How does this voting process work? Who picks when? I tried to read into it but got lost quickly.
Luckily, it appears DII is not seeding any of its races.
The process works like so:
1. From Sunday through the end of the day on Wednesday, coaches submit their team bio (i.e. info on how the team placed at the meets it attended, who they beat, who was missing from the lineup, etc).
2. From Thursday through Saturday at Noon (why not give them until sometime Sat. evening seeing as how coaches are usually at meets on Sat. morning/afternoon?), coaches submit their votes to seed all the teams in their district.
3. The votes will be tabulated, and the seedings will be posted on Saturday afternoon. Any team that doesn't vote will not only be fined but will also lose the highest vote it received. It does not appear that they are doing like they do in basketball where every team's highest and lowest vote received are dropped. In the event of a tie, the teams that are tied will be separated based on whichever team received more votes at or above the tied position. For example, let's say Team A and Team B's point totals tie them for the 7th seed. Team A got 10 votes that placed them 7th or higher. Team B got 9 votes that placed them 7th or higher. Team A would prevail. If the teams are still tied after the 1st tiebreaker is applied, the tie will be broken by a computerized dice roll.
4. A virtual seeding meeting will take place on Sunday afternoon.
- Teams will go in order of seed to select their race.
- All schools with full teams will select a race first.
- When a team's seed is called, they have 3 minutes to decide.
- The top 2 seeds per race have the option to "pass," so if there are 2 races, the top 4 seeds will have the option to "pass" when their seed is called. The language on how many teams would get to pass is somewhat confusing. For basketball, I get it, but for cross country, if there is only 1 race, then there's nothing to pass because all teams will be in that 1 race regardless of who is allowed to pass. If a team passes, it is the next team's turn. If that next team chooses a race, the choice comes back to the team that passed. For example, let's say the top 3 seeds already picked a race. #4 seed decides to pass. It's now #5's turn, and they pick a race. The next choice goes to #4 who can either select a race or pass the choice to #6.
- If a team arrives after their seed is called, it will be treated as a "pass."
- If a team "no-shows" for the meeting, they will be assigned last. If multiple teams "no-show," they will be assigned last in the order of the their seed.
- If a team misses any of the voting deadlines but attends the seed meeting, they will be seeded accordingly.
I was previously told that a team's seed would automatically lock them into 1 race or the other, but that is clearly not the case according to the info that was sent out regarding the seeding instructions.
I hope any of this helps.