Projecting the Field for the Women’s 2015 NCAA Championships (Cut Line Analysis)

Update: one of our readers found an error. Stephanie Peters should have been included on the list of “39 line” swimmers. Changes have been made.

Who is patient enough to wait for USA Swimming and the NCAA to crunch the numbers and spit out the list of 281 swimming qualifiers for the 2015 NCAA Women’s Championships?

Certainly not us.

So, below, we’ve taken the pre-selection sheets and run the numbers on who is projected to make the field of swimmers for the NCAA Championships.

The basic qualifying rules are that 281 swimmers go to the meet in individual events (in addition to 41, separately selected, divers). That means that if a swimmer is in the top 10, for example, in multiple events, that opens up more spots closer to the cut line.

All “A” cut swimmers go to the meet automatically, which is almost irrelevant in Division I. Then, the committee starts lining out swimmers, line-by-line, across all of the individual events, until they break the threshold of 281 swimmers.

This year, by our math, going through 38 lines of qualifying came out to 274 swimmers, and going through 39 lines of qualifying came out to 283 swimmers. That means that everyone seeded in the top 38 of an individual event should earn an invite to NCAA’s.

Where things get complicated is on the 39th line with tie breakers. There are 8 swimmers on that line who are not otherwise invited in another event, and so those are the 8 where the focus lies.

Among those 9, the 7 with the swims that are closest, by percentage, to the existing NCAA Championship record will go to the meet. The other two will be the first alternates.

Here’s how the math came out:

That means that Valerie Hull, Autumn Finke, Isabella Paez, Hannah Lincoln, Lili Ibanez, and Esther Gonzalez Medina,  will make the field of 281. Wisconsin’s Maria Carlson and Wagner’s Anu Nihipali will sit and await a call. The past few seasons have seen a fair share of late scratches, so their hopes are not totally dashed yet.

This cut line falls exactly in the same spot as it did last year, with all but two swimmers on the 39 line qualifying.

We will stop short of certifying this at 100%, but we were right-on-the-numbers each of the last two years. In interest of transparency, here’s our work so that you can do the math yourself. Please let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree with the numbers.:

Open in Google Docs.

And, without further ado, here are the 281 qualifiers for the NCAA Championships, first sorted by team name and then by athlete last name:

By team name:

By last name: