More proof that track's regular season is almost totally meaningless. NCAA star Morgan McDonald runs 'B' heat at Bryan Clay

In the post-race interview, he said he just wanted to get the regional qualifier.

https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44531&do=videos&video_id=273137-Morgan-McDonald-1st-Place-Men-039-s-5000m-Section-2-Azusa-Pacific-Bryan-Clay-Outdoor-Invitational-2019

What exactly does "regular season" mean anyway?

Does anyone besides parents & coaches follow the humdrum weekends anyway?

And we are still wondering why they took the 5k out of the diamond league? lol

LetsRun.com wrote:

He did win it however in 13:50.92.

He would have been 14th in the top heat where the winning time was 13:33.47.

http://finishedresults.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/8239

There is no regular season. Everyone is training for championship meets. These are just prep for that.

Bring back the dual meets!!! Put them in a tri/ quad format, where points count for overall conference team championships, heading into conference meets.

The majority of T&F athletes won't compete in regional/ national meets, and the ones who do have forgotten how to compete. Sure, they know how to run/ throw/ jump, but competing is a different story.

Athletes who won't compete at the NCAA level will have roles on their team, and top athletes will compete against each other locally, instead of going to the hyped up invitationals.

Also, it'd be nice if the Mt Sac Relays actually had more than a 4x1 and 4x4!

You use the regular season meets to prepare and get qualifiers for conferences, regionals and nationals. Nothing else. You want guys to blow their loads in a bunch of dual and tri meets that mean nothing? Or have their first meet of the season be conferences? For a running site, the people running things around here are ridiculously bad at covering the sport.

Bring them back! wrote:

Bring back the dual meets!!! Put them in a tri/ quad format, where points count for overall conference team championships, heading into conference meets.

The majority of T&F athletes won't compete in regional/ national meets, and the ones who do have forgotten how to compete. Sure, they know how to run/ throw/ jump, but competing is a different story.

Athletes who won't compete at the NCAA level will have roles on their team, and top athletes will compete against each other locally, instead of going to the hyped up invitationals.

Also, it'd be nice if the Mt Sac Relays actually had more than a 4x1 and 4x4!

I've thought this many times as well. The epidemic of schools dropping cross country and track coincides with the shift to multi team meets. Maybe that's just coincidence. But it seems that having a team that has at most one home competition, and maybe none, and has no won/lost record might make administrators wonder what the point of keeping that team is and move it to the chopping block more readily.

On the other hand, fewer schools field a full team anymore. Given the choice between funding maybe 40-50 athletes in the sport so you can cover all events compared to the 20 or so you've got now or dropping the sport maybe you'd see the latter choice happen even more.

You must be new here

LetsRun.com wrote:

In the post-race interview, he said he just wanted to get the regional qualifier.

https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44531&do=videos&video_id=273137-Morgan-McDonald-1st-Place-Men-039-s-5000m-Section-2-Azusa-Pacific-Bryan-Clay-Outdoor-Invitational-2019

I don’t get it... why spend all that time and money to fly across the country to cruise a 5k. Go to some local college invite & get it there.

And this idea you can’t race is inane. What is the point if you rarely compete?

We didn't need "more proof." That's just how track works. It isn't good or bad. It's just that track is a different kind of sport and doesn't work exactly like other sports.

In football, teams play each other one at a time, so you need a substantial regular season so that enough games can take place to see where every team stands. If you want to play against 11 other teams, you need to play 11 games.

In track, you can compete against 11 other teams in a single meet. No need to have a regular season similar to football.

The travel part is what doesn’t make sense. Track athletes fly out every Wednesday morning and return home Sunday afternoon. I agree that McDonald could have driven a few hours to drake relays next week and run an easy 5k and driven back home.

Some of the remarks here are absolutely clueless. That is like saying a semifinal is clueless. You run fast enough to get in. The comment about being 14th in the top heat is loaded with ignorance.

It is a huge problem with our sport that people that claim to know a lot continue to say stupid stuff. You turn on flotrack - dumb as $hit comments left and right. Moderators of this site - more stupid comments like this.

Morgan McDonald has a pro season after he runs at Big 10, regionals and ncaa. He would be dumb as hell if he ran that hard. Every year you see a ton of guyus run sub 29 in 10k and then do NOTHING at the end of the season. Very poor coaching. Mick Byrne and Morgan have this one right.

bugs bunny wrote:

And we are still wondering why they took the 5k out of the diamond league? lol

aka the "regular season."

NCAA is not world class competition, even if a few short sprinters pop world-class times. It is not even part of the show. I guess watching it is an American thing, but don't assume all Americans pay any attention, except to see who the up-and-coming pros might be.

Please... wrote:

Some of the remarks here are absolutely clueless. That is like saying a semifinal is clueless. You run fast enough to get in. The comment about being 14th in the top heat is loaded with ignorance.

It is a huge problem with our sport that people that claim to know a lot continue to say stupid stuff. You turn on flotrack - dumb as $hit comments left and right. Moderators of this site - more stupid comments like this.

Morgan McDonald has a pro season after he runs at Big 10, regionals and ncaa. He would be dumb as hell if he ran that hard. Every year you see a ton of guyus run sub 29 in 10k and then do NOTHING at the end of the season. Very poor coaching. Mick Byrne and Morgan have this one right.

+1

Why fly across the country tho? Why not just make a home meet and tempo there?

Why fly? wrote:

Why fly across the country tho? Why not just make a home meet and tempo there?

I don't know but potentially because they were doing recruiting in that area.

Why fly? wrote:

Why fly across the country tho? Why not just make a home meet and tempo there?

Why not? He had other teammates in that race. He was at the front regularly which means he was probably there trying to help those teammates get their preliminary round qualifiers as well as his own. If the program has the budget and is willing to send him to Los Angeles to do so, who cares?

As was previously mentioned, his focus will most likely be geared toward his professional career which means running fast overseas and making the Australian team for the World Championships in September/October.

That's how every sport is except for NCAA football because they pick their 4 team playoff based on 12 games (way too small sample size, half of those are cupcake wins where they are favored by a few touchdowns to begin with)

NCAA basketball you've got 64+ teams, doesn't really matter how your regular season goes as long as you make it in the tournament, even has to win same number of games to win the whole thing.

NCAA track, just have to be top 48 in your region, then everyone has same shot to advance.

NCAA cross country, can get it done at regionals and suck rest of season.

NCAA baseball, just have to hit the minimum criteria to go the region tournament, then hope you get hot there.

NCAA gymnastics, not many schools even have it so you're in the minority if you're not at the NCAA championships. So then the NCAA championships are all that matter.

NCAA rowing, field hockey, ice hockey, soccer, tennis are all same as above with lower participation so large percentage makes it to NCAA tournament.

Professional sports it's the same. Basketball you need to be in top half of league and then it all resets and anyone can win it. Baseball you've got to be top third of the league to make playoffs (including wild-card). Football gotta be in about top third as well.

So pretty much in every sport you just have to be good enough in the regular season, the bar is pretty low, and then the real competition is at the end of the season.