NCAA “A” Cut update: list of automatic qualifiers nearly doubles over weekend

After the first big college invite weekend two weeks ago, we looked at the number of swimmers and relay teams with NCAA “A” cuts to get an idea of who had already locked in their invites to the big show in March. At that point, 34 swimmers in Division I had already hit an automatic qualifying time in at least one event. After this past weekend, which featured U.S. Winter Nationals and the Texas Invite, among several other big invitationals, that number has almost doubled, with 31 more new swimmers hitting automatic invite times.

14 new men added automatic bids to the men’s NCAA championships in Austin, Texas, while 17 women punched their tickets to Minneapolis, MN for the women’s NCAA meet the week before.

The Florida Gators and California Golden Bears are tied for the most women’s qualifiers, each having 5 women with one or more A cut. Stanford, Texas A&M and USC all have 4 each.

On the men’s side, Arizona jumped into a tie for the league lead by qualifying 4 different men over the weekend. Florida still sits at the 4 it qualified from the Ohio State Invite two weeks back.

Any swimmer who hits one individual “A” cut is allowed to swim any of his or her “B” cut events, meaning it takes just one “A” cut for the all-important NCAA Invite.

Under the new NCAA Invite process the relay selection works much the same: if a team qualifies at least one individual and hits at least one relay “A” cut, that team can bring all of its “B” cut relays along to the national championships as well.

5 new men’s teams and 3 new women’s teams qualified relays for the NCAA championships this weekend: Arizona, Texas, USC, Louisville and California on the men’s side and Indiana, Texas and Arizona for the women.

Auburn, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio State, Florida State, and Virginia Tech had already qualified relays for the men. Stanford, Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Virginia, California, USC, Missouri and Minnesota had done it for the women.

Here are the lists of individual “A” cut qualifiers and their events so far. New additions to the list are bolded, as are new events for a swimmer who already had an A cut in a different race.

WOMEN

California – Liz Pelton, 100 back, 200 back, 200 IM

California – Missy Franklin, 100 free, 200 free, 500 free, 100 back, 200 back

California – Cindy Tran, 100 back

California – Rachel Bootsma, 100 back

California – Celina Li, 200 IM

Florida – Natalie Hinds, 100 free

Florida – Elizabeth Beisel, 1650 free, 200 IM, 400 IM

Florida – Alicia Matthieu, 1650 free

Florida – Sinead Russell, 100 back, 200 back

Florida – Ellese Zalewski, 100 fly

Stanford – Maddy Schaefer, 50 free, 100 free

Stanford – Lia Neal, 100 free, 200 free

Stanford – Felicia Lee, 100 back

Stanford – Maya Dirado, 100 back, 200 fly, 200 IM, 400 IM

Texas A&M – Lili Ibanez, 200 free

Texas A&M – Paige Miller, 100 back

Texas A&M – Breeja Larson, 100 breast, 200 breast

Texas A&M – Cammile Adams, 200 fly

USC – Kasey Carlson, 50 free, 100 free, 100 breast

USC – Kendyl Stewart, 100 fly

USC – Jasmine Tosky, 200 fly

USC – Stina Gardell, 200 IM, 400 IM

Georgia – Amber McDermott, 500 free

Georgia – Olivia Smoliga, 100 back

Georgia – Melanie Margalis, 100 breast, 200 breast, 200 IM, 400 IM

Arizona – Bonnie Brandon, 200 free, 500 free, 200 back

Arizona – Margo Geer, 50 free, 100 free

Indiana – Lindsey Vrooman, 1650 free

Indiana – Brooklyn Snodgrass, 200 back

Louisville – Tanja Kylliainen, 200 fly

Louisville – Kelsi Worrell, 200 fly

Virginia – Leah Smith, 500 free, 1650 free

Virginia – Courtney Bartholomew, 100 back, 200 back

Kentucky – Tina Bechtel, 100 fly, 200 fly

Minnesota – Kierra Smith, 200 breast

Missouri – Dani Barbiea, 100 fly

North Carolina – Stephanie Peacock, 500 free, 1650 free

Notre Dame – Emma Reaney, 200 breast, 200 IM

Tennessee – Molly Hannis, 100 breast

UC- Santa Barbara – Andrea Ward, 100 fly

UW – Milwaukee – Emily McClellan, 100 breast, 200 breast

MEN

Arizona – Mitchell Friedemann, 100 back

Arizona – Kevin Cordes, 100 breast, 200 breast

Arizona – Giles Smith, 100 fly

Arizona – Michael Meyer, 400 IM

Florida – Andrea D’Arrigo, 500 free

Florida – Sebastien Rousseau, 200 fly, 400 IM

Florida – Dan Wallace, 400 IM

Florida – Marcin Cieslak, 200 IM

Michigan – Michael Wynalda, 200 free

Michigan – Connor Jaeger, 500 free, 1650 free

Michigan – Dylan Bosch, 200 fly

Auburn – Marcelo Chierighini, 50 free, 100 free

Auburn – Joe Patching, 200 back

California – Ryan Murphy, 100 back, 200 back

California – Jacob Pebley, 200 back

Georgia – Chase Kalisz, 200 IM, 400 IM

Georgia – Tynan Stewart, 200 back

Brown – Thomas Glenn, 200 fly

Louisville – Joao De Lucca, 100 free, 200 free

Ohio State – Connor McDonald, 200 back

Texas – Jack Conger, 100 fly, 200 back

Utah – Nick Soedel, 100 free

USC – Cristian Quintero, 200 free, 500 free

Wisconsin – Drew Teduits, 200 back

Update: Future Arizona and Ohio State swimmers Brad Tandy and Tim Phillips have been taken off the list based on a clarification from an NCAA official. Tandy and Phillips were not representing their college teams this past weekend, and though their times were still in the ranking database, they will be removed shortly.

In addition to that list, a number of other swimmers went times that stand a good shot at being invited to the NCAA Championships in March. Based on SwimSwam’s recent look-back at what it takes to get an NCAA Invite, we compiled the number swimmers in each event who have already gone faster than the last time to get invited to the NCAA Championships last season.

Keep in mind that some athletes are near the top of the NCAA in more than three events, meaning they can’t enter all of them for NCAAs. This list doesn’t neccessarily give us a picture of how many total athletes are in line for NCAA Invites, but rather which events have been especially fast in the early part of the season.

Of note: 27 men have gone under the last time invited in the 200 back last year. Only 29 men were invited per event in 2013, so unless we see a lot of high-level 200 backstrokers elect to enter a different event, the invite time looks like it will drop significantly in 2014.

NUMBER OF SWIMMERS UNDER THE 2013 NCAA INVITE TIME