Division I NCAA ‘A’ & ‘B’ Cuts Remain the Same For 2020-2021 Season

The NCAA has released its qualifying standards for Division I swimming & diving next year – and they’re the exact same times from last year.

With the 2020 NCAA Championships canceled due to coronavirus, the NCAA will use the exact same “A” and “B” cuts as last year for both men and women. Last year, we noted that the men’s 50 free “A” cut had ventured below 19 seconds for the first time.

Here’s a brief refresher on how NCAA qualifying works (read the full explanation here):

• Individual Events: In individual races, all swimmers with “A” standards automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships. Thereafter, swimmers are chosen event-by-event, lined up to an equal number across all events, until the maximum number of individual swimmers have been selected (235 for men, 281 for women).
• Relay Events: All relays with the Qualifying Standard can swim at the NCAA Championships, provided they have 1 individual (swimmer or diver) invited to the meet as well. Once a team has a relay invited, they can swim any relay in which they have a provisional standard as well. Relays are qualified “to the team,” not to the individual swimmers, so teams can take whichever swimmers they want to participate in relays.

With the NCAA selection process, cut times remaining the same won’t change the overall size of the meet. In theory, it should just make it likely that we see more automatic qualifiers and perhaps more qualified swimmers adding second and third events through B cuts, as the college swimming landscape typically gets faster each year.

You can see all of the qualifying times below, or by following this link.

The 2021 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships will take place from March 17-20 in Greensboro, North Carolina at the Greensboro Aquatic Center. The 2021 NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships will take place a week later, from March 24-27 at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.