I know it\u2019s taken a while to get around to this meet, but reality is that the colleges have really suffered from a lot of youngsters going pro early last year, in addition to the normal graduation attrition. The result is that a lot of star power has left college campuses since this time last year. When you lose athletes the caliber of Kirani James, Christian Taylor, Will Claye, Ryan Whiting, Jessica Beard, Lakaya Brookins, and Phoebe Wright among others, there\u2019s bound to be a huge letdown at your championship meet. The meet itself was exciting as always \u2013 there\u2019s something exciting about track and field when we start judging it as a \u201cteam\u201d sport \u2013 but the performances lacked that \u201coomph\u201d in many spots. <\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t stop the Florida men and Oregon women from defending their titles from 2011, AND 2010, as both squads scored three-peats \u2013 Florida in spite of losing Taylor and Claye. Florida\u2019s 52 points taking the measure of Arkansas (47), Arizona (41) and Arizona St (31) as no one else was able to score more than 27 points. They won on the strength of victories by Jeff Demps (60, 6.56), Tony McQuay (400, 45.77) and Omar Craddock (TJ, 54\u2019 11.5\u201d). <\/p>\n
On the women\u2019s side, Oregon totaled 49 points to secure their win ahead of Kansas (30), LSU (27) and Texas (25). The Lady Ducks were led by winners Brianne Thiessen (Pent,4536 pts) and English Gardener (60, 7.12). <\/p>\n
While most performances were \u201caverage\u201d in comparison to what we\u2019ve become accustomed to, there were those that stood out. I\u2019ll start with Kimberlyn Duncan (LSU) who sped a lap of the track in 22.74 to set a PR as well as a WL. The PR is more significant than the WL because it puts Duncan ahead of last year\u2019s pace when she ran 22.24 outdoors! Watch for that long stride of hers to be a factor in Eugene come June. <\/p>\n
Of course I already expected that of Duncan, based on her performances throughout the spring last year. I did see a couple of \u201cnew\u201d women step up into my radar in Idaho. One of them is Christina Manning (OhSt) winner of the 60 hurdles in 7.91 \u2013 making her #4 all-time collegiately and =#5 on the season. Her time is equal this year to Danielle Carruthers who was 2nd in Daegu last year, and only .01 off of Lolo Jones best this year. There\u2019s another 40 meters outside, but Christina has at least added her name to the conversation in my book. <\/p>\n
Also stepping into sight of my radar is long jump winner Whitney Gipson (TCU). I did know who Manning was prior to this weekend, I must confess I had no idea who Gipson was before she jumped 22\u2019 8\u201d (6.91m) \u2013 1.5 inches further than Brittney Reese jumped in college! Her next best jump was 21\u2019 9.5\u201d and her other jumps were in the 20 foot range, so I need to see a bit more consistency before I consider her a \u201cthreat\u201d to make the Olympic squad. But anything near her win here will certainly put her in the mix. <\/p>\n
On the men\u2019s side of things 200 winner Ameer Webb (Tx A&M) continues to put his name into the conversation about the deuce. His winning time was \u2018only\u201d 20.57, but he screamed a 20.39 in his heat that was a WL and for me confirms that he bears watching \u2013 at least in the conversation for spots on the US Olympic squad. The 200 has gotten to the point where if you can\u2019t run under 20, then you aren\u2019t in the conversation to make the finals of the Olympic Trials or Olympic final \u2013 but having watched Webb this winter I think he might be able to accomplish that. It\u2019s not a given, but any time you run 20.3 on the tight indoor turns you have a shot. <\/p>\n
Two others with a shot at making the US team are the Florida duo of Jeff Demps and Tony McQuay. Demps nearly made the final at the Trials in \u201808 as a high school senior. This weekend he improved his 60 PR to 6.52 \u2013 #6 on the year. He won a close final in 6.56 and had a fairly consistent indoor season \u2013 he might make that Trials final this time around. Teammate McQuay won last year\u2019s Trials, but was injured during the summer and did not get out of his heat in Daegu. McQuay looks to be recovered running 45.82 and 45.77 in Idaho. Setting him up for another run at making this year\u2019s team for London.<\/p>\n
Those are my highlights from the NCAA Championships \u2013 and with that the end of the indoor season. Before turning my attention completely to the outdoor season I\u2019m going to look at a few developments from the indoor season. That\u2019s coming next. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I know it\u2019s taken a while to get around to this meet, but reality is that the colleges have really suffered from a lot of youngsters going pro early last year, in addition to the normal graduation attrition. The result is that a lot of star power has left college campuses since this time last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[205,246,248,247,249,185],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-demps","tag-duncan","tag-gipson","tag-manning","tag-mcquay","tag-webb"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-fe","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}