Patrick Rowan, an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska, is back discussing the dismal performance of these women’s NCAA Championships as compared to seed that we saw again on day 2 of the meet.
Things were even worse on day 2; in total, including the 200 medley relay, only 18.4% of swims improved upon seed (as compared to 19.5% on day 1).
The worst event was the 100 fly, which looked like it was going to be such a fast final after what we saw in the medley relay splits. In that race, only 6 swimmers beat their seed times. This time, he’s added in some analysis (and as proof that this is what the coaches are talking about, he even cited Eastern Michigan coach Peter Linn this time). 4 of the 6 of them, however, earned a second swim tonight, so that shows you what the key to finishing in the top 16 is.
We’ve talked about it all meet, but we can put some numbers to the impressive improvements North Carolina has had at this meet. Out of 50 improvements in the morning, one out of every ten belonged to the Tar Heels. That’s 5 out of 9 of their swims.
Improved times from the seed times %” was less than day 1. Peter Linn from Eastern Michigan hypothesized that if we only look at the top 3 heats (32 entries- typical number of invites in previous years) that we would see the familiar 33% improvement from seed time numbers.
200 MR 28 ent, 5 imp, .179 %imp
400 IM 44 ent, 8 imp, .182 %imp
100 Fly 50 ent, 6 imp, .12 %imp
200 FR 52 ent, 9 imp, .173 %imp
100 BR 48 ent, 11 imp, .229 %imp
100 BK 50 ent, 11 imp, .22 %impTotal entries 272, tot imp 50, .184 %imp