Michigan
NCAA Great Lakes Regionals
Wolverines to Seek NCAA Championships Berth at Great Lakes Regional
11/8/2017 2:49:00 PM | Men's Cross Country
» After a fifth-place regional finish prevented Michigan from earning an NCAA Championships berth, the Wolverines are the top-ranked team in the field and favored for a return trip to nationals.
» Automatic berths to NCAAs go to the top two finishers in the team race. Teams finishing third or lower are eligible for at-large berth consideration.
» With Ben Flanagan leading a corps of redshirt seniors and talented underclassmen, Michigan has the depth to make a run at nationals.
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THIS WEEK
Friday, Nov. 10 -- NCAA Great Lakes Regional (Terre Haute, Ind. / LaVern Gibson Championship Course) 12:15 p.m. ET
Meet Home | Live Results | Watch Live on Flotrack Pro
The national No. 10-ranked University of Michigan men's cross country team enters the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Friday (Nov. 10) with one goal in mind: qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
Projected as the top team in the region by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) and riding the momentum of their second Big Ten team title in three seasons, the Wolverines will be aiming for a return berth to nationals after missing out on the big dance a year ago.
Their performance Friday (Nov. 10) at 12:15 p.m. on the rolling hills of the LaVern Gibson Championship course will determine the route by which -- or if -- the Maize and Blue will punch their tickets to Louisville for nationals on Saturday, Nov. 18.
"We want to go in and solidify a spot -- ideally with an automatic spot -- to nationals, and show why we feel we're one of the better teams in the country," head coach Kevin Sullivan said.
Not only are the stakes bigger than at any other point this season, but so, too, is the race course. After running no farther than eight kilometers (4.97 miles) to this point in the season, the guys will step up to 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) for Friday's regional meet and -- if all goes according to plan -- the NCAA Championships the following Saturday.
Michigan showed that it has all the pieces to make a deep postseason run in a victory at Big Tens two weekends ago. Led by three redshirt senior All-Big Ten honorees in first-teamer Ben Flanagan and second-teamers Aaron Baumgarten and Connor Mora, the Wolverines were also by far the deepest team in the field with seven runners among the top 25 finishers. No other squad in the conference had more than four runners cross the line that soon, and no team had accomplished the feat since Indiana in 2013.
Even better news for the Wolverines? They managed that depth despite off days from 2016 Big Ten scorers and redshirt seniors Billy Bund and Micah Beller.
But anything can happen out on the race course on any given day, so Sullivan has made sure the squad is looking forward to the NCAA postseason and not backward to the Big Tens.
"We can't afford to have a letdown, and that's been the focus after coming off a big high at Big Tens," he said. "We took some time to regroup and get our emotions in check, and I think everyone understands that just because we've had great performances up to this point, that doesn't guarantee us anything."
The Wolverines will once more need to call on that depth with conference rivals No. 15 Michigan State and No. 25 Wisconsin -- the second- and third-place finishers behind Michigan at Big Tens -- back for a rematch.
"We know we've got a tough task ahead of us," Sullivan said. "We'll be seeing Michigan State and Wisconsin again, we're going to see Indiana who I'm sure is going to bounce back after a disappointing Big Ten meet, and then with Eastern Michigan and Butler and a few other schools we have one of the deepest regions in the country."
Fans can watch the meet live on Flotrack Pro with a subscription, or follow the live results on TimingMD.net. Live updates from the course will be posted to the program's social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook throughout the week leading up to and including the race.
THE LINEUP
For the Great Lakes Regional, only seven runners are able to compete for each team. The Wolverines' seven-man roster will be pulled from its 11-man travel roster, which also doubles as their available pool of runners for the NCAA Championships.
Redshirt seniors Flanagan, Baumgarten, Mora, Bund and Beller headline the group, as well as redshirt sophomores Ben Hill, Keenan Rebera and Jordy Hewitt; redshirt freshmen Isaac Harding and Jacob Lee; and true freshman Jack Aho.
Standard NCAA scoring rules are in effect for the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, meaning a team's first five runners will comprise its team score. Each of those top-five runners will be assigned a point value equal to their finish positions (first is one point, second is two, and so on), with the sum of those five runners' point totals making up the team score.
The next two runners (six and seven) will serve as displacers in the team scoring. Though their point totals will not contribute to the team score, they will be key in pushing opposing teams' scoring runners who finish behind them back one spot each in the standings -- a vital advantage in a competition in which each and every point is important.
As strong as Flanagan has been in leading the Wolverines in every race this season -- including a sixth-place showing at the Big Ten Championships -- now will truly be his time to shine as a former 10,000-meter Big Ten Champion on the track from the 2016 season. He has finished 11th and 10th at this meet in the two times he has competed.
Baumgarten has improved in every race so far this season leading up to an 11th-place finish at Big Tens, and is in shape to replicate or improve upon his 10th-place finish in this meet last year.
A miler and steeplechaser by trade, Mora has shown that he has chops at the longest distances, as well. He was 31st at this meet as a freshman in 2013, and took 129th in the nation over this distance at NCAAs in 2015.
After an off day led to a 41st-place finish at Big Tens, Bund will look to return to the form from a year ago that resulted in an 11th-place regional finish. He has been a scorer for the Wolverines in all but one race this year.
This would be the first NCAA postseason 10K race for Hill, Rebera, Harding, Lee and Aho.
Qualifying for the NCAA Championships
The primary objective for the squad will be to finish either first or second in the team standings. Each of the nine regional meets around the country on Friday automatically advance two teams apiece to nationals, comprising 18 of the 31 total teams in the NCAA Championships field. Should the Wolverines be the winners or runners-up, they will sleep soundly Friday night knowing their berths to Louisville are secure.
Should Michigan finish third or lower in the 31-team field, then their national championship qualification aspirations are left to the fate of the at-large process, which determines the remaining 13 bids to the NCAA meet. More than a day will pass until the team knows whether nationals awaits them as the final NCAA field -- including the at-large berth recipients -- will be unveiled on Saturday (Nov. 11) by 3 p.m. ET on NCAA.com.
Having amassed a sizeable number of head-to-head victories over other squads vying for NCAA berths -- which is the primary factor used to select at-large qualifiers -- at both Notre Dame and especially Wisconsin, the Wolverines should be in strong position to earn one of those 13 berths should they finish third or perhaps even fourth in the standings on Friday.
A fifth-place finish or lower dramatically lowers the Wolverines' chances at a continued postseason run, as the region has not qualified five teams to nationals since 2012.
A top-three finish has historically been enough to qualify over the last decade, as the region has moved on three or more teams in eight of the past 10 years. However, the last two years have only seen two Great Lakes Region squads advance to NCAAs, and four other times in the last decade only three teams have proceeded to nationals.
In the event Michigan does not qualify for the NCAA Championships as a team, a route still exists for individual Wolverines to advance to nationals. The four highest-finish individuals who are not members of qualifying teams are selected from each region to move on to Louisville. With two additional at-large bids up for grabs between all nine of the regions, as many as six non-team-qualifying runners could move on.
A LOOK AHEAD
Saturday, Nov. 18 -- at NCAA Championships (Louisville, Ky.)
Social Post of the Week
It's #NCAAXC Regionals Week!
— Michigan T&F / XC (@UMichTrack) November 7, 2017
Here's a sneak peek of the 10K course the guys will be running in Terre Haute on Friday pic.twitter.com/7DOQ7xF8ej
Players Mentioned
