The NCAA Championships allow teams to bring 18 scoring athletes to the competition, but at each conference’s respective championship meets, that number varies.
The Big Ten has notably decreased its roster limits this season, so it’s a good time to take a look at the Power Five conferences and how many swimmers and divers teams use to score at each respective championship meet.
ACC Championships
- 21 athletes – swimmers and divers each count as one.
- ‘C’ finals score.
At the ACC Championships, which will combine men and women this season, teams can use 21 athletes to score, with the maximum number of swimmers being 18. So if a team only has two divers, they’ll only bring 20 athletes rather than the max of 21.
Big Ten Championships
- 18 total – divers count as half.
- ‘C’ finals score.
The Big Ten, which previously allowed 24 scoring athletes, will now only allow a total count of 18, with each diver counting as half. So if a team wanted to bring four divers, they could have 16 swimmers score. If they wanted to use 17 swimmers, they could only have two divers.
Teams can bring up to 24 athletes, with the non-scorers competing as exhibition.
Big 12 Championships
- 18 total – divers count as half.
- ‘C’ finals don’t score.
Pac-12 Championships
- 24 total – divers count as half.
- ‘C’ finals score for the women’s meet.
- ‘C’ finals don’t score for the men’s meet.
The Pac-12 has the biggest scoring roster at 24, with divers counting as half.
SEC Championships
- 22 total – swimmers and divers count as one.
- ‘C’ finals score.
For a look at the changes made to the Power Five conference formats this season, click here.
this is good info. Would love to see the roster limits for the mid-major conferences, too.
In some minor conferences, divers count as 1/3
I believe it’s mostly when the conference doesn’t have platform diving. So if the divers do only 1m and 3m then they count as 1/3. If a conference has platform diving (which all the power 5’s do) then they count as a 1/2.
My understanding is that in the BIG 12 meet divers count as 1/2 if they do all three events but they have the option of only doing two (or one) events and counting as 1/3. If I have this right then a team could take five divers, have two do all three events and the other three do two events each and have it count as just two against the scoring roster count.
Slight clarification: ACC permits a maximum of 18 swimmers. If a team only has two divers, they may only bring 20 athletes.
I believe that the SEC has a rule like this as well with a maximum of 19 swimmers.