NCAA Indoor Champs — Men’s Track

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, March 10-11 — It was an Arkansas kind of weekend at the NCAA Indoor Championships as the Razorbacks claimed both team titles. The men did it in a runaway while the women had to wait until the climactic 4×4 to wrap things up.

With 1512m of altitude providing help, it was a meet to remember on the speed side of things, with record-setting sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps and multis.

Our coverage of the NCAA Indoor is divided into 4 parts: men’s track & field and women’s track & field.

The men’s track events:

Teams — Arkansas Completes Team Double

Following on a win by the Razorback women earlier in the evening, favored Arkansas captured its 21st title and its second under coach Chris Bucknam, who also guided the team winner in ’13.

“We know in the back of our mind that we’re the No. 1 team in the country,” Bucknam said before the meet, noting no win is a given. “It comes down to star power and how your star power performs at this particular meet,” he said. “Everything is on a more heightened alert.“

Heightened enough for Arkansas to triumph with 63 points over Georgia (40, powered by wins in the 200, 400 and heptathlon), Florida (34) and Washington (31) with Texas Tech (29) rounding out the top 5.

While Arkansas won the 4×4 over Georgia, the team outcome was already settled, yet the 44.14 anchor by Chris Bailey, the second-fastest-ever indoor split, was emblematic of what Bucknam meant by “star power.”

The Razorbacks carried 20 points out of Day 1. Long jumper Carey McLeod scored a win with defending champ Wayne Pinnock 4th and distance runners in the 5000 and DMR chipped in 5.

On Day 2 the heptathlon had wrapped first netting 11 Razorback points from runnerup Ayden Owens-Delerme — surpassing the previous CR — and Yariel Soto Torrado.

But when frosh triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert leapt a Collegiate Record to ice the comp in round 1, Arkansas’ roll to the title looked increasingly assured. Hibbert, McLeod (6th in the TJ) and Pinnock are all Jamaicans and alumni of the same high school.

Putter Jordan West (5th), Bailey in the 400 (5th) and Lance Lang in the 200 (8th) contributed 9 points to complete the Arkansas tally. /Sieg Lindstrom/

TEAM SCORES

1. Arkansas 63;

2. Georgia 40;

3. Florida 34;

4. Washington 31;

5. Texas Tech 29;

6. tie, Oklahoma State & Texas 25;

8. Nebraska 24¾;

9. tie,…