A crowded group of challengers for the title and a big individual favorite highlight the men’s race at Sunday’s Big Ten Championships in Columbus, Ohio. 

The men’s team race looks to come down to four teams--Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. All are familiar to one another. At the last two weekends of big invitational racing, all four have competed against each other and the races have been close. 

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Purdue (ranked 14th in the FloXC rankings) finished sixth at the Nuttycombe Invitational, one spot ahead of Indiana and two spots better than Wisconsin. The Boilermakers are led by a strong trio of Jaret Carpenter, Brody Smith, Curt Eckstein who finished 22nd, 26th, and 29th at Nuttycombe. Their question lies in runners four and five. A large gap after the top trio formed in Madison (their fourth runner was 86th and the fifth was 92nd), but they were close enough for Purdue to win the race among the Big Ten teams.

If Purdue has the best top three of the conference, then Indiana (#15) has the best 1-2 in Kyle Mau and Ben Veatch. Mau was 10th at Nuttycombe and fourth at the Joe Piane Invitational at the end of September. He’s an experienced Big 10 Championships runner--with an indoor title from 2018 and a seventh place finish at last year’s conference cross country championships. 

Veatch redshirted last year, but has finished eighth and fourth in previous appearances at this meet. On the track, he won the conference title in the indoor 3000m and the outdoor 5000m. This fall, he was 17th at Nuttycombe and 11th at Joe Piane. For Indiana, the question is what comes after those two. There were 51 points between Veatch and their third runner (Arjun Jha).  

Individual favorite Oliver Hoare leads the 19th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers’ attempts at a repeat title. Last year, they dominated the competition with three men in the top four and cruised to a 50-point victory. Hoare was second in that race, finishing just behind the since-graduated Morgan McDonald. Two other members of the scoring five are back for this season, but this will no doubt be a tough race for the Badgers. 

Hoare has five Big Ten titles to his name, including one from 2017 in cross country. He’s also coming off one of his best cross country races of his career--a second-place finish at the Nuttycombe Invitational where only NCAA favorite Edwin Kurgat was able to beat him. Morgan Beadlescomb (Michigan State) was seventh at Nuttycombe and is perhaps Hoare’s best competition. Like Mau, Beadlescomb is experienced and consistent. 

Mau and Nebraska’s George Kusche (third last year) should also feature in the top pack. Kusche, only a sophomore, has adapted well to NCAA cross country. Last year, he was 55th at the NCAA Championships, and two weeks ago he took fifth at Pre Nationals in Terre Haute.  

Michigan finished behind Purdue, Indiana and Wisconsin at Nuttycombe, but did place ahead of Wisconsin at Joe Piane. They don’t have a single superstar; rather, the strength is in their pack. At Joe Piane, their top five finished within 28 seconds of each other. In Wisconsin, their spread was 25 seconds. Junior Devin Meyrer led the Wolverines on both occasions.