A look at Saturday's Regionals, and Why Does Michigan Continue to Disappoint?

NCAA Division I Cross Country Regionals are this Saturday, and this is what the season comes down to.

The usual dominant teams, both from the West Region , Stanford and Oregon will dual each other for the West title, but both will easily qualify for nationals, since the top two teams move on to the national meet. The West region in fact should be the only the close race out of all nine regions.

Wisconsin, Northern Arizona, Oklahoma State, Iona, Alabama, Arkansas, and William & Mary should all easily walk away with a win in their respective regions, unless there are some blow-ups within their teams.

On to what has been the biggest disappointment of the post-season, Michigan. Like usual they had the freshman standouts, along with high-placing finishing at regular-season invitationals. Michigan continues to disappoint.

Going off the talent on Michigan's team, they could have sneaked in and won the Big Ten Championships. However, only one of their runners, Freshman Brendon Blacklaws managed to break the 26-minute barrier in the 8K. The race ended up slow (winning time was only 25 minutes flat), since it became more of a strategic-based race. This should have favored Michigan considering the talent consisting on the squad however, they blew-up, and finished a dreadful fifth place. Hard work really does beat talent. Looking at that race, it doesn't seem like they should fair well at the Great Lakes Region.

Perhaps they just need a little inspiration. Maybe they should watch this (unintentional) funny music video that was inspired by ultra-runner Dean Karnazes.