National Coaches’ Poll Shows Favor for Wisconsin, Florida State Entering NCAA Championships

NEW ORLEANS – The NCAA Regional Championships in Division I did not shift around the nation’s top three, but everything else was up-for-grabs in the USTFCCCA’s final regular-season National Cross Country Coaches’ Poll released Tuesday. Wisconsin’s men remain the No. 1 team in the country for the second-straight voting week and will look to knock off two-time defending champion No. 2 Oklahoma State next Monday at the NCAA Championships. Florida State’s women are also No. 1 and are looking to unseat two-time defending national champion No. 2 Villanova in a few days.

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AROUND THE POLLS

MEN

* No. 1 Wisconsin won their tenth-straight NCAA Great Lakes Regional title on Saturday. The Badgers will make their 40th-straight appearance at the NCAA Championships and remain the only team in history to qualify for every national championship since the process began in 1972. (Previously, teams did not have to qualify and just showed up).

* No. 2 Oklahoma State has won the last two NCAA titles and took the Midwest title this weekend by a slim margin, 42-45 over No. 4 Oklahoma.

* No. 3 BYU was again led by Miles Batty who helped the Cougars to the NCAA Mountain title.

* Reaching season-high rankings in this poll are: No. 9 Texas, No. 12 Syracuse, No. 15 Georgetown, No. 17 Michigan, No. 21 Tulsa, No. 22 Texas A&M, and No. 24 Cal Poly. Texas is ranked in the nation’s top ten for the first time since 2007 after winning the South Central region title this past weekend. For Cal Poly, it is their first national ranking of the season.

* Arkansas is not ranked in the nation’s top 30 for the first time since at least 1998 (our records currently only go back to 1998). In the previous 99 weeks, since the 1998 preseason poll, Arkansas, Colorado, Stanford, and Wisconsin, were the only teams to have appeared in every ranking. Arkansas had also appeared in 37-straight NCAA Championships — everyone since 1974 — but did not qualify this season. Only Wisconsin’s current streak is longer (40).

* The Big East and Big Ten leads with five teams in the national top 30, followed by the Big 12 (4) and Pac-12 (3).

WOMEN

* No. 1 Florida State won the South Regional, 34-54, over nearest challenger now-No. 5 Vanderbilt. The Seminoles were second to two-time defending champion Villanova at last year’s NCAA Championships.

* No. 2 Villanova tied Georgetown, 57-57, for the Mid-Atlantic region title.

* No. 3 Washington were winners of the West, taking down nearest challenger Arizona, 50-98.

* Achieving season-best rankings this week are: No. 7 Iowa State, No. 9 West Virginia, No. 10 Michigan, No. 24 Toledo, No. 25 Wisconsin, and No. 26 San Francisco. For Iowa State, it is the squad’s highest ranking since October 2009. Toledo’s ranking is the best in archived-poll history (since 1995).

* The Big East and Pac-12 each have six squads in the nation’s top 30. The Big Ten (5), ACC (4), Big 12 (3), and SEC (3) follows.

Indiana State will host the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Monday, November 21, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The men’s race will begin at approximately 12:08 p.m. ET, followed by the women’s race at approximately 12:58 p.m. A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET on NCAA.com. In addition, highlights from the championships will be included as part of the CBS NCAA Fall Seasonal Show scheduled to air on Saturday, December 18, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. ET on CBS HD.