TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #10 Wisconsin Badgers

Written by Gavin Struve, additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin

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Under Mick Byrne, and Jerry Schumacher before him, the Wisconsin men have been a staple among the NCAA distance running elite. Dating back to the latter decades of the 20th century, that was the case as well.

In fact, the Badgers have a combined five national titles spanning four decades.

And while this year’s version of Wisconsin is not a likely title contender, this team should continue its stranglehold atop the always-strong BIG 10, and that shouldn’t change with looming conference realignment.

* * *

Last year’s iteration of the Badgers opened up their season with a tuneup at the Badger Classic before heading to some larger meets.

Their first legitimate test would take place at the Louisville XC Classic which, in retrospect, wasn't much of a challenge when it was all said and done.

Senior Olin Hacker and second-year freshman Bob Liking finished 2nd and 3rd overall while promising support pieces such as Evan Bishop and Seth Hirsch were 5th and 6th, respectively. Jackson Sharp and Charlie Wheeler closed out the scoring by finishing 10th and 11th.

As a result, the Wisconsin men won the meet handily over Division Two stalwart Grand Valley State. Their mass pack-running and overwhelming scoring gave the Badgers 26 points, a total of 49 points ahead of the Division Two powerhouse.

Next came their home meet, the Nuttycombe Invitational, where the Badgers performed admirably on the nation's biggest regular season stage.

In that race, Liking stunned the country, throwing down a huge 5th place finish in the stacked national field. That result gave the Badgers a massive (and pleasantly surprising) scoring edge that even they might not have expected.

Liking was then followed by Hacker in 13th place and Sharp in 16th place, giving the Badgers one of the best scoring trios in the field.

However, from there, Wisconsin saw a fairly noticeable drop-off with Rowen Ellenberg in 65th place and Hirsch in 89th place. Still, neither of those backend finishes were catastrophic.

When all was said and done, Wisconsin finished 4th overall. It was a very strong result and one seemed that in line with their status in recent years. They were right below podium contenders such as Iowa State, Stanford and Tulsa and they were above solid national contending teams like Air Force, Oregon, Gonzaga and Michigan, among others.

Still, if Wisconsin wanted to put themselves in podium contention, their supporting cast would need to close gaps and offer greater scoring value. Luckily, a deep conference meet would give them a chance to do just that.

Fast forward to the BIG 10 XC Championships and the Badgers were incredible.

Their lineup structure was perfectly suited for a medium-sized field, and with several men having their best races of the season, Wisconsin handily won their fourth-straight BIG 10 title.

Bob Liking took home the individual title, although the result was hardly an anomaly considering his top-end performances in his debut races. Hacker finished runner-up as expected and after a very small gap, the Badgers took spots 7-8-9-10 with Bishop, Shuaib Aljabaly, Sharp and Ellenberg.

Hirsch, the team's seventh runner, finished 13th for good measure.

The Badgers totaled just 27 points, miles ahead of runner-up Michigan’s 79 points. It was a masterclass showing pf depth and firepower that forced many to question if Wisconsin was, in fact, a sleeper pick for a top-four spot on the national stage.

A strong runner-up finish at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships solidified their spot at the NCAA XC Championships where Wisconsin surely had a shot at a top-10 finish and maybe something even more special.

That, however, didn't quite happen.

Hacker delivered a clutch 30th place All-American finish, but Liking faltered a bit to 66th. While that was still a solid result, Liking may have left anywhere from 30 to 40 points on the table, a projected number of points that could have helped the Badgers leap frog Wake Forest.

Hirsch ran a fairly solid race to finish 84th, but there continued to be considerable gaps between each scorer. That’s because Ellenberg finished 115th and Aljabaly was 126th.

Wisconsin likely didn’t expect all of their men to have near All-American performances, but it surely would have been reasonable to think that all five scorers could finish in the top-100.

Still, the whole felt better than the sum of its parts as an 11th place team finish didn’t sound too bad — especially in a “down” race. Not only that, but that finish was an improvement on their national meet performances from recent years.

* * *

This year's version of the Wisconsin men appears to have the perfect blend of experience and upside, oftentimes with the same runner. They have a solid performance baseline and perhaps a good amount of room to grow beyond this ranking.

That’s especially true if Bob Liking can continue to progress and save his best performance for the NCAA XC Championships come November. Our TSR #14 ranked runner should be the heavy favorite to repeat as BIG 10 champion and he seems like a perfect name to be the young face of a top-10 team.

After recently running 13:37 (5k) and 28:47 (10k) this past spring, Liking might be one of the best non-All-Americans from last year. If he simply replicates his BIG 10 or Nuttycombe performances on the national stage, then he'll still offer a strong scoring improvement for the Badgers at this year's NCAA XC Championships.

However, the Wisconsin men still lose an All-American from last fall.

The loss of All-American star Olin Hacker hurts, but the public perception of his scoring impact is probably amplified by his greater track success and somewhat surprising 5000 meter national title at the NCAA Outdoor Championships this past spring.

Don't get us wrong, Hacker was excellent and clearly provided tremendous scoring value for the Wisconsin men through September, October and November. However, when you look at the rest of this roster, there are still men who can adopt a "next man up" mentality and replicate Hacker's firepower via a collective team effort.

And with Liking having already proven that he's a more than capable front-runner, there’s actually already a strong candidate to be Hacker's replacement, a replacement who could at least fill part of the void left by newest Hoka NAZ Elite signee.

That man is Jackson Sharp who appeared in the “Just Missed” section of our individual rankings, just outside our top-50.

Sharp was a strong middle lineup scorer throughout last fall before falling back a bit with a 165th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships. However, this Aussie star was actually better during his winter 2021 campaign when he was 120th at the national meet, but more importantly 4th at the BIG 10 Winter XC Championships.

If Sharp can replicate a result closer to that earlier conference meet finish, then he should step in as a strong complement to the leading man in Liking.

But in all fairness, we probably wouldn’t be as confident about his prospects of stepping up if he hadn’t had a dynamite 2022 track campaign. Sharp didn’t snag any individual All-American honors, but he was part of the Badgers’ bronze medal finish in the DMR. He also ran marks of 13:33 in the 5000 meters (unattached this past summer) and a blazing 7:48 for 3000 meters to complement his mile success from 2021.

If Sharp can be a strong second runner and a legitimate All-American candidate, then there are a slew of lineup nominees who can hold down the middle portion of this lineup and the back-half scoring spots for Wisconsin.

* * *

Olin Hacker is obviously the most challenging loss that this team will experience in 2022, at least from a scoring perspective. However, with veteran Seth Hirsch now venturing to Colorado as a graduate transfer, he leaves another significant gap in Wisconsin's lineup that needs to be filled.

So who takes over Hirsch's scoring role?

That's an important question that requires a good answer, especially since Hirsch was the team's fifth scorer at Nuttycombe and the team's third scorer at the national meet last fall.

Luckily for Wisconsin, they have quite a few options.

Like Sharp, teammate Rowen Ellenberg was also slightly better in the winter of 2021 when he finished a stunning 3rd at the BIG 10 Winter XC Championships and then 78th at the winter cross country national meet.

Ellenberg was solid last fall, but one may argue that his 10th place run at the BIG 10 XC Championships and his 115th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships were his best marks of the year after a very unassuming regular season.

Since then, he's run fairly strong track times, posting marks of 3:44 (1500), 7:58 (3k) and 13:46 (5k), getting better as the distance longer.

If Ellenberg's track season is an indication that he can replicate his winter cross country prowess, then the Wisconsin men may have been underrated at TSR #10.

Evan Bishop is another name with similar credentials as he has run 13:45 (5k) and 29:11 (10k). The still-young(ish) midwest standout proved to have tremendous value last fall, placing 7th at the BIG 10 XC Championships and then 138th at the national meet last year in his first varsity season.

For the most part, Bishop showed tons of promise over the last year. He made improvements, showed us that he can provide impactful scoring and validated his success on the grass with strong times on the oval.

Now, it's just a matter of whether or not Bishop can reach that next level of fitness and inch closer to Jackson Sharp's tier of national competitiveness.

And if you had any doubts about the depth of the Badgers’ scoring lineup in 2022, then allow us to also introduce you to Shuaib Aljabaly who has raced at three NCAA XC Championships throughout his career, finishing between 100th and 150th every single time. He has also run 13:49 and 29:11 on the outdoor oval.

Those three men could make up the Badgers’ scoring five behind Liking and Sharp. However, there are also some strong options behind them who could fill out this varsity lineup.

In terms of track times, Charlie Wheeler stands out.

The Englishman provides yet another runner with a 5k personal best in the 13:40s with a 13:43 personal best. He has also dipped under 29 minutes over 10,000 meters with a 28:57 PR.

Wheeler was less strong on the grass last season as he fell out of the top-35 spots at the BIG 10 XC Championships. However, he was 6th at that same meet in winter of 2021 before a less-than-ideal 191st place finish at the NCAA Winter XC Championships two months later.

Other stable lineup options include some less experienced runners like Jack Meijer who has run 3:43 (1500) and 14:25 (5k), Oliver Paleen who has run 14:23 (5k) and Jake Bourget who has run 14:13 (5k).

Derick Peters is another depth piece given that he's a veteran who has varsity experience.

But if Coach Byrne wants to look more outside of the box, then Adam Spencer and Joshua Truchon may provide more upside.

Spencer solidified himself as one of the top milers in the nation in 2022, but his best mark beyond that is 8:20 for 3000 meters.

Meanwhile, Truchon was a national-caliber recruit from the Class of 2021 who stayed in-state and redshirted for the Badgers last year. At the prep level, he won a state cross country title and ran a mind-blowing time of 8:44 over 3200 meters (which translates to 8:08 for 3000 meters via MileSplit’s conversion calculator).

Those are results that should almost certainly correlate to NCAA success whenever Truchon does find himself as a member of UW’s varsity lineup.

* * *

Wisconsin may not have the absolute highest ceiling in the nation, but they certainly have more upside than most team. In our eyes, the general youth of this squad could lead to an improvement from last year’s strong 11th place national meet run.

Losing a low-stick in Hacker and a key support piece in Hirsch is admittedly a tough blow given the occasional scoring drop-offs that we saw in Wisconsin's lineup last fall.

Still, there’s a clear path to even stronger results if more men run up to their full potential at the NCAA XC Championships and if Liking and Sharp step comfortably into the top two scoring roles that they seem destined for.

Neither, however, is guaranteed to happen.

This is the point in the rankings where teams are more well fleshed-out, and Wisconsin certainly fits that billing as a team with a number of proven-ish front-runners.

The 2022 Wisconsin men boast a rotating cast of contributors similar to the Wisconsin women, our TSR #14 team. The difference, however, is that the Badger men are already an established power. In fact, one may argue that the men's team has slightly more front-end firepower, but slightly less proven cross country runners.

A fifth-straight BIG 10 title seems like a near-guarantee, and this group could be in line for something similar to the 8th place national meet finish that they enjoyed in both 2016 and 2018.