2017 ACC MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS
- When: Monday, Feb. 27 – Thursday, Mar. 2; Prelims 10AM/Finals 6PM (Eastern Time)
- Where: McAuley Aquatic Center -Atlanta, GA
- Defending Champion: NC State (Full results)
- Psych Sheet
- Live results
- Streaming: watchESPN
- Championship Central
Last year NC State followed up its first ACC title in over twenty years with a repeat, and they look very well primed to make it three in a row. They followed up their momentum from ACC’s with a win in the 400 free relay at NCAA’s (the school’s first NCAA relay title of all-time), along with a 4th place overall finish. While they lost sprint star Simonas Bilis to graduation, junior Ryan Held is arguably the best NCAA sprinter not named Caeleb Dressel, and should be poised for a big championships season after helping the USA to a gold medal on the 4×100 free relay at this past summer’s Olympic Games.
Louisville should be runner-up once again, and could take a few relays from the Wolfpack. Don’t forget that they beat NC State in the 400 medley relay at ACCs last season. The Virginia men seem to be building some momentum after a few rough years, while UNC seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Florida State is having a resurgence after hiring Neal Studd to take over a program that had floundered in recent years.
Notre Dame and Georgia Tech had some great moments at last year’s meet, and both have some swimmers seeded high, but it’ll be tough for either school to challenge for a top five spot. Duke and Pittsburgh should both stay ahead of Boston College, but aren’t likely to do much more than that.
Boston College doesn’t return a single individual point scorer from last year’s championships, and long-time head coach Tom Groeden resigned in the middle of the season. Keep an eye on the Eagles, led by interim Head Coach Mike Stephens, to see if they’ll be able to bounce back and show some spark this week.
SCHEDULE
Wednesday
- 200 Medley Relay
- 800 Freestyle Relay
Thursday
- 500 Freestyle
- 200 IM
- 50 Freestyle
- 200 Freestyle Relay
Friday
- 400 IM
- 100 Butterfly
- 200 Freestyle
- 100 Breaststroke
- 100 Backstroke
- 400 Medley Relay
Saturday
- 1650 Freestyle
- 200 Backstroke
- 100 Freestyle
- 200 Breaststroke
- 200 Butterfly
- 400 Freestyle
STARS –
Boston College – Taylor Cortens (sophomore IMer/breaststroker) — Cortens is the only Eagle swimmer currently projected to score any individual points, as he sits at 18th in the 200 IM.
Duke – Peter Kropp (senior breaststroker), Maximilian St George (sophomore IMer/backstroker) — The Blue Devils again have a strong breaststroke group, led by Kropp, but don’t really have the sprinters or freestyle depth they need to be competitive.
Florida State – Jason Coombs (senior breaststroker), Jason McCormick (senior sprinter), Connor Kalisz (junior backstroker) – Believe it or not, FSU comes into this week with a faster 200 free relay than NC State, and McCormick is a big weapon on the sprint relays. Coombs and Kalisz, meanwhile, will pull in some serious points in the breast and back events, respectively.
Georgia Tech – Rodrigo Correia (sophomore freestyler), Moises Loschi (junior distance freestyler) — Correia will help replace Youssef Hammoud in the sprint freestyles, while Loschi will help keep the Yellow Jackets’ medley relays in the middle of the pack.
Louisville – Carlos Claverie (junior breaststroker), Trevor Carroll (senior freestyler), Grigory Tarasevich (senior backstroker), Zach Harting (sophomore butterflier) — Claverie and Tarasevich represented their countries in Rio last summer, and Harting made the 200 fly at Olympic Trials memorable with his Batman getup. All four of these swimmers should be able to score 70+ points again, and Louisville is currently seeded ahead of NC State in three of five relays.
North Carolina – Jordan Merrilees (senior distance/IM), Henry Campbell (junior distance/IM) –– UNC lost a ton of points with last year’s graduating seniors. Merrilees and Campbell should score some points, but a lack of sprinters is going to make it difficult for the Tar Heels to stay competitive.
NC State – Anton Ipsen (junior distance freestyler), Ryan Held (junior sprinter), Hennessey Stuart (junior backstroker), Soeren Dahl (senior IM/freestyle) — There are probably several other swimmers we could mention here, but these four form the current core of the Wolfpack squad. Held, Dahl, and Ipsen could collectively sweep the freestyle events, while Stuart will challenge Louisville‘s Tarasevich in the backstroke events. There are enough other pieces to fill in relays and help NC State take its third-straight conference championships.
Notre Dame – Trent Jackson (senior free/breast), Justin Plaschka (junior free/butterfly), Matthew Grauslys (sophomore butterflier), Tabahn Afrik (sophomore sprinter) — Plaschka led the team in points last year after three A-final appearances. The Fighting Irish have some free depth, as they’re currently ranked 5th in each of the free relays.
Pitt – Zachary Lierley (senior IM/backstroker) — Lierley was Pitt’s top individual scorer last year on the strength of a single B-final swim. There are a couple other guys who made C-finals, but looking at the psych sheet, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be much improvement this year.
Virginia – Austin Quinn (senior IMer), Sam Magnan (sophomore distance freestyler), Zach Fong (sophomore butterflier) — All three of these men sit at #2 in at least one event on the psych sheet, and the Cavaliers have some other young guns who are going to score some points and help out on relays. The men haven’t had quite the same success that the women have under Augie Busch, but what they do have should be enough to keep them 3rd in conference at least.
Virginia Tech – Brandon Fiala (senior breaststroker/IMer), Robert Owen (senior IMer) — This is going to be the Hokies’ last year with the senior duo of Fiala and Owen, who combined for three individual titles and 172 points last year. Those two should be on pace to repeat their performances, especially after a great showing at last summer’s Olympic Trials.
SHOWDOWNS
200 BACKSTROKE
Stuart v. Tarasevich, round 3. In 2015, NC State freshman Hennessey Stuart won this event in convincing fashion, touching almost one a half seconds ahead of Louisville‘s Grigory Tarasevich. Last year, Tarasevich evened the score with a narrow win over Stuart. Now that that Louisville Olympian is a senior, this year will be the tiebreaker. Unless, of course, someone else, perhaps Virginia Tech‘s Robert Owen, plays spoiler and manages to touch out both of the defending champions.
1650 Freestyle
Sure, Anton Ipsen has to be considered the favorite. But, what makes this event so intriguing is who will be touching after him. Ipsen has four Wolfpack teammates seeded in the top nine in this event. If you needed any more confirmation that NC State is more than just a sprint program, keep an eye on this event and see how their guys here do against more traditional mid/distance programs like Virginia.
100 Breast
This event was a bloodbath last year, with five swimmers finishing within half a second of each other, and NC State‘s Derek Hren depriving VT’s Brandon Fiala of a third individual event win by 0.01 seconds. Fiala and Hren both return this year, along with two other top 5 finishers, Carlos Claverie of Louisville and Jason Coombs of FSU. Last year Duke’s Peter Kropp blasted a 52-low in season, but was unable to replicate that time here. It’s looking like it could once again be anyone’s race
SELECTIONS
Diving took place during last weekend’s women’s ACC Championships, and once again, VT leads the field, albeit with more than 50 points less than last year. Notably, NC State actually has 34 points from diving. They managed to win the last two conference championships without a single diving point.
| Team | Diving Points |
| VT | 194 |
| FSU | 153 |
| UNC | 136 |
| Duke | 113 |
| Miami | 108 |
| Pitt | 107 |
| Notre Dame | 89 |
| Georgia Tech | 67 |
| Louisville | 43 |
| Virginia | 42 |
| NC State | 34 |
| Boston College | 0 |
While NC State did lose quite a few points due to some graduating seniors, they have quite the deep team, and even picked up a few points in the diving events this year, unlike last year. Louisville could close the gap some, but will probably have to settle for 2nd. It’s a bit of a crapshoot after that and all of the teams in the middle of the pack have good arguments why they could end up higher.
- NC State
- Louisville
- Virginia
- Virginia Tech
- Florida State
- North Carolina
- Notre Dame
- Duke
- Georgia Tech
- Pitt
- Boston College
- Miami (FL) – Diving Only
Any word on which relays NC state will be stacking? Which basically means using held. How long before the session do they have to submit relay card? 2 and a half hrs to go…
I’m guessing they will leave him off of the 400 free relay. They will have enough momentum going into the last night that IF it comes down to the last relay, then the other men on the relay will likely swim lights out.
If Braden is smart, he’ll get as much of a lead as possible the first couple of days which will require Held on the first 4 relays.
‘If Braden is smart…’ that’s very funny… the guy built this program from nothing! I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.
Plus, NC State will build as much lead with their depth.
Just saying it would be a smart move ?
100 breast could be very interesting. I like how Duke’s Peter Kropp has been swimming lately. He looks like he’s gotten much stronger…maybe this will be his year?
NC State is very deep this year – they probably will have to leave 5-6 swimmers who would score off the ACC scoring roster simply due to roster limits. Its a shame the ACC doesn’t do like the Big 12 and PAC 12 seem to do and allow exhibition swimmers to swim in the prelims just to get times that could qualify them for the NCAA meet.
This is the year of upset….. My Louisville Cardinals will take this one!!!! GO CARDS!
WHAT DOESN’T VA TECH SWIM IN ACC’S. THE HAVE AT LEAST 2 TOP PERFORMERS AND HOLD THE LEAD AFTER DIVING. THEY AT LEAST DESERVE A MENTION BECAUSE YOU AT LEAST HAVE THEM PICKED 4TH
No depth, caps don’t help your argument. I think NC state and Louisville have proven that you don’t need a lot of diving points to score well at conference. They’re in the article. It’s gonna be ok, they need sprinters and flyers and more breast/backstrokers than they have for them to make a impact on the meet after the women’s week. They have good pieces here and there but after the top 2/3 I think we all agree the conference falls off further than a PAC 12 or SEC
“Hold the lead after diving”. So you really haven’t followed the conference for this century have you?
It is actually quite interesting how UNC men are strong in the exact opposite events as their women.
The men have strong distance swimmers and breaststrokers/IMers, and that is exactly where UNC women were the weakest. The women were ridiculously strong in sprint and back/fly, while the men are extremely weak in those areas.
I’m excited to see NC state grab another ACC championship… probably one of the first times the women’s and men’s teams simultaneously won ACC’s.
Does anyone know how many swimmers each conference allows in the championship meet and why they vary so much?
Similar to ncaas, there is no entry limit per event, but rather a squad size limit in the ACC. SEC has qualifying times I believe.
No, SEC also has a squad limit (includes swimmers and divers) and there are not qualifying times.
It is ridiculously complicated… this is what I have found through research:
18 competitors in ACC and 24 competitors in PAC 12 and B1G (divers=1/2 competitor for all three of these conferences).
SEC women take 24 (divers=1/3 competitor)
SEC men may take 20 (divers= 1/2)
Big 12 is 28 competitors (divers in 2 events=1/3 competitor, divers in 3 events=1/2 competitor)
Anyone know why the women’s meet was two weeks ago and the men’s is this week. Seems odd to have an extra week in between the two.
ole99 – they’re usually only a week apart, but with the change of venue, they had to take whatever dates were available. Conference USA already had Georgia Tech booked for last week, and even with the home team in play, I think Georgia Tech Campus Rec was not about to kick out a tenant that probably paid a lot of money to rent the pool.
Only time they could get pool time since they changed from Greensboro to ATL earlier in the season. ACC Should have just went SEC format and did men’s and woman’s 5 day format.
The BS of pulling ncaa meets out of NC.
Agreed – swimmers/student athletes hurt (missing a full week of class) so school presidents and admins can make a political statement. Yet the admin level people have kept the ACC headquarters in Greensboro. If they really wanted to make a statement they would pull the ACC headquarters out of NC.
Agree 100%