New coach Bernard Lagat goes home DEVASTATED as Arizona men DNF and women rack up 343 points at PAC12s

cava hoo wrote:

Lagat is a more motivated but equally as clueless in coaching above average talent and creating a culture of success. Obviously a great athlete. That’s it.

Letsrun will never, never ever praise a black person for his/ her ability to coach American distance runners. You can call it Al Campanis syndrome. We are only 30 yrs behind the rest of the sporting world.

Those results are terrible. They got a kid on their team that was running better when he was 14 years old.

I don't see them doing traditional recruiting to dig themselves out of this miss. They're either going to have to go the JUCO or international route.

There's really no excuses for this. SLC is only about 2,000 feet of elevation higher than Tucson. Even if U of A had no scholarships, there have to be five men on campus who can run under 27:00. I know this because there are loads of non-scholarship D3 teams that put all of their scorers under 27 regularly:

https://athletics.carleton.edu/documents/2021/10/30/MXC_2021_10_30_MIAC_Championships_final_results.pdf

https://wiacsports.com/documents/2021/10/30//2021_Cross_Country_Championship_Men.pdf?id=5338

https://static.uofrathletics.com/custompages/UR%20CROSS%20COUNTRY/2021/2021-10-30-UAAChampionship-MXCResults.htm

http://royalresults.com/road/cc.htm

And good luck going the Kenyan route…American authorities stopped letting them in a couple years ago. Take a look around the NCAA…there aren’t any “new” Kenyans/East Africans (who didn’t grow up here/weren’t already here).

Take a look at the team rosters and athlete bios from 2019 to COVID (heavy) to present and their results are much less surprising. Most of the roster (men and women) is highlighting PR's for both XC and Track that continue to be moderate-good high school level performances. There isn't anything to indicate even an average level of performance in a D1 program.

This brings it all back to recruiting, which is clearly not getting any easier. Speaking personally, coming out of HS with a 15.28, 4:19, 1.54, 50.4, I would not be interested in attending a D1 program (as a walk-on candidate) that didn't even have their own track and field facilities. Unless the coach is Pat Tyson and the school is Gonzaga! Based on a simple goggle earth search, it looks like Arizona is relying on the nearby high school(s) for track access.

Lagat is an extreme talent whom ran relative low mileage. That is a recipe for disaster in coaching low talent runners.

Also the Li scandal has certainly turned away recruits. It will take a few years to move away from that black cloud.

ghost_coach wrote:

Take a look at the team rosters and athlete bios from 2019 to COVID (heavy) to present and their results are much less surprising. Most of the roster (men and women) is highlighting PR's for both XC and Track that continue to be moderate-good high school level performances. There isn't anything to indicate even an average level of performance in a D1 program.

This brings it all back to recruiting, which is clearly not getting any easier. Speaking personally, coming out of HS with a 15.28, 4:19, 1.54, 50.4, I would not be interested in attending a D1 program (as a walk-on candidate) that didn't even have their own track and field facilities. Unless the coach is Pat Tyson and the school is Gonzaga! Based on a simple goggle earth search, it looks like Arizona is relying on the nearby high school(s) for track access.

No, they have their own track complex. It is really nice.

A few years back, I had a boy go to UA on an academic scholarship, studying aerospace engineering. He thought he might try and walk on the team there but Li never even returned an email.

In high school, he could have beaten every one of UA’s runners from this weekend’s conference meet.

Clearly, there was no interest in developing moderate talent then and it doesn’t seem that there is. Ow either.

Doctor Doctor wrote:

Lagat is an extreme talent whom ran relative low mileage. That is a recipe for disaster in coaching low talent runners.

This. Low mileage only works for extremely talented athletes or drugged up ones.

113 wrote:

No, they have their own track complex. It is really nice.

https://arizonawildcats.com/facilities/drachman-stadium-track-field-/2

Thank you for the link/clarification.

It starts and stops with the coach. Period.

If you are in charge it’s on you. Period.

By the way, Colorado wins yet again. Both men and women. And with lower ranked recruits than many of the other schools.

Rock Bottom Bernard wrote:

New Arizona coach Bernard Lagat in his first year for the Wildcats had arguably the most disastrous meet in Pac12 history. Men and women take last with a men’s DNF team score and women blowing out the score with 343. This team has already been rock bottom but somehow broke through the floor to collapse even lower.

What is Lagat doing at Arizona??

There is no way this is the result of a D1 program.

Colorado is probably doing their long runs faster than AZ’s race.

Either Lagat is just as abysmal as James Li after his mysterious “retirement” or this program is beyond rescue. What gives?

ACC and "NEW" Head Coach Ray Stanfield's first season, a seasoned veteran compared to Legat.

LAKELAND, Fla. – At the American Athletic Conference Championships, the Houston men's cross country team placed 7th while the women came in 8th on Friday morning at Holloway Park.

The men totaled 184 points in the team standing while the women recorded 182 points. Tulsa swept both the men's championships with 19 points and the women's with 48 points. Wichita State finished in 2nd in the men's with 63 points and Cincinnati grabbed second in the women's with 91 points. 

Devin Vallejo was the first Cougar to cross the men's finish line in 17th with a time of 25:00.4 followed closely by Brandon Seagreaves in 23rd-place at 25:21.5. Ala Elbana finished in 42nd-place (26:16.4) with Thomas Crider in 58th-place (27:16.5) and Tyler Keranen in 63rd (28.13.1) followed by Trey Grant in 72nd (30:27.9).

17-23-42 (26:16)-58 (27:16)-63(28:13)-72(30:27)

For the women, Darby Gauntt came from behind to finish in 22nd with a time of 22:28.0 followed by Madeline Castleberry in 25th-place with a time of 22:32.1. Erin Rivera finished in 43rd (23:07.4) with Clarie Meyer immediately behind her in 44th (23:12.5). Sondos Moursy claimed the 51st spot (23:23.4) with Daniela Castillo in 66th (24:02.4) and Victoria Ruiz in 70th (24:14.8) as Regan Lobodzinski rounded out the team in 87th (25:34.9).

22 - 25 - 43 (23:07) - 44 (23:12) - 51 (23:23) - 66 (24:02) - 70 (24:14) - 87 (25:34)

The point is... all incoming coaches should be given a minimum of four years to show significant progress.

How can anyone really answer the question of how good a coach Lagat is if no ones mentioned anything specific about their mileage and training?

What is he doing with the team? How hard are they being pushed?

Taking in mediocre running and not working them hard is never going to make them better.

like really bro wrote:

Doctor Doctor wrote:

Lagat is an extreme talent whom ran relative low mileage. That is a recipe for disaster in coaching low talent runners.

This. Low mileage only works for extremely talented athletes or drugged up ones.

Do you know for a fact that he is having them run low mileage? He inherited a team that is below average for even D-2, so I don't see why there should be any expectations for them to run well at a D-1 level. It will all come down to whether he can recruit far better runners. A new recruit is not going to care whether whether the team ran 26:00 instead of 27:00 this year.

This. I ran a solid bit faster than these times this season and I’ve ranged 9-12 on my team this season.

I am most definitely not on a P5 team and we had 2 guys break 24 and 4 guys sub 24:30. We are mid major, and not even what I’d consider a top mid major. Kinda sad.

Tommy2Nuttz wrote:

How can anyone really answer the question of how good a coach Lagat is if no ones mentioned anything specific about their mileage and training?

What is he doing with the team? How hard are they being pushed?

Taking in mediocre running and not working them hard is never going to make them better.

Making mediocre runners better is not why Lagat is there. If that was his goal, he would be a D-2 coach.

If I was a blue chip recruit, I would think it would be pretty cool to have Lagat as a coach. He was a GOAT level runner and he comes across as being a nice guy. If I believed he wasn't prescribing enough mileage, I would tack on another 30mpw with weekday morning runs.

You would want to run at Arizons because Lagat was a good runner? How does being a great runner help his team get better? He isn’t running the race. If he is following anything close to what James Li did then they are screwed. I’m sure he will recruit better. Li didn’t recruit much. I just can’t see him developing 9:00 guys into 13:50 guys. They may go to AZ and enjoy their experience listening to Lagat talk about his brutal 50-60 mpw training and Diamond league wins but that won’t get them to be good in XC or 5-10k on track. I’m not sure the U of A athletic department cares. They’ve put up with that train wreck for many years.

Drachman is:

a) way, way off-campus in a neighborhood I wouldn't run in after dark.

b) about what you'd expect from a decent high school track and field facility, not a flourishing D1 program.

In fact, U of A is only one of two schools that doesn't have an on-campus track, in the PAC-12.

So, Bernard Lagat is a NEW coach at Arizona, and some of you are saying he is obviously a bad coach based on the performance of this team that he didn't even recruit? Holy Schnikes Batman, let the man have a few years to get his own recruits in there, to set the culture, etc. It is possible he is a horrible coach, but we have no evidence of that yet.