Morning Splash: Will The Women’s NCAA Scoring Projections Come True?

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Photos Courtesy: Matt Rubel & Peter H. Bick

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By David Rieder.

At the 2016 women’s NCAA championships, Georgia was projected to finish fourth. Simply scoring out the psych sheet had the Bulldogs finishing the swimming competition with 279 points, well behind Cal (398), Stanford (374) and Virginia (313).

But head coach Jack Bauerle’s squad ended up finishing a lot higher than that. Georgia out-performed its projected score by 121 points (and scored 14 more in diving) and edged out Stanford by 19 points to win it all.

One year later, we’ve got another batch of scoring predictions, courtesy of statistician extraordinaire Price Fishback. Obviously, it’s impossible to know exactly what will happen at this week in Indianapolis—what teams will catch fire and which teams will struggle—but the numbers suggest a much less competitive team race at the top of the standings this season.

So consider this exercise very much a hypothetical. But if every swimmer were to swim exactly their seed times, and nothing changes, this is how the meet would look, and the Stanford Cardinal would be walking away victorious by a wide margin—152 points to be exact.

Team	Day 1 Score	Day 2 Score	Day 3 Score	Day 4 Score	Total Score
(1) Stanford	40	160	187	164	551
(2) Cal	34	135	114	116	399
(3) USC	32	52	62	100	246
(4) NC State	18	80	68	57	223
(5) Texas	26	66	54	71	217
(=6) Georgia	12	70	57	69	208
(=6) Texas A&M	24	49	71	64	208
(8) Virginia	28	67	35	59	189
(9) Michigan	30	52	20	54	156
(10) Louisville	8	25	42	56	131
(11) Wisconsin	14	43	24	47	128
(12) Indiana	0	33	48	45	126
(13) Minnesota	10	10	49	33	102
(14) Arizona	6	49	32	13	100
(15) North Carolina	0	41	26	24	91

Is that insurmountable? In theory, no, but it would take a massive effort from Cal and a lot of Stanford mistakes for an upset. With Stanford more than 300 points ahead of the third-place team (USC) in these projections, it’s hard to imagine any other squad making up that gap.

But in that above chart there’s a lot more to unpack than just who will win the meet. Here are a few points that stand out.

Cal Bears Sitting Pretty at No. 2

Just as it would take a lot falling neatly into place for Cal to catch Stanford, any other squad catching the Golden Bears is equally unlikely. Cal has been ranked as the No. 2 team nationally for much of the year, and there’s a strong, versatile cast surrounding Olympic gold medalists Kathleen Baker and Abbey Weitzeil.

Stanford has by far the top points projection each day, but it’s not out of the question for Cal to finish with a day one lead. Baker could upset Ella Eastin in the 200 IM, and Weitzeil has a chance at taking down Simone Manuel in the 50 free, and three other Cal swimmers (Farida Osman, Maddie Murphy and Amy Bilquist) are potential scorers in the splash-and-dash. On top of that, Stanford is not invulnerable in the 200 free or 400 medley relays

However, Cal does have some question marks with health going into the meet that are worth watching. Weitzeil had trouble standing up after her 200 free at the Pac-12 championships and did not compete for the remainder of that meet, and Amy Bilquist was spotted wearing a walking boot at that meet.

Who’s on Third?

Here, it gets tight. USC is projected to finish with 246, followed closely by a tight pack of NC State, Texas, Georgia and Texas A&M all within 15 points. The remainder of the top five will likely come from this group.

Georgia has been a consistent overachiever at the end-of-season championships and figures to be a popular third-place pick. Before from last year’s 121-point increase from the projections, the Bulldogs challenged heavily-favored Cal at the 2015 meet, over-performing their seeds by 69 points.

Texas A&M over-performed by 40 points last season, while the other three teams in this range all under-performed: USC by 19.5, NC State by 37 and Texas by 63. Of course, these patterns are not consistent from year-to-year—in 2015, for instance, Texas was a 41-point overachiever.

Based on the chart, NC State should get off to a strong start on Thursday, with two relays in which they are seeded highly plus their signature 50 free, while Texas A&M is relying on big points in the 400 IM, 100 fly and 200 breast. As for USC, the Trojans are projected to score 29 more points than any team aside from Stanford and Cal on the final day.

Stars over Depth

Last month, Texas A&M beat Georgia in convincing fashion to win the SEC championship. Most of the two teams’ seed times came from the conference meet, and yet the Bulldogs are somehow projected to finish tied with the Aggies at 208 points.

At the NCAA meet, depth matters far less. Not only are points harder to come by at the national level, but the meet is only scored to 16 places, while most conference meets now score the top 24 in each event.

Virginia has the eighth-best psych sheet projection at 189 points, and the Cavaliers only have four individuals slated to score individually. Note their big bumps on days two and four—when Leah Smith is competing in the 500 free and the mile.

The three B1G teams seeded to finish just outside the top ten (Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota) have three individual scorers each, while North Carolina, which won only a single dual meet all season, is poised for a top-15 finish with only Hellen Moffitt and Caroline Baldwin, along with relays, projected to score.

Watch out for the Wildcats

Looking for a team that might surprise some people and move into the top-ten? How about Arizona, which out-performed its expected score by 39 points last season, the fourth-best margin of any team behind Georgia, Missouri (56) and Texas A&M.

And the Wildcats have a history of pulling off such NCAA surprises. In 2010, diving and over-performance accounted for a whopping 183.5 additional points from the psych sheet projections. At the Pac-12 championships, head coach Rick DeMont pointed out that his team mostly swam through the meet unshaved, so their improvement bears watching.

Going big picture, don’t take these projections for more than what they are: projections. Almost every team will over-perform or under-perform to an extent, and some of those changes will undoubtedly be drastic.

But barring anything miraculous happening, it looks clear which teams will be scraping for position at the bottom of the top ten, which teams will be involved in the dogfight for third through fifth places and which teams will be hoisting the runner-up and champions’ trophies come Saturday night.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Bob Perkins

7 years ago

Amy Hays

Michael Maloney

7 years ago

oh..something miraculous is going to happen..just like everyone at the Belmont Race track witnessed on June 9th 1973….Katie Ledecky and the Stanford team is going to move like a tremendous machine leaving the record books and fans awash in AWE.