The pre-selection list for the 2018 Men’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships was released this morning, and you can peruse the full document here.
While this is not the official psych sheet, it does tell exactly what three events some of the more versatile swimmers have decided to go after, and we’ll be spending the rest of the day breaking down some of the more notable entries.
We’ll also be crunching the numbers to predict exactly who will end up with a NCAA invite, but typically the “cut line” falls roughly along the 29th-ranked swimmer in each event.
The NCAA will go through, event by event, and add one swimmer to each, until a certain “line” (aka, all 25th-ranked swimmers) puts the field over the maximum 235 individual entries (270 total minus 35 places for divers. Swimmers with more than one entry under the cut line only count once towards the cap). At that point, swimmers will be invited based on who is the closest to the NCAA Championship Record in their event. If you want to look at the full procedure, check section 2.4 of the NCAA Pre Championship Manual.
Coaches have today to review the sheets, and the initial psych sheet should be out Wednesday.
Who’s the lowest seeded swimmer to win at NCAAs? Because Dressel is 78th in the 100 fly
Won’t be after they cut those who didn’t make the meet
Pvdh – he’s not actually going to be seeded 78th. A lot of guys between 29 and 78 won’t get invited.
Sorry bad choice of words. 78th rank in the country
We’ll probably see an article(s) about this, but what are some noteworthy line-ups/entries?
E.g Farris in the 50/200 free/200 back as mentioned by others
Dressel in his usual 50/100/100 fly
Hoffer in the same lineup
Seliskar in the 200 breast instead of the 200 fly
Szaranek in the 200 breast as well (there’s an article on this, I know)
A few other interesting choices:
Maxime Rooney, 200 IM & 100 Free
Cam Craig, 50 Free
John Shebat, 100 Fly
Bryce Mefford, 200 Free
Mike Jensen, 200 Free (over 100 Fly)
Mark Szaranek, 200 Breast
Zheng Quah in 200IM over backstroke
I count around 17 individual swimming qualifiers for Cal and Florida, 15 for Texas and Stanford, 13 each for NC State and Michigan. 9 for IU.
Several events seem to be slower this year compared to last, such as 100 Breastroke, 200 Breastroke, 200 Free, even 50 Free. I wonder why that is, considering every event was faster for the women’s meet.
Dean Farris swimming 50 Free, 200 Back and 200 Free. Opting for one event per day instead of trying to double 100 back and 200 free.
honestly that’s pretty surprising; he’d have had a good chance to final in the 100 back (even on the double) and I don’t like his odds in the 50. Probably either a) they want to give him his best shot to win the 200; b) they think he has more taper speed left over in the 50 than anyone else knows; c) they’re really just going to put him on all 5 relays. Although if they were considering that, they could have just left him entered in the backstroke.
Man I really wanted to see a sub-50 100 breast from Caeleb. I guess the Schooling-Dressel rematch will be a good one to watch too.
Maybe we will get a 48.9 or something crazy in the 400 Medley Relay.
I wouldn’t count IU Finnerty out…appears IU Breaststroke group tends to pop!
No 100 back for Dean Farris. Interesting