MGoOtherSports
Men's Cross Country
First year under new head coach Kevin Sullivan
Ranked #22 in pre-season poll.
Opened with a non-scoring Michigan Open, where they mostly just ran as a group.
Stated as heading to Kentucky Invitational in Lexington this Saturday but for some reason it's not listed on their schedule. Black and Gold Invitational in Iowa City on September 20th would be next.
September 10th, 2014 at 11:46 PM ^
September 10th, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 12:05 AM ^
Looking forward to the cross country season for both the men and women. The women are ranked #1 and MSU is ranked #2, so the Michigan schools are looking to clean up this season.
For the men, Kevin Sullivan was a big name hire as a former standout runner (14 All-American honors; 4 NCAA titles). However, I thought Gibby was building a great cross country team. They won the regional last season, surprising Wisconsin and Indiana.
September 11th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^
XC is going to be very interesting this year and I will be watching them very closely. The woman will make a run at the national championship which will be outstanding to see develop during the season. Finn should be top 5 or 10 at NCAAs on the individual side. She is one of the brighest talents in the NCAA right now.
Men's is interesting, because we had so much momentum in XC before firing Gibby because of (apparent) track performance. I'm guessing we take a step back; Sullivan will come in with miler-focused training plus we lost 4 of our top 7 from last season. If they could get Smoragiewicz to focus on running 100% (he is a national caliber triathlete), that would boost prospects considerably.
September 11th, 2014 at 12:10 AM ^
# 1 and # 2 in the country?
September 11th, 2014 at 12:42 AM ^
Pretty close, it seems. I'm not sure if these are the best or most updated rankings, but the NCAA website has Michigan #1 and MSU #6 as of 8/26.
September 11th, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^
what's what at this point. MSU just came out to Oregon and won an invitational but Oregon didn't run their two best runners, and a handful of others, and won't run another competitive meet for several weeks.
September 11th, 2014 at 12:22 AM ^
The team is loaded with a ludicrous amount of talent due to the recruiting power of the assistant coaches and a few banner years of just huge named kids in state, Massa, Thomas, Coon and the likes.
They've put together like, 4 or 5 straight top 5ish recruiting classes, if they ever are going to really put it together and make a run at a conference, and by default a national title, this is it. PSU finally graduates Ruth and Taylor, Minnesota loses Nelson and...one of the Ness's...there's like 5.
We've got one seroius threat for a national title in Coon, and I maintain that Massa will at least be in the conversation by the end of the year. Maybe you get one or 2 more surprise contenders out of a gaggle of top ranked recruits like Zac Hall, or Ben Whitford. All of them where top ten recruits in their class. Oh Michigan already has the number 1 recruit of the curent senior class commited, in no small part because he's the younger of the two Massa brother's.
So yeah, we recruit at a ludicrous and nearly undheard of level ,but so far the results have been a little dissapointing. Michgian is still a very good team, they just havent been anywhere near good enough to compete for conference titles in the totally bonkers Big ten.
September 11th, 2014 at 8:24 AM ^
So yeah, we recruit at a ludicrous and nearly undheard of level ,but so far the results have been a little dissapointing
I thought this thread was supposed to take our minds off of football.
September 11th, 2014 at 12:51 AM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 12:58 AM ^
Kevin Sullivan is a head coach now. I remember when he the star Canadian runner heading to Michigan
Mgotold
September 11th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^
there's another serial downvoter lurking.
September 11th, 2014 at 10:00 AM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 12:33 PM ^
Last Saturday. I discovered that we're not very good at soccer. We lost 3-0 and didn't look able to assert ourselve against a high pressing team. I had never seen them play before and had high hopes. Our recruiting has been great (number 2 class in the country last year) but with the exception of the keeper, Evan Louro, the freshmen who played were pretty undersized. Ahinga Selemani was named Big Ten Preseason Freshman of the Year and started at forward, but he's only 5-8, 170 lbs, and was manhandled. He looked frustrated and out of his element. Billy Stevens was active as a central defender and mostly acquitted himself OK (with the exception of one of the Columbia goals where he looked to get beaten), but he's only 5'9, 165. I admit that I don't know a lot about the college game but we looked pretty poor in just about every area of the game.