The people running multiple marathons in a single year are not competing at a high level. A world class marathoner realistically can run maybe three good marathons in a single year. Most run no more than 2, with several months between them.
20 year old kids don't get tired.*
- Thread starter mcmurtry66
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Oh my God vans. I forgot about the miserable vans. And yes the bus rides were hell. Up and down the East coast. We always had a handful of guys 6'4, 6'5 and they'd bring bedding and make beds in the aisle of the bus so they could stretch out. And same. We'd get one flight a season usually, otherwise it was on the bus. And yes re caffeine pills lol! Ours were white crosses I think they were called.
Outside in an unheated pool!!!! How is that even possible?!!!! That's insane!
How are these D1 baseball teams getting around? Their travel is crazy
Friend of mine used to be one of the best ultramarathoners in the world - especially in events spanning multiple days. I believe he won an event in France that was similar to the Tour de France cycling race. He ran something like 20-30 mile stages every day for about two weeks. He won the Badwater 135 (in Death Valley) twice. The guy has several screws loose. Unique guy, to say the least.
That is impressive but it has to take a big toll on the body. My buddy that went to ultra broke down and eventually switched more to biking than running.
That has to be absolute hell on your body. Mine hurts from all the years of playing indoor on the old shitty AstroTurf. That's pavement these runners are running on. Insane.
My go-to caffeine were minis. I somehow got some protein capsules, dumped out the protein, and filled the capsules with 5 mini caffeine pills. I think it came out to 250 mg of caffeine?
Pool was in McAllen, Texas, so normally they did not need to heat it. But we also seemed to have cold snaps when we were there. Water temp was around 68-70, if I recall. That's really cold for swimming. I remember during the New Years meet the starter had a little TV and was watching the Rose Bowl between starts.
One trip one van crashed into the back of another van about 4 hours from our end point. Local police made the driver go see a judge, presumably because we were from out of state. Apparently the judge told the police '"let me get this straight, He was driving a van owned by Purdue and ran into the back of another van owned by Purdue. Why did you bring him to see me? It seems to me Purdue can figure all of this out when they get back home." LOL What sucked is having to cram into three vans instead of 4 for the last four hours and most of our time spent in Texas while the other can was repaired.
What memories. Forgot the 8 hour bus ride back from East Lansing, in a blizzard. No one slept that trip.
There is a difference in conditioning between sports. Soccer is an endurance sport, with brief periods of sprinting. (Not that I know that much about soccer, but it seems obvious to me) I've watched some soccer, and the players do pace themselves - they're not balls-to-the-wall the entire match.
Basketball training is short bursts of speed, but emphasizing lateral movement and, maybe more importantly, jumping.
Like everyone else, I'm not blaming the loss on the number of games played, but I do think it made a big difference in our competitiveness. To claim there isn't when one team playes 5 games in 8 days and flies cross country compared to another team with 9 days rest, is not realistic.
Hahahaha the best. It's crazy how many stories are like that. One year we had a van breakdown so we crammed all the starters into one van and left the rest of the team on the shoulder of the highway. We got to Clemson. Warmed up five minutes and started the game. 30 seconds later one of our guys kicked the Clemson kid in the face and got red carded. We played 90 minutes with 10 guys.
Another same drill. Van broke down so we piled all the starters into one van and went to unc Greensboro. Got there an hour late. They gave us no warm up. My first touch I played it backwards over our last defenders head and gave them a break away so our captain had to maull him to stop the breakaway. Red card. Played that whole game with 10 guys.
And the stipends lol. $15 lunch $25 dinner. Horrible Shoney's breakfast before a noon kickoff.
Swimming must have been really difficult. Because aren't you competing against other teams but also kind of your own team? Like I assume the Olympics is always the ultimate goal right?
True, but look at the size of soccer players vs basketball. Someone like Race sprinting or jumping uses a whole lot more than someone 5'7 (fitting in with a Messi theme from another thread).
Yes, there a ton of midfielders in soccer who could literally jog off the field after a game and just continue on another 10 miles to their house.
There's a dude that plays for Man Utd named Fred. He's Brazilian so it's just Fred. He's not the most artistic or technically sound player but what he can do is run. All game. All the time. Without slowing down. End to End. He's also 5'6" and weighs 135lbs. And I suspect he's been able to do that since he was 7 years old.
I know I'm belaboring the point but I was looking at the Blues schedule. Tues, Thur, Sat, Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat, Mon. All over the country. And some of those guys are old.
$25 for dinner?!? You were living high on the hog!
I don't know if I would consider swimming more difficult than other sports because you're competing against your own team (or yourself) - it's just different. You would be competing against teammates to some extent, as no one is going to back off just to let a teammate win. Typically, NCAAs was the ultimate goal, though only a few had a realistic shot at making an NCAA qualifying time on our team back then. Olympic Trials was actually easier to qualify for (and still is) as compared to NCAAs. But that's because the Olympic Trials might have 20 heats of an event, while NCAA typically only has ~5. (In 2016, 3,000 swimmers competed at the US Olympic Trials!)
Also, a lot of the time you knew going in whether you could realistically beat the people you were racing against. Same with the other team.
For example, if we were swimming IU or Michigan in a dual meet, we generally knew they were going to beat us. Same thing in reverse when we swam a MAC school, or some other schools. The only time that wasn't necessarily true is if the other team was rested and shaved just to try to beat us in their own pool. It was crazy that teams would do that mid-season, but some did. (We never rested significantly mid-season just for one meet, though we might have a couple light days before a specific meet just to try to put up some decent times - often as a mental reward for all of the work we hade done.)
I'll never forget swimming at Illinois State one year. We had a brutal week of practice leading up to it, and drove to ISU that morning only to find a team that had rested and shaved down just for us. I was supposed to swim a race I did not normally swim in a dual meet, but coach came up and told me he had to move me back to my usual to make sure we did not somehow lose to ISU. I got up on the block for my event (200 fly) and they introduce the guy next to me as the national champion and Olympian from Ecuador in that event. I looked at the guy and then at my coach who just shrugged his shoulders and mouthed "kick his ass." I think I beat him by half a pool length.
Yeah $25 wasn't too bad. Had a fair amount left over from Olive Garden lol.
Great stories! That's crazy re the Ecuadorian. Do they have a lot of internationals in collegiate swimming?
Baseball is literally sitting and standing for 90% of the game for most players. One guy swings the bat on offense and on defense one guy pitches and one catches. Every 7 pitches or so, people move until 3 outs are achieved. Then they switch.
I like baseball, but the activity levels are way different. 90 minutes running around in cleats? Sounds like soccer.
2021 Men's Soccer Schedule - Indiana University Athletics
The official 2021 Men's Soccer schedule for the Indiana University Hoosiers
2021 Indiana Soccer schedule. There were 3 to 5 days between every game. In the BIG Tournament, there were 3 to 4 days between games. In the NCAA tournament there were 6 days to rest. Were things different back in the day? (I don't like Soccer, at all, so I really don't know.)
They were in the sky for 3 or 4 hours. They were held up on the tarmac and had to switch planes. They basically went from the game, which got done around midnight, to the airport, sat around, finally got a plane early in the morning, and then arrived out in Portland around 8 a.m. our time the next day. It isn't the jet lag that is the complaint (although that is part of it), it was the delayed flights that added another 3 to 4 hours to the night.
And that is what people are arguing. Yeah, you are young, but even young, things like that can impact your play. I am not trying to take away from St. Mary's, they ran a nice offense. They may have beaten us even at full strength, but when you look at common opponents (like Wisconsin) who they played very similar to us, I think that game would have been much closer and much more in doubt under different circumstances.
And I am also going to say that every coach we have this narrative that builds from almost Day 1 (not saying you are doing this but stick with me) where people get on a message board and just look for a reason to bitch and moan. Brad dumbass Stevens did not end up here so I am going to shit all over every little issue that happens in the program. "Excuses. We just suck." A bunch of the people talking like that still wax poetic about Scott May's broken arm and Alan Henderson's jacked up knee. We lost and at the end of the day that is what matters, the team may not do excuses either, but as a fan I am definitely taking 5 games in 8 days and that complete cluster**** of a traveling situation into play on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning when evaluating the game.
I fully believe that in a normal game situation that Indiana and St. Mary's were more of a toss up than any of the Woody sucks hot takes people want to admit.
And I am pissed we lost. Crappy way to go out on the year so I am being a bit of an asshole, but the constant bitching and moaning from some of the same people (not you) gets ****ing old. Particularly when those same people are nowhere to be found when beating Michigan or Illinois the week before.
Yep. If you'd told me at the beginning of the year that we'd beat Purdue and Michigan to end near 10 game skids, make it to the semis of the BTT and lose in the first round of the NCAAs I'd have said we're making real progress considering teh roster and situation (I mean Woodson wasn't even hired until end of March last year. He didn't get to recruit (and he's done well so far in that respect landing Banks and JHS) and while he got to dabble in the portal it was his first time.
Let's see what next year looks like. I'm optimistic for the first time in a while.
Gotcha. Honestly I wasn't even intending to comment on IU being out of gas as this being an excuse across the board in the sport. Again my take is that they are kids. I don't buy it. What I do buy is the "timing." That's shit. Getting sleep F'd with is an entirely different story. Having your sleep clock messed with again is something entirely different. Getting to your destination at 8 am. is awful.
As for coaches everyone should be thrilled with Woodson. Year 1 in the tourney.
IIRC, almost all of John Wooden's/UCLA's national championships occurred in NCAA Tournaments that had only 16 teams (all winners of their conferences) in the field.
Do you remember which head coach was the first to win the NCAA tourney when two teams from the same conference played each other in the championship game?
Yeah it's kind of nonsense. A lot of sports are that way. SLU holds the most national championships for soccer: 10. Some of them were back when the tournament only had 8 teams. Yes literally 8. That was it. Then in the 70s it only had 16. Hell when I was in school it was still only 28 teams.
I love all the old NCAA history and how it's all changed. The 81 NCAA soccer national championship UCONN beat Alabama A&M. Indiana was to go on and win the next two national championships but in that 81 tourney they lost in the quarters to Philadelphia Textile. Alabama A & M folded men's soccer and I'm not sure Philadelphia Textile is even a school today
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Basketball is not as expensive and complicated
as football. If you recruit 3-4 good players you can make a splash much bigger than the name recognition from your chemistry department.
Many midsized and small schools have found that they can afford to spend bucks on basketball coaches, staff, promotion, facilities, etc. and make it up with national recognition and revenue from TV, alumni donations and of course tons of money from the NCAA Tournament.
Think how many small schools are doing this:
Duke
Butler
Gonzaga
Villanova
St. Mary's
Many more of those 350+ are much more interested in getting into the NCAA Tournament than they used to be, even if they've always had a basketball program of some kind.
But, realistically, they all want in the tournament for publicity and money reasons.
And just think -- the Wizard of Westwood (hallelujah hallelujah) won all those championships by winning what amount to Sweet 16's, with some of the other teams from, like, the Ivy League and other powerhouse conferences.
Also, Wooden won many if not all of his championships by playing his tournament games in Pauley Pavilion (which was UCLA's home court) due to the NCAA's then-policy of regional seeding (i.e. UCLA always was assigned to the West Regional).
A 64-team tournament is infinitely more difficult.
81 IU ended teams playing games on their home court too. Totally different from when Wooden won in the 60s with Sam Gilbert paying the way as well.
Keith Hernandez and Dave Parker as well! better athletes but Kruk had the best mudflap in the game.
NCAA. seeds 16 teams for the mens ice hockey tournament. 3teams from Minnesota are in the top 10 right now.
Interesting. I can't imagine there are many D1 hockey teams. I always hear of the same ones
I actually knew someone who graduated from Bemedji State (which is in Minnesota if you're playing from home).
Doesnt Denver have a competitive team? I see scores flash by but schools you don't see for anything else. Kind of like Johns Hopkins in LaCrosse
Yeah seems like Denver is always good. Bunch of Michigan and Minnesota schools
