Projecting the Cut Line: 2024 Women’s NCAA Championships

2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 20-23, 2024
• Gabrielsen Natatorium, Athens, Georgia
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Pre-Scratch Psych Sheets

Note: the pre-cut psych sheets are not final. Last year, an error was identified in the seed time of a UNC 100 freestyler, which resulted in an update in the projections. Final selections are released on Wednesday afternoon. Any changes that happen before that release will re-run the math, any changes that happen after that release (such as a swimmer scratching the meet, which often happens) will pull in the next alternate regardless of event.

The pre-selection psych sheets for the 2024 Women’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships were released Tuesday morning, showing teams’ bidded entries for next month’s championship meet.

This year’s cut-line was drawn at four lines into row 37, which is a dramatic decrease from last year where one swimmer on row 39 was invited, and 2022 where five swimmers on row 39 were invited.

• A big thank you to SwimSwam’s Andrew Mering for running the numbers.

This implies that fewer swimmers rank in the top 37-or-so in multiple individual events, meaning that it took more swimmers to “get through” those higher lines.

This year, the last swimmer in is George Washington’s Ava DeAngelis, who was 37th in the 100 breaststroke with a 59.75 from a Last Chance meet. The first swimmer out is Catherine Belyakov of Duke as the 37th seed in the 200 IM.

Ava Topolewski is already safely qualified for the meet for GWU as the 24th-seed in the mile. This is the second-straight year where GWU has sent a woman to the NCAA Championships after Julia Knox went last season, and the sixth time they’re sending an athlete (they sent two in 1994 and 1995).

Selection process

1. 35 of the men’s spots and 41 of the women’s spots are set aside for divers, who qualify for the meet at zone competitions closer the NCAA Championships. That leaves 235 men’s spots and 281 for the women.

2. Every ‘A’ cut put up this season is added.

3. The next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries. For example, if the 50 free were to have the most ‘A’ cuts of any event with 10, then every other event would get swimmers with the top 10 fastest times in.

4. Finally, one entry is added to each event to keep the entries per event even. This process is repeated until all of the swimming spots (235 for men, 281 for women) are filled. Keep in mind that as more rows are added, swimmers will start to double and triple up. The #1 seed in the 200 back might be the #15 seed in the 100 back – as the 15th row of swimmers is added to each event, she’ll be added to the 100 back list, but won’t take up another one of the 281 invite spots, as she already has her official invite.

5. The final row of swimmers added won’t come out exactly even. In the final row, the swimmers with entry times closest to the NCAA ‘A’ cut will get added first, and when the 235th man or 281st woman is added, the process stops. So the 100 fly could have 38 women and the 200 fly 39 women – that would mean the 39th 200 flyer was closer to the NCAA ‘A’ cut than the 39th 100 flyer and therefore won the ‘tie-breaker’ for the final spot.

Virginia

The University of Virginia has 19 individual qualifiers without divers. With a cap of 18 per team, that means someone will have to be cut.

Because that cut has to happen before Wednesday’s final psych sheets are out, something will change in these projections. Everyone projected to be in will still be in – but there’s no guarantee that Belyakov will be the swimmer who gets in.

We’ve seen this pretty regularly with men’s teams in recent years, but it is rarer with women’s teams.

Madelyn Donohoe is Virginia’s lowest-ranked swimmer above the cut-line as the 36th-ranked miler in the NCAA this season. If she were dropped, that would move Michigan’s Kathryn Shanley up to the 37th line of the 1650 free, and she would have the tie-breaker over other 37 line swimmers and would be invited.

That choice for the Cavaliers was due at noon Eastern time on Tuesday.

The Cavaliers may wind up having another choice to make after Zone Diving – Lizzie Kaye was 17th on both springboards at last year’s NCAA Championship. If they were to drop another swimmer to make room for her, because that’s after the invite lists are out, then Belyakov from George Washington U would get in.

Besides Donohoe, Virginia has three other swimmers whose best seed is 30+:

• Izzy Bradley at 31 in the 100 back
• Sophia Knapp at 32 in the 500 free
• Ella Bathurst at 34 in the 400 IM

Virginia’s women are chasing a fourth-straight NCAA Championship.

2023 CUT LINE PROJECTIONS

• Nerd out: see the full ordering of swimmers on the pre-cut sheets.

Individual Qualifiers By Team

58 teams are projected to be represented by individual swimmers at this year’s NCAA Championship meet.

Projected Alternates

With the projected cut line falling four lines into row 37, the NCAA tiebreaker comes into play to determine who is selected. The NCAA uses a simple formula to determine how close the swimmer is to the NCAA ‘A’ cut to break ties, a change that was made five years ago. The mathematical formula is the A cut divided by the swimmer’s time, with the highest percentage (or closest relative time to the A cut) winning the tiebreak.

The second tie-breaker, which is relevant if the 3rd alternate were called, is based on the swimmer’s second-best event. Ela Noble from Princeton is 80th in the 100 free, while Lexi Mulvihill is 95th in the 100 free, so the order below is correct.

Invitees