Big XII Cross Country Championships 2013

Men's Big 12 Preview: Big 12? More like the Big Easy

Oct 31, 2013 by Ryan Sterner

Predicting the Big 12 Cross Country Championship this year is like trying to hit the broadside of a barn with my van: easy. Barring the earth opening up and swallowing half of the constituents of the Big 12, there aren’t going to be any curveballs in Waco, Tex. come Saturday morning.

Individual: Kennedy Kithuka, then everyone else.

In 2012, Kennedy Kithuka could have listened to the gun go off, sat cross legged on the starting line for a full minute, watched every runner disappear over the hills, and he still would have won by nearly 10-seconds. And that’s not to say he was racing in a bush league meet--the 2nd place finisher was eventual 5th place finisher at NCAAs, Girma Mecheso.

This year will be no different. The only way Kithuka loses is if he decides to be nice and lets someone else win.

Though no one will challenge the defending NCAA champ, the race for second will be interesting. Craig Lutz, who was 3rd in the 10k last outdoor season, could possibly snag the runner-up spot, breaking up OSU’s top five. At his two previous Big 12 champs Lutz was 9th and 4th. He is currently coming off of a 23:36 performance at Wisconsin, where he nearly took down thirteen minute man, Lawi Lalang (but so did everyone else).

Also throwing his hat into the ring is #27 Oklahoma’s Abbabiya Simbassa. He ran 23:41 at Pre-Nats, which was good enough for 12th, but still 49-seconds behind Kithuka. But combine his Pre-Nats race and his 5th place finish at Roy Griak, and you've got a runner that could earn the red ribbon.

The only other person--aside from any of OSU's top 5, which we’ll be talking about shortly--that could challenge for a the runner-up spot is Texas’ Ryan Dohner. In 2012, Dohner was 6th at Big 12s and 19th at NCAAs. This year at Wisconsin he underperformed slightly, only running 23:57, which was good enough for 44th place. If he pulls it together, Lutz and Dohner provide a nice 1-2 punch for Texas.

Conclusion: Kithuka by a mile.

Team battle: OSU, OSU, OSU

Now I know we just talked about how a few people that could vie for the runner-up spot, but in all reality it’s going to be tough to take down OSU.

The defending national champions return five of their top seven from the 2012 squad, but have yet to run the full lineup this season. If they run 100% there’s no reason that they couldn’t near-perfect score the race going 2-3-4-5-6, which is what they’ve done almost every year since they started their streak of five Big 12 titles.
Shadrack Kipchirchir should be Cowboys' No. 1, but Tom Farrell, Shane Moskowitz, Kirubel Erassa, or Joseph Manilafasha could all easily be interchanged.

As a team they haven’t lost since 2008, and the most points they’ve scored at this meet is 30. Last year, if Mecheso hadn't run, OSU still would have scored 38 points, and still would have bested Texas by 18 points.

Outside of OSU, there is #27 Oklahoma, and #29 Texas, who are fairly evenly matched.

Texas is fielding a fairly unknown team outside of Dohner and Lutz. The only notable race that the Longhorns have ran this year was Wisconsin, where they finished mid-pack as a team, 18th out of 35.

Oklahoma has their own 1-2 punch in Simbassa and Brandon Doughty. Doughty--who finished 13th at Roy Griak but a distant 72nd at Pre Nats--is a sophomore, and was 27th at Big 12s as a freshman. If he can bounce back from his disappointing finish in Terre Haute, he and Simbassa could lead the Sooners past Texas for the runner up spot.

But, really, it’s anyone’s game.

Conclusion: 1. OSU (by a lot) 2. Texas or Oklahoma
Note: These projections are mainly based on the results from Wisconsin and Pre-Nationals, except for Oklahoma State, whose projections are based on the Chile Pepper Invitational. We don't think OSU will score that many points (33), but we didn't want to start changing positions to reflect our personal beliefs. Even when we left it as is, which meant it was basically scored as OSU from early October vs. Everyone from the two biggest invitationals of the year, the Cowboys still dominated.

Individual Projections

Team Projections

Place  Name                 School
1      Kennedy Kithuka      Texas Tech
2      Craig Lutz           Texas
3      Kirubel Erassa       Oklahoma State
4      Shadrack Kipchirchir Oklahoma State
5      Abbabiya Simbassa    Oklahoma
6      Thomas Farrell       Oklahoma State
7      Ryan Dohner          Texas
8      Joseph Manilafasha   Oklahoma State
9      Ezekiel Kissorio     Texas Tech
10     Reid Buchanan        Kansas
11     Evan Landes          Kansas
12     Brian Gohlke         Oklahoma State
13     Taylor Monaghan      Oklahoma State
14     Chris Galvin         Texas
15     Marcos Vallejo       Texas Tech
16     Josh Munsch          Kansas
17     Brandon Doughty      Oklahoma
18     Eric Graf            Oklahoma
19     Patrick Gomez        Oklahoma
20     Mark Pinales         Texas
21     Austin Roth          Texas
22     Dan Schubert         Oklahoma
23     Will Nation          Texas
24     Mohamed Hrezi        Iowa State University
25     Martin Coolidge      Iowa State University
26     Brady Turnbull       Texas
27     Eduardo Rodriguez    Texas
28     Alex Dillenbeck      Iowa State University
29     Alex Deir            Oklahoma
30     James Wilson         Kansas
31     Collin Smith         Texas
32     Brian Llamas         Iowa State University
33     Brad Miles           Baylor
34     Matt Cochran         Baylor
35     Kyle Polman          Oklahoma
36     Tyler Yunk           Kansas
37     Tyler Jermann        Iowa State University
38     Nick Rivera          Texas Tech
39     Jonathan Tijerina    Baylor
40     Kyle Scanlan         Baylor
41     Alexandre Lavigne    Kansas
42     J R Hardy            Baylor
43     Stephen Saylor       Iowa State University
44     Derwin Graham        Baylor
45     Brendan Soucie       Kansas
46     Nick Schulze         Iowa State University
47     Bachman, Jeffrey     Kansas State
48     Koch, Lukas          Kansas State
49     Steve Dado           Iowa State University
50     Hershner, Ryan       Kansas State
51     Taylor Moult         T.C.U.
52     Brendan Devlin       Texas Tech
53     Daniel Wedell        Texas Tech
54     Jonathon Lira        Texas Tech
55     Chris McElroy        Baylor
56     Luis Cuenca          T.C.U.
57     Smith, Logan         Kansas State
58     Bachman, Brett       Kansas State
59     Jake Rossmango       T.C.U.
60     Ryan Dykstra         T.C.U.
61     Greg May             T.C.U
62     Ellis, Kain          Kansas State
63     Ryan Spetnagel       T.C.U.
64     Shane Murray         T.C.U.
65     Roman, Fernando      Kansas State

Place School         Points
1     Oklahoma State 33
2     Texas          64
3     Oklahoma       81
4     Kansas         103
5     Texas Tech     115
6     Iowa State     146
7     Baylor         188
8     Kansas State   260
9     T.C.U          287