How Wisconsin Exposed The NCAA Selection Shortcomings

How Wisconsin Exposed The NCAA Selection Shortcomings

Oct 7, 2015 by Lincoln Shryack
How Wisconsin Exposed The NCAA Selection Shortcomings




While it may not have been their intention, the Wisconsin Badgers have exposed a huge flaw in the NCAA selection process. When the fourth-ranked team in the country opted to test the intricacies of the E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park course in Louisville, the same plot that will host the NCAA Championships on November 21st, they simultaneously stirred up a bit of a controversy. Notice I said “test” not “race."
 
See, Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne instructed his talented bunch to hang back from the lead pack on Saturday because he believed practicing execution on the championship terrain was more important than a high finish at a meet he deemed “way too early” to warrant his team’s full attention. Although the race counted for NCAA qualification purposes, Byrne was willing to have the Badgers finish a lowly seventh at the Greater Louisville Classic if it meant that they could have one less race effort on their legs while also preparing for their ultimate goal, an NCAA Championship. 

Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne speaks with us after his team's performance at Greater Louisville:


While this decision made a lot of “back in my day” types angry (one commenter even called for Byrne’s job), it’s a choice that a coach should be able to make. It’s hard enough to figure out how to peak athletes exactly on the right day in our sport, but that task is compounded in NCAA D1 cross country as teams have to run two 10Ks in the span of eight days with Regionals and Nationals. It’s a brutal ending that borders on comical, especially for those teams that have to run Regionals hard, but the point is that the coaches and athletes have to focus their training and racing throughout the season with that gruesome finish in mind. Anybody that criticized Wisco for going easy this past weekend should have to run two hard 10Ks over that span and then they’ll realize how much of a fool they were.

So what’s the problem? Well, while the #4 Badgers should have no issue earning an auto bid to NCAAs by finishing top two at Regionals, thus making any of their regular season finishes of little importance, their placing at Greater Louisville gives the teams that beat them a point towards NCAA qualification that wasn’t exactly earned. Similarly, teams that didn’t race at Louisville missed out on a chance to tack on a free point to their resumes. The Badgers exploited the problem with the current selection process, known as the Kolas System, which doesn’t account for teams that lay down at seemingly “big” meets. 
 
Quick refresher for those that either forgot or never knew how NCAA D1 selects the 31 teams for Nationals: 18 squads earn automatic bids to the big dance by finishing top two at one of the nine regional meets, while the other 13 are chosen as at-large selections. This is where the handy-dandy Kolas system comes in. Teams earn “points” for an at-large bid by beating eventual top two regional squads at meets during the regular season, i.e. anything after the last weekend in September. The teams with the most wins over top two teams are the first at-large selections, and then the rest of the field is filled by looking down the regional results and finding who has the most wins against the teams already in. Outside of this, teams with little or no points can be “pushed-in” by beating teams at Regionals that won enough points during the regular season. 
 
So you can see why the first two weeks of the NCAA cross country season are so crucial for bubble teams trying to accumulate as many points as possible. Similarly, you can understand why this part of the season isn’t so important for the schools that don’t have to worry about points since they are likely to auto-qualify. This creates a conflict of interest. While Wisconsin may not need to run hard until the middle of October, teams like Illinois or Eastern Kentucky (who will likely be on the bubble) need the earlier races because points for them are hard to come by. When these teams with different trajectories meet on the starting line like they did this past Saturday, the aforementioned scenario can and will unfold, which makes the current way we select the NCAA field shaky. 
 
Once again, I don’t blame Wisconsin. If the goal of every sport is to win championships, then all efforts should be put in to making that happen. Trying to compare what the Badgers did this past weekend to forfeiting in another sport is ludicrous when the only thing at stake for them was a trophy (or in this case, a Louisville Slugger). If you deliberately lose in NCAA basketball at any point in the season, it hurts your resume in the eyes of the selection committee. That’s not entirely applicable in this case, however, as Wisconsin is just one solid performance at the upcoming Wisco Invite from punching their ticket to NCAAs (or once again, they can just finish top two at Regionals). Yes, NCAA basketball teams can run the table at their conference tournament to earn a spot in March Madness no matter what they did in the regular season, but at least there is the incentive of seeding in collegiate basketball, which is nonexistent in cross country. 
 
The solution to this dilemma is clear. The start of the official NCAA season should be pushed back until the Wisco/Pre-Nats weekend, when top teams and bubble squads alike bring out their full arsenals and legitimately compete. With Nationals just over a month after this point and the competition fully heated up, gone is the desire to jog like we saw on Saturday. 
 
Here is a breakdown of all the Kolas points won on the men’s side during the 2014 NCAA D1 cross country season:
 
Week 1 (Roy Griak Invitational) - 4
 
Week 2 (Notre Dame, UW Invite) - 19
 
Week 3 (Wisco/Pre-Nats) - 34
 
Week 4 (Conference) - 6
 
More than half of last year’s points came on just one weekend, with nearly all of those coming at Wisco. This isn’t just because Madison is beautiful in mid-October, but also because it’s the most competitive meet at a point in the season when it’s reasonable to run a full effort given the dramatic ending to come.
 
I can hear you screaming through the computer. If so many teams that aren’t Wisconsin are willing to run hard before the middle of October, then why should the system change just for them? Well, I believe that my idea actually helps the bubble teams that have to run hard earlier than the elite squads. Under the current system, fringe NCAA schools have to race early and often, which puts them at a disadvantage at Nationals against the top teams who are much more rested. If the NCAA qualifying window was shorter, there would be no advantage given to the better teams that generally have a race or two less on their legs. 
 
To the argument that the Badgers should have just run a workout at home instead of doing it during a competitive race, I would counter by noting that in no other scenario are they likely to get a legitimate feel for what NCAAs will be like. Yes, physiologically they could have mimicked their effort at Greater Louisville in practice, but they could not have duplicated the feel of the NCAA Championships without running as a pack in the middle of the field during a race, which is something they are planning on executing on the same course at Nationals. Outside of their #1 Malachy Schrobilgen, who is top 10 guy, the rest of the Badgers are likely to navigate a similar position at NCAAs to the area that they simulated on Saturday. Running up front at Greater Louisville doesn’t accomplish as much toward their ultimate goal as does working on team tactics that they will employ on the same course on November 21st.
 
Luckily for all you purists, the situation that unfolded in Louisville doesn’t occur frequently as most teams choose to either rest their stars, which prevents other teams from scoring points against them, or they just don’t show up at all, which has the same effect. Although Wisconsin’s performance this past weekend could be unique only to seasons in which Nationals is held in Louisville (there is no early October meet in Terre Haute where points can be earned), their points giveaway here combined with other top teams running easy through the early parts of October shows that NCAA qualification should only start in mid-October.  
 
Just take it from the man himself, Mick Byrne- “It’s just way too early. In two weeks time (at the Wisco Invite) it’s a different beast. You got 26 of the top 31 teams in the county coming in, that race is going to be completely different. The guys will get the green light then. That’s enough racing.”