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 two finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, and places 9 through 16 make the B 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” and “Downs” after each prelims session to help project team scoring opportunities for that night’s finals. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, and “Down” to swimmers in the B final.
2021 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- When: Wednesday, March 17 – Saturday, March 20, 2021
- Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
- Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (Local Time)
- Short course yards (SCY) format
- Defending champion: Stanford (3x) – 2019 results
- Streaming: ESPN3
- Championship Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results – Swimming
- Live Results – Diving
It was a big day for the ACC – Virginia and NC State lead the nation with 4 A finalists apiece on day 2 of the women’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships.
Virginia also has one B finalist, tying for the national lead with 5 individual scorers set up for tonight. Cal also has five, though Virginia has twice as many A finalists. The Cavaliers have 4 up and 1 down, while Cal has 2 up and 3 down.
A few other notes:
- 22 teams should score individually tonight, barring DQs. 13 teams will be represented in an A final – and that’s in a session that only had 24 total A final spots up for grabs.
- Mid-major programs were seeded to score just two swimmers across the entire meet. But two mid-major swimmers, Houston’s Ioanna Sacha and Akron’s Sarah Watson, qualified to score in the 200 IM alone tonight. Neither was seeded to score.
- These numbers don’t include 1-meter diving (happening this afternoon) or either of tonight’s relays. The 200 free relay and 400 medley relay will run as timed final events in tonight’s session.
Day 2 Ups/Downs
| Team | Total | 500 Free | 200 IM | 50 Free |
| Virginia | 4/1 | 1/1 | 2/0 | 1/0 |
| NC State | 4/0 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 2/0 |
| Cal | 2/3 | 1/2 | 1/0 | 0/1 |
| Ohio State | 2/1 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 0/1 |
| Georgia | 2/1 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 0/1 |
| Texas | 2/0 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 0/0 |
| Michigan | 2/0 | 1/0 | 0/0 | 1/0 |
| Stanford | 1/1 | 1/0 | 0/0 | 0/1 |
| Alabama | 1/1 | 0/1 | 0/0 | 1/0 |
| Missouri | 1/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 1/1 |
| UNC | 1/0 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 1/0 |
| Northwestern | 1/0 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 1/0 |
| Wisconsin | 1/0 | 0/0 | 1/0 | 0/0 |
| Florida | 0/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/1 |
| Louisville | 0/2 | 0/0 | 0/1 | 0/1 |
| Tennessee | 0/2 | 0/1 | 0/1 | 0/0 |
| Kentucky | 0/2 | 0/0 | 0/2 | 0/0 |
| Nebraska | 0/1 | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| Virginia Tech | 0/1 | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| Houston | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/1 | 0/0 |
| Akron | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/1 | 0/0 |
| USC | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 0/1 |
Day 2 Prelims Scoring
No official points enter the books until tonight’s finals. But if every swimmer were to hold their place from prelims, here’s how each team would score in these three individual events tonight.
Note: these do not include last night’s 800 free relay, nor do they include tonight’s two relays, or the 1-meter diving event.
| Rank | Team |
Day 2 Individual Points
|
| 1 | UVA | 79 |
| 2 | NC State | 55 |
| 3 | California | 43 |
| 4 | Michigan | 31 |
| 5 | Georgia | 31 |
| 6 | Texas | 30 |
| 7 | Ohio State | 25.5 |
| 8 | Stanford | 23 |
| 9 | Missouri | 22 |
| 10 | Alabama | 20 |
| 11 | Florida | 16 |
| 12 | Tennessee | 14 |
| 13 | Wisconsin | 13 |
| 14 | UNC | 13 |
| 15 | Northwestern | 11 |
| 16 | Louisville | 9.5 |
| 17 | USC | 9 |
| 18 | Nebraska | 5 |
| 19 | Houston | 5 |
| 20 | Akron | 4 |
| 21 | VT | 4 |
| 22 | Kentucky | 3 |
Here’s what the total running points would look like tonight, including the 800 free relay, if all swimmers kept to their places from this morning:
| Rank | Team | Day 2 Individual Points | Day 1 Points | Projected Total |
| 1 | UVA | 79 | 40 | 119 |
| 2 | California | 43 | 32 | 75 |
| 3 | Texas | 30 | 30 | 60 |
| 4 | Georgia | 31 | 28 | 59 |
| 5 | NC State | 55 | 55 | |
| 6 | Ohio State | 25.5 | 24 | 49.5 |
| 7 | Alabama | 20 | 26 | 46 |
| 8 | Michigan | 31 | 14 | 45 |
| 9 | Stanford | 23 | 22 | 45 |
| 10 | Kentucky | 3 | 34 | 37 |
| 11 | Florida | 16 | 18 | 34 |
| 12 | Missouri | 22 | 22 | |
| 13 | Wisconsin | 13 | 8 | 21 |
| 14 | Tennessee | 14 | 2 | 16 |
| 15 | Louisville | 9.5 | 4 | 13.5 |
| 16 | UNC | 13 | 13 | |
| 17 | Indiana | 12 | 12 | |
| 18 | Northwestern | 11 | 11 | |
| 19 | VT | 4 | 6 | 10 |
| 20 | Texas A&M | 10 | 10 | |
| 21 | USC | 9 | 9 | |
| 22 | Nebraska | 5 | 5 | |
| 23 | Houston | 5 | 5 | |
| 24 | Akron | 4 | 4 |
Looks like Texas has 1 finalist in the 1m diving; Cal none, UVA none, NCSU none; Georgia none, OSU an 11th
Texas lost potential B finalist in the last diving round, O’Neill dropped from 12 after 5 to 18 after 6 round
That’s such a bada$$ photo of Walsh
Amazing the balance among teams – not like some past years where a few team were placing 2-4 swimmers in each final. And times are very close, particularly for B finals – a few tenths makes the difference.
Interesting. It’s not looking very balanced from where I’m sitting but maybe I’m biased. I’m a little overwhelmed by Virginia’s potential dominance tonight. Really looking forward to the first individual finals in 2 years and the possibility of a Bear or four playing spoiler. Go Freaking Bears. See you all in 3 and a half hours.
Which relay? The Cal 50 freestylers didn’t do so well this am while NCSU put 2 in the A. With Rowe having been 21.4 earlier this season and Hanson 21.8, the Pack might give VA a run in the 200 free relay.
400 MR
As a Cal Fan I’m ecstatic UVA is killing it! But also Go Bears!!!!
This is very contradictory. 🐻
UVA’s A-finals are so high-end, it’s kind of a game changer. 1-1-1-3 — and I’d say all 3 top seeds are pretty heavy favorites to win tonight.
That 800 Free relay is going to haunt the Pack on Saturday…. I still don’t understand why they didn’t swim Alons and Berkoff to keep that relay in top 3-5.
They can’t do all 5. The other 4 are way better now.
They are seeded 11th in the 400 Fr Relay WITHOUT Alons and Berkoff.
3 of the others will stay the same, only the 400 Fr will be better, I don’t think they make up the 25+ points they would have gotten. However, its easy to armchair this after the fact so I can’t blame the coaches for doing what they thought was best.
Don’t forget that they lost Heather MacCausland for this meet. So, they had to do something to shift their relays around. They were honestly a sprinter short of being able to wedge someone in there without sacrificing a relay – so they just decided to go all-in on 4.
We can look back at how it shakes out post-meet, but their hand was forced a little.
Yes I know that. When I saw the news, I was thinking Hansson will be able to replace MacCausland in the 400 free relay. She’s split 21.8 in the relay and has the range to go up to 200. MacCausland was big for them at ACC, but Hansson can easily matched 48 free split.
Sending positive vibes to Heather. She had a great ACCs and it’s a tough blow to not be able to compete in NCAAs a second year in a row.
It should also be noted that in some ways it changes the event load for Alons and Berkoff.
They both made the A final in the 50 this morning; Coach Braden may have had that in mind when putting the relay lineups together. Both Alons and Berkoff moved up from their seed times, and in KB’s case, that locked in A final points. Getting 7th in the morning is really good when you are seeded 9th.