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Pre-Race Comments
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All seven years of NXN (NTN) have demonstrated that most teams will
NOT have their best race of the year at NXN ... Many runners will
have speed ratings lower than the individual runner
projections below (this is expected because Portland Meadows is a
new type of experience for many runners ... add in traveling,
time-changes, etc.) ... Most runners perform best on familiar courses
(typically local courses for them) ... The projected ratings are just a vehicle for
projecting relative team scores.
The overall morning-line projected team scores above are
based (in part) on the individual ratings below ... There
were instances where I needed to make a "best guess" concerning
ratings for individual runners with inconsistent speed ratings to
approximate an overall-combined rating ... Computer simulation is not
possible because I do not have sufficient data for many teams outside NY
State.
Many runners are not consistent from race-to-race
(runners have good races, bad races and average races) ... That's why
predicting a team score based of any one race MAY be misleading in terms
of actual team ability ... I prefer a series of races (whenever
possible) to identify runners with big variations in performance ...
Then I need to figure-out how to handle these variations in
predicting the next race (Handicapping can be both fun and
frustrating )
... SEE the difference in team scores from NXN regional ratings and
State Meet ratings above.
General Team Comments:
At this point in the season, it appears
three teams have separated themselves slightly from the remainder of the
field ... Christian Brothers (NJ), American Fork (UT) and
Southlake Carroll (TX) ... In terms of picking the winner based
on numbers, it appears to be a toss-up ... I think any of the three
teams have an equal probability of winning.
Last year, two teams "seemed" separated
from the field entering NXN (Arcadia CA and American Forks
UT) ... American Fork did not perform well at all, so that
left Arcadia CA as the sole "best" team in 2010 ... At NXN 2010,
Arcadia ran what I considered a "good" race (but definitely not a
great race) ...When the "best" team runs a "good" race, that means teams
below them must run better than good races just to get even ...
And based on historical NXN performances, it is a rare occurrence
for any team to run significantly better than a "good " race for them
... Arcadia won handily, and teams that did run "good" races (Fayetteville-Manlius
and Columbus North) finished 2nd and 3rd ... and as expected,
many teams performed sub-par compared to their Regional and State Meet
races.
Guessing which teams will run sub-par at NXN is exactly that - It's a Guess ... and predicting the exact
order of finish is a "crap-shoot" to a certain degree .... Note:
I expect the top three scoring teams will have lower scores than the
predicted scores (that typically happens because many teams have "off"
races which raises their score and lowers the score of teams that do run
well).
Remember ... the Portland Meadows course in
early December tends to be an "equalizer" ... Teams performing at
(or above) performance levels getting them to Portland Meadows jump up
significantly in projected finish-positions ... WHO will that be in
2011?? (I hope it's the NY teams).
Individual Team Comments:
Christian
Brothers NJ ... CBA-NJ has done everything well
all season long ... CBA finished 5th at NXN last year (only 14
points from 3rd) gathering experience and demonstrating an ability to
run decently at Portland Meadows ... That experience, demonstrated
ability at NXN and 2011 team improvement makes Christian Brothers the
slight favorite to win.
American Fork
UT ... American Fork was the co-favorite at NXN
2010 and finished only 8th ... American Fork finished 8th at NXN
2009 as well ... Five returning teams beat American Fork at NXN
2010 (CBA, FM, Columbus North, Arcadia and
North Central WA) ... American Fork has proven to me they
have the ability to win this race, but it would be hard to "bet the
rent money on them" based on last year's results.
Southlake
Carroll TX ... Southlake Carroll finished 17th at
NXN last year, but that's about where they figured to finish ...
Southlake Carroll is definitely an improved team in 2011, so I give
them a real shot at winning NXN 2011 ... The question for them (and
others), "Can they handle Portland Meadows (the course) and all the
side-events related to NXN??".
Arcadia CA ...
Arcadia won NXN 2010 ... "Been-there-done-that" applies in my
book ... The top Arcadia runner graduated last year, but
Arcadia is still strong and they proved they could handle Portland
Meadows last year ... so I think Arcadia may be the top
California team at NXN 2011 despite losing at the CA State Meet.
Columbus
North IN ... Columbus North finished 3rd at NXN
last year ... Another "Been-there-done-that" applies ... A returning
podium team has to get respect.
Davis UT ...
Davis was very strong at the Southwest Regional (along with
American Fork) ... Last year, Davis finished 11th at NXN ...
Twelve of the 22 boys teams raced at NXN 2010 (six finished ahead of
Davis), but Davis looks a bit stronger in 2011.
Fayetteville-Manlius NY
(Manlius XC Club) ... Fayetteville-Manlius
finished 2nd at NXN 2010 ... FM lost three of their top four to
graduation, so this is a different team ... FM may have
over-achieved a bit earlier in the season, but this team is still
capable of popping a podium-performance if all five scorers perform well
... Some inconsistent performances of late raise concerns considering
the back-half of the team, but Fayetteville-Manlius and Portland
Meadows seem to gel very nicely at times.
Shaker NY ...
Shaker was 13th at last year's NXN ... This year, Shaker
appears to be on-the-improve entering NXN, so a better finish seems
likely ... Actually, I should be rating Shaker ahead of FM,
but I decided to give FM the benefit-of-the-doubt based on prior
performance at Portland Meadows ... I'm hoping FM and Shaker
go one-two on the podium .
Trabuco Hills
CA ... Golden Valley CA...
Rancho Cucamonga CA ... Predicting California finishing
places at NXN is a guess ... So I decided to "clump" these three teams
together at the 11th-position ... I figured I'd be close on at least one
of them
... If they do better, it will not surprise me (like-wise if they do
worse).
Belen Jesuit
FL ... I think Belen Jesuit is better than the
13th-position where I projected them ... The scores from 7th-place to
13th-place are virtually even-up, so it's a guess ... I figured they
have the longest trip plus colder weather (and some mud), but that's the
only reason.
Individual Race Comments:
Futsum Zeinasellassie (North
Central Indianapolis IN) is the clear favorite entering NXN 2011 ...
Zeinasellassie won both the NXN Midwest Regional and
Footlocker Midwest races handily (and appears to have "more gas in tank
if needed") ... The top-ranked runner in the nation is not running NXN
this year (Edward Cheserek (NJ) who was 2nd to Lukas Verzbicas at
last year's NXN), but Zeinasellassie will be racing Cheserek
at Footlocker Finals ... The only question I have concerning
Zeinasellassie at NXN is his ability to handle the Portland Meadow
course (but most top runners do it just fine).
Tony Smoragiewicz (Rapid City Cen
SD) is the top returning NXN runner from last year (he was 9th) ... Who
knows, maybe his triathlon training and strength will be beneficial in
navigating Portland Meadows on his second attempt.
The list posted below shows the top-rated
runners ... 12 of the top 13 runners are individual runners (runners not
competing for a team) ... and with the exception of
Zeinasellassie, they are very closely rated and anything could
happen with respect to finishing places (and that's what I expect will
happen because I don't really know what will happen).
Nick Ryan (FM) can handle any type
of course or conditions, so it will be interesting to see how he
performs with this much close competition ... But his prime objective is
to beat other team runners, so that may affect his race tactics (if it's
even possible to distinguish individual runners from team runners during the
race).
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