2020 ACC Men’s Championships: Day 3 Ups/Mids/Downs

2020 ACC Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• When: Wednesday, February 26th to Saturday, February 29th Prelims 10:00 am | Finals 6:00 pm (1650 prelims Saturday at 4:00 pm)
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: North Carolina State University (NC State) (29x, 5th-straight) (results)
• Streaming: ACC Network
  • Day 2 Finals
  • Day 3 Finals
  • Day 4 Finals
• Championship Central: Here
• Detailed Timeline: Here
• Psych Sheets: Here
• Live Results

For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of three finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final and places 17 through 24 the C final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.

With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups,” “Mids” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, “Mid” to swimmers in the B final and “Down” to swimmers in the C final.

NC State and Virginia led the way this morning with eight A-finalists each. NC State’s key event was the 100 fly, where it put four men up, while UVA got three up in each the 400 IM and the 200 free. NC State also will have the greatest total number of swims tonight, with a total of 17 splashes across the five individual events. Louisville got a total of six men up, including three into the 100 back A-final, and was 2nd behind NC State in terms of total swims tonight, with 16.

Day 3 Ups/Mids/Downs

While Virginia matched NC State’s eight A-finals, a combination of seeding and four more B-finalists means that NC State is projected to score over 50 more points tonight. Again, that’s contingent on Wolfpack swimmers matching their places from this morning. Louisville is projected to actually outscore Virginia by nearly 30 points, but the Cardinals had two 10th place finishes and three 17th place finishes, meaning that there’s lots of room to slip.

As expected, the battle for 4th-6th places is solidifying as a race between Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, and Florida State, all of whom should have roughly 460-490 points heading into tonight’s 400 medley relay. North Carolina seems to be locking itself into 7th place, while Duke, Georgia Tech, and Pitt will be scraping for 8th. We’ll also mention here that Boston College earned its first individual scorer of the meet with a C-finalist in the 100 back.

Projected Scores