Impressive

[overseasbbfan1]

I just want to congratulate our men's and women's track and field teams on their NCAA Indoor Meet performances this weekend.

Two weeks out the women were projected to finish 18th at the NCAA meet in the coaches poll; one week out and they were projected 9th. And what do they do? They finish 4th, with just 6 indv competitors and a relay, and missing two of last year's top performers due to injuries. And our 4x400, already missing Cooper, replaces another leg for the final - and jumps all the way to 2nd! That's two substitutions from the group that ran our top time earlier in the season, and we still improve and manage a runner-up finish.

The men finished 7th, and a 1/2 point ahead of the Ags who finshed 8th! Both men's and women's squads finished one place better than the Ags, who had just beaten us at the Big12 meet a few weeks ago.

Great job, Horns!

 

[ViperHorn]

It is impressive, but it also illustrates the two philosophies in track - team or individual. aggy consistently wins the conference with depth. Strip the depth away on the national level and it comes down to athlete v. athlete. The last two years aggy had the athletes and won. This year they were down and Texas finally made some strides.

 

[overseasbbfan1]

Actually the ags won the outdoor meet last year, but the Horns finished 2nd in the nation, and ahead of a&m at the indoor meet. And last years results were even more impressive. I think the Horns had been down at something like 18th in the projections at one point during the season, one of their lowest rankings ever, and finished 2nd at the Indoor meet. No question the Ags have focused on quantity, and depth, to great success. But funnily enough the Horns have responded by trying to increase their depth, but were depleted this year by injuries to several of their top performers. Yet they still found a way to finish 4th in the country, ahead of a lot of squads who were ahead of them in the projections entering the meet. I do hope we can win another national championship over the course of the next few years, we certainly seem to heading in that direction. As many titles as we've won, we would have quite a few more if athletes hadn't left early. Sanya turned pro after two years, Marshavet after three, and Bianca did the same after just her first semester (and setting the collegiate and NCAA record in her first national meet as a frosh). And Destinee didn't use her last year of elibility either so she could start playing pro VB. But you can't win them all, and even if we missed out on a handful more titles, Bev still seems to have her teams ready in spite of injuries, or athletes turning pro, or whatever.

And I'm hopeful the men can win an NCAA title the next few years as well. They do lose one of their SP trio to graduation, but overall the squad is young. We had the only freshman to score in the Hept this year, and of course Crouser is in his first season as well. And Thompson was one of only two freshmen to make the field of 16 in the 800m and finished 11th - in fact, there was only one soph in the field so 13 qualifiers were upper-classmen. I think all of our qualifiers except one return next year, as do several (Stewart, Jackson) who almost qualified in their respective events. We really need to bring in a top class this year we can close the deal next season!