Indiana Men Take Over the Great Lakes Region in Division I Regional Rankings

NEW ORLEANS – Outside of a big upset in the Big Ten, most of the top teams in the final U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division I Regional Rankings of the season performed up to their regional-favorite status during this past weekend’s conference championships.

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Indiana’s men (No. 24 nationally) took down the 14-time defending Big Ten Champion Wisconsin Badgers (No. 7) and Michigan (No. 16) to leap to the top spot in the Great Lakes Region, marking the only changing-of-the-guard among all the regions this week for both genders.

No new Regional Rankings will be published prior to regional championships on November 15, and the results of those meets will serve as the definitive season-end Regional Rankings.

A pair of men’s teams in Stanford (No. 13 nationally) and Georgia moved to the second spot in their respective West and South regions, while Florida was highest-profile mover and shaker in the women’s rankings with a jump to the second spot in the South Region.

With only the regional championships next weekend standing between now and the NCAA Championships on November 23, being one of the two top teams in the region is more important than ever. Only two teams from each region will automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships, while the remaining teams will hope for one of the 13 at-large spots.

Indiana is off that perceived bubble for now, jumping from third in the region to the top spot after its first Big Ten title in 33 years. First-year runner Jason Crist finished fifth to lead a quartet of Hoosiers to top-10 finishes to take the Big Ten crown in West Lafayette, Ind. — becoming the first school not named "Wisconsin" to win the conference in the 21st century, since 1999 to be precise. No other team finished with more than one top-10 runner.

Michigan finished second to remain second in the region, while the Badgers of Wisconsin dropped three spots from first to third. Wisconsin still holds an 11-year winning streak in the Great Lakes Region, which it will look to defend next weekend.

Stanford’s men (No. 13 nationally) may not have won their Pac-12 Conference meet, but the Cardinal’s third-place finish behind individual runner-up Jim Rosa to No. 1 Colorado and No. 4 Oregon — without their top Pre-Nationals finisher Sean McGorty, who did not finish — was good enough to bump them up to the second spot in the West Region.

Bumped out of that all-important second spot was Portland (No. 6 nationally), as the Pilots fell to BYU (No. 5) at the West Coast Conference Championships, 30-48, and dropped to third in the region. Arizona State made a big move to No. 4 in the region, up three spots following a fourth-place showing at the Pac-12.

BYU, meanwhile, also finds itself third in its loaded Mountain Region behind Colorado (No. 1 nationally) and Northern Arizona (No. 2 ) — victors in the Pac-12 and Big Sky, respectively — and just ahead of Mountain West champion New Mexico (No. 9). The men’s Mountain Region is the only region in the country, men or women, with four different conference champions occupying its top four spots.

The SEC Championships produced a pair of teams that moved into the second position in both the men’s and women’s South Region rankings. Georgia’s men took third at the meet just behind South Region favorite Florida (receiving votes nationally), 96-101. Florida’s women finished fourth at the meet to jump past three other SEC teams to the second spot in the region.

While Florida was the only women’s team to move into its region’s top two, a handful of women’s teams improved to third. Despite falling from a top-five national team in the preseason to now unranked, Duke moved one spot to third in the Southeast Region with a fifth-place showing at the ACCs.

West Virginia (receiving votes nationally) jumped two spots to third in the Midwest Region with a runner-up team showing at the Big 12 meet. SMU improved one spot to third in the South Central after winning the inaugural American Athletic Conference title in dominant fashion.

The Iowa State men were runners-up in the Big 12 over Texas (No. 29 nationally) and Oklahoma (No. 27 nationally) to improve one spot to third in the men’s Midwest Region.

USTFCCCA Regional Cross Country Rankings are determined subjectively by a single member coach in each respective region. The regional representative is tasked with weighing returning team strength with current-season results in determining predicted team finishes at the NCAA Regional Championships.

Regional Championships will be held Friday, November 15. More details can be found at Regional Championships Central.