Bryne and UW up for rematch with Indiana
October 26, 2010 | Men's Cross Country
Oct. 26, 2010
MADISON, Wis. -- With the 2010 Big Ten Championships descending on Madison for the first time since 2000, the pressure on the Wisconsin men's cross country team to defend its 11 consecutive conference titles is great. Head coach Mick Byrne acknowledged as much Monday at the Wisconsin Athletics' weekly news conference.
Throw in the fact that the Badgers are looking forward to a rematch with Indiana -- the Hoosiers narrowly topped Wisconsin at the Oct. 2 Wisconsin adidas Invitational -- and there were plenty of storylines heading into Sunday's championships.
Mick Byrne: “I’m not sure if Brian’s trying to put me under pressure here by saying that we’ve won 11 Big Ten consecutive titles. But we’ll run with that anyway and assume he is. Obviously, it’s Big Ten championship week. We’re very excited about hosting the meet. Our athletes are very excited about having the opportunity to run the Big Ten championships here at home. And that’s once-in-a-lifetime, obviously, for many of our athletes.
We’re looking forward to the challenge. Indiana, obviously, is a good team. They beat us here at home at the adidas meet. And we’re looking forward to getting out there and going head to head against those guys again.”
QUESTION #1: What circumstances will lead to you putting Mohammed Ahmed in your lineup or keep him out of your lineup?
BYRNE: “He’s definitely in the lineup. Not running him a week ago in Oregon was in the plan all along. He opened up at the adidas meet. He wasn’t quite ready. Had a slow start to the season because of his late return to training after going very late into the summer with the World Junior Championships where he finished fourth.
So that was the plan all along, for him to run at home. He wanted to run at home. He wanted to run on our cross country course. He wanted to get that experience. He wanted to run in Madison, and in front of our local fans. So that was always a part of the plan, to hold him out last week in Oregon. And obviously, it made a big difference to the result in Oregon, but ultimately, you know, it’s all about this weekend and beyond. So he is definitely running this weekend.”
QUESTION #2: Is there pressure on you and your squad to win this thing?
BYRNE: “I mean, I think it being home, yes. I think the guys know that. They relish that. They’re looking forward to it. I mean, you think about it, 11 years winning this conference title. Obviously, some awesome teams, some great traditions here. Yeah, there’s pressure on the kids. There’s none on me, of course.
But on the kids, they, but they come to Wisconsin for that. You know, they want to be part of the tradition, the history, and they’re excited about that. They’re fired up about this weekend. All their parents, grandparents, girlfriends, they’re coming to town, and the kids, it’s going to be a big deal out there for them to run at home in the Big Ten Championship.
So yeah, there will be a certain amount of pressure, but we’ve talked all season about that. And for us, it’s about spreading the energy and using that pressure to your advantage, and spreading your energy, and mental energy, not just the physical part of it, throughout the whole season. Because ultimately, after Sunday, next Monday, we still have two major competitions to look forward to, the regional meet and the national meet.
So it’s important, and they are a pretty young team still, but it’s important to teach them how to spread that mental energy out over the whole season. So we’ve talked an awful lot about that.”
QUESTION #3: Mick, people look at this as a home meet for you. How does that translate to being an advantage? I know it’s your home course, and that type of thing. Is there more to it than that, that it’s just you’re familiar with the layout? Is there something bigger in that equation?
BYRNE: “No, I don’t think so. I think that’s a big part of it. I think that, for our guys, it’s, again, you don’t get this opportunity to run in a Big Ten championship at home. And, I mean obviously, having the home course advantage, I mean, we train out there. And at this time of year, right now, the last couple of weeks, we’re out there probably two times a week running hard on that course. And that certainly helps.
If you go back to the adidas meet, we ran into trouble over the last 1K. That’s where Indiana got a jump on us. And, a different race. You go back three weeks now, it will be four weeks by the time Sunday’s race comes along. But we weren’t quite prepared for that. We’re prepared this time.
And we’ve been on that course, run hard on the course over the last couple of weeks. And that certainly, you would hope that that’s going to be a big advantage. And obviously, the other aspect is being at home, and the fans. We think we’re going to have a good crowd out there this weekend.”
QUESTION #4: What happened in that last 1K? What did Indiana do that you weren’t prepared for that you’re now prepared for?
BYRNE: “I think it was just in terms of fitness. We were just ending Phase One, our real base training. And when you look at it and go all the way back to the first of July, so it’s all of July, it’s all of August, and it’s all of September. We went into the meet with pretty heavy legs, a lot of miles under our belt, and we just weren’t sharp. And the last 1 kilometer showed that.
Since then, training has gone real well. We’ve cut back on the miles and just started more quality work. And it takes about three or four weeks for that to show. And we had a great workout out there last Thursday. So we think that we’re ready to go.
QUESTION #5: Coach, year in and year out, Wisconsin is always the hunted team in this meet, because of how many titles they’ve won. This year, are the guys able to have a chip on their shoulder because Indiana beat you in the adidas meet?
BYRNE: “I would say so. I think that, again, it was a bit of a surprise. We knew that Indiana was coming into town for the adidas meet. And we knew that they were in good shape. And they ran really well and we weren’t quite up to the challenge then. But I think for our guys knew that they just were a little bit off. I mean, Mohammed has three weeks of training under his belt. We pulled Maverick Darling off the line two minutes before the gun went off. So we were shortchanged going into that meet.
I don’t want to say that you’re going to discard any other team from it, but it certainly looks like it’s going to be a battle between Indiana and Wisconsin. And we’re up for that challenge.”
