TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #11 Gonzaga Bulldogs

This is it.

This is the year.

Since 2019, the Gonzaga men have been a team on the rise, consistently improving with each passing season and building depth to support their superstar scorer, James Mwaura.

And after finding success in recent years, the fall of 2022 will likely be the pinnacle of the Bulldogs' full potential before Mwaura departs from the program.

But what does that pinnacle look like? What can a Gonzaga program that is firing on all cylinders with extensive experience actually do? We don't know the exact answers to those questions, but it's hard not to be optimistic about the men from Spokane, Washington this fall.

* * *

For the most part, Gonzaga's 2021 cross country season could be considered a success. The 'Zags toed the line for multiple national-caliber meets and often thrived when challenged.

Their first true test of the season, which came at the Dellinger Invite, led to the Bulldogs taking down a couple of top-notch teams such as Air Force and Portland, both of which are ranked in our top-15 this summer.

The scoring trio of Yacine Guermali, James Mwaura and Wil Smith put together a lethal string of finishes, going 3-4-5 in the overall results. That three-headed scoring monster gave the 'Zags the best top-three in the field, besting Oregon's scoring trio by two points.

From there, Gonzaga saw a bit of a drop-off. Second-year freshman Kyle Radosevich held his own with an 18th place finish, but no one else finished inside the top-30. As a result, the Bulldogs just didn't have enough backend support to keep pace with Oregon.

The Ducks would go on to win the meet by scoring 55 points, but Gonzaga wasn't far behind with 62 points. If just one runner had faltered for Oregon or one runner had been slightly better for Gonzaga, then we could have seen a different team at the top of the Dellinger results.

While Gonzaga didn't necessarily have the most complete lineup, they had to be happy about their early-season result. Their top-three was extremely impressive and there was reason to believe that their backend would improve as well.

Of course, things wouldn't get any easier at their next meet: the Nuttycombe Invite.

On the Wisconsin-hosted course, the Gonzaga men aimed to prove that their roster was more than capable of being amongst the best.

And for the most part, that turned out to be true.

In that race, star low-stick James Mwaura locked-down a huge 14th place finish. The established Gonzaga star brought with him excellent scoring that the Bulldogs were surely banking on. Of course, Mwaura's result was hardly surprising.

But Wil Smith's result?

Well, that's where the real shock was.

Smith stunned the country, posting a huge 11th place finish at Nuttycombe and emerging as Gonzaga's top scorer for the day. That unexpected burst of scoring potency gave the 'Zags an exciting edge as well as one of the best scoring duos of the meet.

Iowa State, Stanford, Wisconsin and Oregon were the only teams to have a better 1-2 punch in comparison to Gonzaga.

From there, the Bulldogs saw Cullen McEachern place 51st overall, a very solid result for someone who had struggled a bit at the Dellinger Invite. His scoring stability in the middle of this lineup was propped up by a 71st place finish from Radosevich.

Through four runners, Gonzaga looked like they were going to be a problem for their competition. They had an elite top-two as well as a supporting cast that was able to maximize the scoring value of their low-sticks.

Of course, as fate would have it, the final runner in Gonzaga's lineup would fade a little bit with their fifth scorer crossing the line in 128th place overall.

Was 128th a bad result? No, not necessarily, but a 55-point team scoring gap was far from ideal. And while a top-100 finish from that fifth runner wouldn't have made a dramatic difference, it would have still allowed Gonzaga to leap frog Oregon, a team that was two points ahead of the Bulldogs.

Still, you had to be impressed by Gonzaga. The Bulldogs finished 7th overall, two points behind an Oregon team that everyone was extremely high on.

The 'Zags had top front-runners and solid supporting scorers. Taking down the likes of Michigan, Furman and many others on the nation's biggest regular season stage was extremely impressive.

Fast forward to the West Coast Conference XC Championships where Gonzaga would battle a juggernaut BYU team as well as a respectable Portland squad.

In the end, BYU simply had too much scoring potency for Gonzaga to handle.

With four runners in the top-five, the Cougars dominated the field with relative ease, scoring just 24 points. And while the combination of Mwaura, McEachern and Wil Smith went 2-6-7, no other Gonzaga runner finished in the top-15 of the meet, causing the Bulldogs' team score to inflate to 50 points.

Gonzaga would still handle Portland with relative ease, but the backend inconsistency would need to improve as greater challenges awaited this team.

A 5th place finish at the West Regional XC Championships would allow Gonzaga to avoid the same Kolas conundrum that they experienced in 2019. As a result, they would advance to the national meet, ready to show off just how dangerous they could be.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

That's because the Gonzaga men were flat-out bad on the national stage.

Mwaura was the lone highlight for this team in Tallahassee thanks to his 36th place All-American finish. However, a top-25 or top-30 finish seemed more realistic for him.

And everyone else?

Well, the next-best scorer was 133rd overall (Radosevich) while the team's third scorer was 145th overall (McEachern). With the final two scorers in this lineup placing 179th and 233rd overall, the Bulldogs seemed overwhelmed by the mass field of talent that they were facing.

In the end, the Bulldogs would finish 26th place overall, a result that wasn't truly indicative of their actual talent. And while we could try to break down each runner and how they performed, that ultimately wouldn't drive any new insights.

All you have to know is that Gonzaga is a much better team than they showed last November.

A lot better.

* * *

Anyone can look at last year's NCAA XC Championship results and assume that those team finishes ran parallel to season-long expectations.

That, of course, would just be a lazy approach.

It is extremely evident that Gonzaga was a top-10 team in the country last fall. Maybe they weren't top-10, but they were pretty darn close to that point. And as we enter the fall of 2022, we have to ask ourselves...is a TSR #11 ranking fair for a team that returns every single scorer AND a once-injured low-stick?

We certainly think so.

Let's start with the top scorers on this team.

James Mwaura is a beast. That much is obvious. He is currently ranked at TSR #20 in our preseason individual rankings and we have every reason to believe that he'll be even better than his 36th place finish from last year's national meet.

As long as Mwaura replicates last year's success in 2022, we don't have much reason to worry about him. We know what we're getting out of this superstar.

The real uncertainty, however, lies with Wil Smith.

This guy was phenomenal during the 2021 regular season. Smith produced an extremely promising 5th place result at the Dellinger Invite and got even better at Nuttycombe, finishing 11th overall in what was a jaw-dropping result.

For perspective, of the seven returning men who beat him in that race, five of them are ranked in our preseason top-20, a sixth runner is ranked in our top-40 and a seventh runner is listed in our "Just Missed" section.

That's elite company to be in.

The problem, however, is that Smith faltered a bit in the postseason. A 7th place result at the West Coast Conference XC Championships was solid, but it didn't come anywhere close to matching his Nuttycombe result.

A 241st place finish on the national stage was obviously not good, either.

Smith sits at TSR #49 in our preseason individual rankings, but his Nuttycombe performance suggests that he's a top-30 runner in the country this fall. If Gonzaga's newest and unexpected low-stick star can emerge as a more consistent talent in 2022, then the Bulldogs can absolutely be a top-10 team.

That, of course, is a lot easier said than done.

But if you thought that Mwaura and Smith were the only two low-sticks on this team, then you would be mistaken.

Remember how we were analyzing the Dellinger Invite results, highlighted Yacine Guermali's 3rd place finish and then never mentioned him again?

Well, that's because he was injured last fall.

Guermali can undoubtedly be a top-three scorer for Gonzaga in 2022, one who is closer to Mwaura and Smith rather than the second-half of this lineup.

After all, a 3rd place finish at the Dellinger Invite and a 53rd place finish at the 2019 NCAA XC Championships would make him a front-runner for most teams ranked outside of our top-10.

On paper, we just listed three men who could realistically be fringe All-Americans for the Bulldogs later this fall -- and that's a scary thing to think about for any team that has to lineup next to this program in the coming months.

Of course, as we learned last fall, this squad will only be as good as their backend scorers are.

* * *

Guys like Cullen McEachern and Kyle Radosevich showed tons of promise as middle lineup scorers last fall. While they weren't always the most consistent, their value as scorers clearly trumped that.

McEachern finishing 51st and Radosevich finishing 71st at Nuttycombe was impressive stuff. Of course, seeing neither of those men finish inside the top-15 at the Dellinger Invite and then both struggling at the national meet wasn't great.

But if this backend duo can replicate their Nuttycombe results on a more consistent basis, then concerns about Gonzaga's depth and supporting cast won't be as apparent as they occasionally were last year.

We know McEachern and Radosevich can be high-impact names this fall, but actually delivering on that potential when it matters most, and mainly throughout the entire season, could alter the trajectory of this team (for the better) in 2022.

Behind those men, there is a large contingent of support pieces who could be very good later this fall if their developmental trajectory is favorable enough.

Evan Bates, for instance, wasn't great throughout most of last fall. His best finish was a 19th place result at the West Coast Conference XC Championships and he faltered quite a bit in large national-caliber meets.

The good news, however, is that Bates looked incredible on the track this past year. Running an outstanding personal best of 13:45 for 5000 meters suggests that this up-and-coming Gonzaga runner could very easily be a scorer as we enter the fall months.

If Bates delivers (and improves upon) his 5k success from this past spring come October and November, then Gonzaga should be a no-brainer top-10 team in the country. There will simply be too much firepower that other teams won't be able to counter.

It's a somewhat similar story for Riley Moore, another promising distance talent.

Moore was backend contributor last fall who, admittedly, didn't have much of an impact on Gonzaga's lineup in 2021 from a scoring perspective. But in 2022, that could be changing.

Earlier this year, the once-young Bulldog talent ran solid times of 3:49 (1500), 8:18 (3k), 14:13 (5k) and 29:36 (10k). And while none of those marks truly jump off the page, they do show that Moore is continuing to stack his fitness, something that will hopefully translate to this fall.

And like we've said with a lot of runners, Moore doesn't necessarily have to be a low-stick star for Gonzaga in 2022.

In fact, he doesn't even need to be a scorer.

But he does need to be there in case someone has a bad day. And as we saw last fall, that can happen from time to time.

The same thing can be said for teammate Dominic Arce. He finished 20th at the West Coast Conference XC Championships last fall, but he truly flexed his potential by running 14:00 (5k) on the track.

Like Moore, he doesn't need to be a star. He just needs to be the scoring insurance who keeps lineup gaps at a minimum should it come down to that.

There are two more names to keep an eye on if you're a Gonzaga fan.

The first name is Cooper Laird, a Class of 2020 high school graduate who will be a third-year sophomore later this fall.

For the most part, Laird has been a non-factor on the grass. He has only raced a handful of times during the cross country season and his impact as a potential varsity contributor was minimal at best.

But then, seemingly out of nowhere, Laird ran the steeplechase this past spring and posted a highly promising personal best of 8:50 over the water pits and barriers.

That is a VERY encouraging mark, one could seemingly translate to the grass in 2022. Of course, there's no guarantee that the transition between seasons will be smooth, or even result in a scoring position for Laird.

Still, that possibility does improve Gonzaga's stock just a tad.

The final name who you need to keep an eye on this fall might end up being the most important name on this roster by season end.

I am, of course, talking about incoming freshman Michael Maiorano.

The former high school star was absolutely incredible at the prep-level, posting times and finishes that would have allowed him to be competitive with a few of Gonzaga's current men from last year.

On the track, Maiorano boasts personal bests of 4:06 (mile), 8:13 (3k), 8:46 (3200), 14:37 (5k road) and 14:57 (5k XC). Trying to properly express how strong those times are for a high schooler isn't easy. The potential firepower that Maiorano brings to the table is similar to that of James Mwaura when he joined the Bulldogs in 2018.

And if you're curious how those marks translate to the grass, just know that Maiorano finished 12th at the Eastbay XC National Championships last fall.

* * *

To put it simply, this Gonzaga team is stacked. They return nearly everyone from a top-ranked team, bring back a potential low-stick from injury, reintroduce a supporting cast that has made promising improvements and add a megastar high school recruit.

In 2022, this Gonzaga team could be good. Scary good.

But we can't act like this team has zero imperfections. They are, in our opinion, far from a finished product.

We don't know how Guermali will rebound after being injured last year. We also don't know which version of Wil Smith we'll see after he had so many up-and-down results last fall. The team's depth has improved since last year, but will they be any more consistent? There's also a very realistic chance that Maiorano is redshirted.

And when you look at the Bulldog's most recent postseason efforts, they haven't been great. Truthfully, it feels like we've had to make excuses for them over the last few years.

In 2019, they were the victims of a brutal Kolas qualifying scenario and didn't advance to the national meet. In the winter of 2021, they proved that they belonged on the national stage, but then finished 26th overall. In the fall, the Bulldogs had clearly improved, but still ended up faltering to 27th place in Tallahassee.

For all of those reasons, we opted to hold Gonzaga outside of our top-10...for now.

But this is the season that Gonzaga has been waiting for. This is the season that they've been building up to. This is the season where they've strategically balanced their men to all be in their athletic primes (or near their primes).

If there is a season where the Bulldogs are going to deliver, it's going to be this fall.

So buckle up, friends. Few teams in the NCAA have more to prove than the Gonzaga men do.