Ohio State Set to Build Huge Lead After a Great Morning: Women’s Big Tens Day 3 Up/Downs

2023 WOMEN’S BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, February 15 – Saturday, February 18, 2023
• Canham Natatorium, Ann Arbor, MI
• Defending Champions:
  • Women: Ohio State (3x)
• Live Results
• Live Video
• Championship Central
• Day 2 Finals Live Recap
• Fan Guide

TEAM SCORES AFTER DAY 2

1. Ohio State – 441
2. Indiana – 429.5
3. Michigan – 423.5
4. Wisconsin – 347
5. Minnesota – 297
6. Northwestern – 244
7. Penn State – 200
8. Rutgers – 188
9. Nebraska – 164
10. Purdue – 151
11. Iowa – 107
12. Illinois – 106

Ohio State had a phenomenal performance in prelims on Friday at the Big Ten Championships. The Buckeyes enter today’s action with a slim lead over both Indiana and Michigan. They showed from the start of this morning’s prelims session that they meant business.

Ohio State kicked things off by putting four swimmers in the ‘A’ final of the 100 fly, and very nearly putting a fifth swimmer in. They then followed that up by putting three more ‘A’ finalists into the 400 IM, making their total seven ‘A’ finalists in the first two events.

In total, the Buckeyes put a whopping 13 swimmers into ‘A’ finals tonight, marking the most of any team by far. Here is the table of “up/mid/downs” for Friday at the Big Ten Championships.

If you’re unfamiliar with our “up/downs” posts, they’re pretty straightforward. It’s a way of evaluating team performances in prelims sessions based on how many swimmers qualified for finals. The format is “X/Y/Z,” where “X” is the number of ‘A’ finalists, “Y” the number of ‘B’ finalists, and “Z” the number of ‘C’ finalists.

Please note this data does not include 3-meter diving yet, since the event hasn’t yet concluded. We will update the table with the diving data once it’s available. 

FRIDAY UP/MID/DOWNS

Ohio State had the best morning in the pool, with a number of teams having extremely positive performances as well. Wisconsin earned eight ‘A’ finalists in the pool this morning, the second-most by a wide margin. With two ‘B’ finalists and four ‘C’ finalists to boot, the Badgers should be able to pull away from Minnesota and solidify themselves in fourth place. They may also be able to close the gap on Michigan and Indiana a little bit, but time will tell.

Speaking of those teams, Indiana and Michigan had nearly identical performances in the pool this morning. Both teams had five swimmers make it back for ‘A’ finals, and one swimmer make it to ‘C’ finals. Indiana had nine ‘B’ finalists, while Michigan had eight.

Here is what the total scores would look like right now if prelims had been scored this morning. Keep in mind this is just a projection of what the scores would look like tonight if everything stayed the same as this morning. This data also doesn’t include 3-meter diving yet, but that will be added in once diving has concluded.

ACTUAL SCORE + SCORED PRELIMS

Right now it looks like Ohio State is set to expand their lead over Indiana by a big margin tonight. The current data is also showing Indiana pulling away from Michigan just a little bit as well. That may be less likely to happen, however, as Indiana had three swimmers finish ninth this morning, one swimmer finish first, and another finish 17th. That means that, from a strictly scoring standpoint, those swimmers can only stay the same or move down tonight, they can’t outscore their prelims projections.