NCAA Releases Men's and Women's Fields For Division 1 Cross Country Championships at Oklahoma State

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

An NCAA selection committee revealed the 31 men's and women's cross country teams that will compete on Monday, March 15 at the Division 1 National Championships in Stillwater, Okla. 

There are an additional 38 men's and women's individual qualifiers that will comprise the field. 

Without regional meets this year, the committee had to parse scattered competition opporunities, plus conference championships that spanned a broken season that lasted from October to March. 

It will be a one-of-a-kind setup, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fall sport of cross country will hold its delayed championships two days after the conclusion of the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. 

The overlapping seasons caused programs to adapt on the fly and make uncomfortable decisions about how to select from the possible championship weekend options. 

There will be some athletes who compete in both events and there are some schools who have abandoned one option in favor of the other. 

Villanova, Oregon and Wisconsin all have 26 NCAA women's championship appearances and all three legendary programs did not qualify for Stillwater. 

Meanwhile, Liberty, winner of the Atlantic Sun Confererence championship on Friday with 19 points, made the field for the first time. 

On the men's side, Oregon (44 appearances), Providence (42) and Penn State (41) did not qualify teams. 

Gonzaga, which finished second to BYU at the WCC Championships and was the last team out of the 2019 field, is in for the first time in school history. 

Twenty-two of the 31 men's teams that qualified for the last NCAA meet, in November of 2019, are back again. For the women, it's 17 out of 31. 

Men's Qualifying Teams

Women's Qualifying Teams

Men's Individual Qualifiers 

Women's Individual Qualifiers