- I believe 4th place finishes for either team will hopefully be enough (although neither team has been as dominant this season as most past seasons) to keep their qualifying totally "in their own hands" rather than having to have "help" from other schools in the involved mathematical (Kolas points) process which is NCAA cross country qualifying. (This is due to the "Pushing" process included in the selection process explained in the detail description linked to above.)
The preliminary list of potential Mountain Region runners selected by the teams was recently released at https://www.rtspt.com/events/ncaa/d1mtnxc22/entries.pdf . It's from this list that the 7 runners per gender needs to be selected for Friday's races. (For the Buffs, 9 women and 11 men are listed as the potential runners Friday. I'm not sure and too lazy to confirm rather anyone not on the regional selection list can run at the Championship FINALS or not?)
A few other Links:
Host New Mexico regionals homepage - https://golobos.com/2022-ncaa-cross-country-albuquerque-regional/
Mountain Regional Participant Manual (with schedule, course maps, spectator and team info, etc.) - https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ch.../2022-23D1XCC_NexMexico_ParticipantManual.pdf
NCAA's regionals' link and information page (for ALL regions) - https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2013/11/7/division-i-men-s-and-women-s-cross-country.aspx
Live results - https://www.rtspt.com/events/ncaa/d1mtnxc22/