How Many “A” Cuts Were Hit in the 2024 NCAA Swimming & Diving Season? (Division 1)

Of the many, many ways to evaluate “how fast” an NCAA season is, one of the many ways is counting how many swimmers hit an NCAA “A” standard in a given event.

This tells us something very specific about the NCAA season. Because the “A” cuts are based on the average of the 8th-best time on the NCAA performance list for the previous three seasons (which in chis case includes the COVID-19 impacted season, which by most measures was a slower one overall. Note that the “A” cuts cannot get slower from year-to-year.

• See how NCAA time standards are set here.

That means there’s a time component sort of already baked into this. Because of the 2020 NCAA Championship cancellation, comparing “A” cuts over time doesn’t really work.

Instead, the “A” cuts are useful in making comparisons between events, with the magic range being 6-7. In most events, most of the time, there are 1-2 new “A” cuts in a race at the NCAA Championships (with the exception of the 1650 frees, where there are usually 4-5 new “A” cuts). This doesn’t always happen – for example, last season, the women’s 500 free didn’t have any “A” cuts at any meet including NCAAs, period.

The Data

Counted one-per-swimmer-per-event

For example, this measure shows that men’s sprinters are entering the NCAA Championships on a high note. Even before the NCAA Championships, 11 swimmers in the 50 free and 12 in the 100 free have been under the “A” standard. That aligns with this data, that shows that a record 20 men have already been under 19 seconds in the 50 free so far this season.

By the same token, we noted last week that the women’s 500 free invite time had gotten slower – a somewhat-measure of depth in an event – even though the perception was that the top-end was much, much faster. That perception was driven by things like 7 swimmers already this season faster in the 500 free than the 4:36.62 that won last year (Bella Sims, Rachel Stege, Emma Weyant, Lindsay Looney, Dune Coetzee, and Aimee Canny).

This “A” cut standard is a better representation of the fact that the women’s 500 free at the top end is getting faster.

Then there are, for example, the women’s sprint frees, where four of the top nine from last year’s NCAA season didn’t race this year (Kate Douglass, Torri Huske, Claire Curzan, and Maggie MacNeil). All of those swimmers had “A” standards in the 50 free last year.

Only 5 swimmers hit “A” standards this year in that event.

So it’s not a perfect measure, but overall it does a pretty good job of demonstrating where the top-end of events is ‘up’ in a given season versus ‘down.’ Aside from the 1650 frees, anything that falls significantly above or below that magic 6-7 range is communicating some information about the status of that event.

A few of the anomalies here: Leon Marchand has “A” cuts in 7 events (100/200/500 frees, 200 fly, 200 breast, 200 IM, 400 IM), Gretchen Walsh has cuts in 6 events (50/100/200 frees, 100 back, 100 fly, 200 IM), and Alex Walsh has cuts in 6 events (100/200 breast, 200/400 IM, 200 back, 200 fly).

All of the above summarized in one chart: