Crunching the Numbers: NCAA Men’s Selection Expected to 29 Lines [Updated]

We’ve once again put the NCAA preselection psych sheets into an Excel file and done some manipulation.

To see the full uncut psych sheets, click here.

As we learned with the women’s sheets, there can still be changes to these entries, mostly for errors and scratches (and in this case a rules interpretation with Fabio Gimondi) that can change things at the bottom. For now, however, there seems to be at least some consensus as to where the line will be drawn.

update: at least one other person has calculated the same cuts as us, for now.

Note: If you want the Excel file of the psych sheets, leave a comment with your email and I will send it to you. We tried using Google Docs last time, but the file was too large.

By anybody’s math, the top 28 in each event are in, and then a line will be drawn somewhere in the 29th line.

That’s where things get cloudy. That’s because of a 5-way tie in the 50 free for the 29th spot. However, this may not be as complicated as it first appears. The five swimmers in that tie are:

• John Murray, Texas
• Caleb Weir, Texas
• Matt Ellis, Georgia (in for 100)
• Mindaugus Sadauskas, SMU (in for the 100)
• Chris Satterthwaite, Harvard (In for the 100)

By our math, 28 lines will take up 227 of the 235 lines. Extending that to the 29th line, including both Murray and Weir, would put the cut at exactly 235 spots.

Updated: There are two Sam Lewis’, one at North Carolina and one at Texas, who both have qualified. This means that our math was off by one, and there will now be at least one swimmer from the 29th line left home.

Fair warning, though, is that everyone we’ve spoken to has calculated out to a different line, so don’t buy any plane tickets until the official cut sheets come out on Wednesday. There is almost a guarantee of a scratch or an error in entries shifting the cutline either way.

Among those things that could affect: Nejc Zupan’s entry time in the 200 breast.

Fabio Gimondi’s time is explained here.