Bruce3404

Day one at the NCAAs is pretty much confined to the men's and women's multis, along with the weight throw (which has no Ducks, nor any members of teams competing for the men's title). All projections showed that Max Vollmer would gain three points for the Ducks after tomorrow's final event and that seems pretty much in the bag, with a decent opportunity to even move up. I've taken today's standings, added personal bests for the top 9 (remember, only 8 score) and come up with the following projection for tomorrow: The current standings which show 1)Garland 3555, 2)Neugebauer 3534, 3) Tilga 3529, 4)Wolter 3335, 5)Owens 3329, 6)Spyridonis 3241 7) Vollmer 3239, Haack 3192 and 9)Spejcher 3123. Perhaps the surprise is that Wolter, not projected to score, sits in 4th. As you'll see, he's really a first day guy.Final projections based on PBs are 1) Garland 6209, 2) Tilga 6166, 3)Neugebauer 6065, 4) Owens 5931, 5) Haack 5908, 6) Vollmer 5899, 7)Spyridonis 5782 and Wolter 5383 (a position that could easily be taken by a good second day guy languishing back in 12th currently.With a great day, Vollmer could move up to 4th and it's doubtful he'd move down barring disaster, so the Ducks get their projected 3 points (with the help of #3 projection Ballangee going out after one event) and a good opportunity to gain more. Tilga is the only good runner in the 1000, about 8 seconds better than anyone else in contention, but Vollmer could pick off Haack as their times are almost identical and 1/2 a second is worth roughly 5 points. Should Max have a good day and Owens falter a bit, 4th is a real possibility.So on a perfect day, Garland is still almost 300 points under Eaton's 2010 CR, yet another testament to Eaton's amazing talent. While I'm paying some attention to the women, or at least the women Ducks, our heptathlete (freshman Matilde Rey) was projected to finish 6th, but badly underperformed in the shot put and somewhat underperformed in the HJ. She did at least equal her personal bests in the LJ and 60H and she's a good runner, so very possible she'll move up from her current 10th position as the final event, the 800, can be a real achilles heel for a lot of athletes and Rey is not far from Brianne Theisen class in the 800. In fact, looking at all the other athletes ahead of Rey, she has a realistic chance to move from 10th to 4th in the final standings. Sadly, it didn't happen as she only moved up to 9th, one slot from scoring position. Good job for a freshman and we were treated to a collegiate record of 4746, which took down Kendall Williams' 4703 from 2016. This makes Tyra Gittens a great possibility for future US Championship squads.

There are numerous ways to watch this on TV, even though ESPN3 is more or less an online thing for some. Fortunately Amazon Fire, Roku, etc, should allow watching on TV, BUT you' may have to pay a bit even if your TV provider supplies the other ESPN networks. Good news is that it's only $5.99 for one month on Roku and that'll also get you the XC meet next Monday. It seems that one used to be able to watch for free with a DISH subscription that included ESPN. I guess you still can, but only on a computer. Worst case scenario is that $5.99 for one month.I scanned the ESPN website (and the Roku directory) for times and while they'll tell you when an event starts, they're ambiguous about when it finishes since on several days they are showing two different start times. Do they run together or is there a break in programming? I guess we'll have to wait and see. So here are the current schedules and I'm using CST, since that's meet time:Thursday--11AM. That's good since they come in right on time for the multis. Will they stick with them? Will they show the weight throws which occur as late as 6:30PM for the men?Friday--1:45PM. Hmmm.....I guess they don't want to show us the MSP, MHJ, WSP, WHJ and the Hep 60H and PV. They do come on just in time for the HEP 1000mFriday--6:15PM. Hopefully they'll run the first segment through the men's DMR final at 3:45, after which there's a break until the WPV at 6:15PMSaturday--12:30PM. Just in time for the MPV start and I assume this time slot will take us through the Men's 4x4 at 3:20Saturday--5PM. Interesting start time. The only event prior to 6PM is the WTJ, so they'll get center stage for an hour! (Note that the Ducks have two entries in the WTJ)Saturday--8PM. This is just for the trophy presentations which usually take place minutes after the meet ends (unless there's a protest of some sort). In this case the women's 4x4 ends around 7:25PM. My guess is that the 5PM show will just continue to run until the trophies are presented.So for us Duck fans, it appears we'll miss seeing some of Max Vollmer live in the Heptathlon, but nothing else that involves Ducks. Here's a link to the meet schedule: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/crosstrack/d1/indoortf/2020-21D1XTI_ScheduleOfEvents.pdf

The Duck men should win this meet easily. There are only two teams this year worth discussing: The Ducks and the LSU men. A third team with good numbers is BYU, but because cross country became a Spring sport due to the virus, they've decided to go all-in for Monday's XC championships. The Ducks went the other direction, putting little focus on XC this year. A look at the entry list shows that the Ducks should score 71 points based on individual seedings going into the meet, while LSU might anticipate 48 points. The Ducks have a great depth advantage in the Distance Medley Relay and will possibly only run one of the team members from the NCAA record-setting team, thus resting such superstars as Cole Hocker and Cooper Teare for their individual events; if the meet is well in hand prior to the 3000, the Ducks may forego Hocker's anticipated 8 points and keep him on the bench. No point in running a freshman super hard if the meet is clinched. If one looks at the schedule and if everything goes to form, the Ducks should clinch as early as Saturday's first event (men's mile) and no later than the 800 less than an hour after the mile. Almost half of LSU's points will come from field events and field events tend to be less predictable than running events, so LSU will have to be on top of their game to even make this meet close. That said, any Duck track fan must remember the incredible 2017 women's team that frittered away a huge pre-meet edge which resulted in the meet literally going down to the last seconds in the 4x400, seconds which put Raevyn Rogers on the new Hayward tower. I'll follow this posting with ways to watch the meet.