Men’s NCAA Swimming Championships: Who’s Winning this Meet?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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By David Rieder.

It’s the question on everyone’s lips at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center in Minneapolis: What team is going to win this meet?

Thursday night’s finals finished up with five teams bunched up within 17 points of each other. Indiana led the way with 169 points, followed closely by NC State (165), Texas (159), Florida (154) and California (152.5).

Blake Pieroni — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Perhaps the most surprising team in that bunch is Indiana, which has vaulted into first after taking second in the 4×200 free relay (behind Blake Pieroni’s record-setting leadoff leg) and wins by Michael Hixon in 1-meter diving and the Hoosier 4×100 medley relay team.

NC State, fourth each of the last two years at the national championships, was victorious in that 4×200 free relay, and the team also finished second in the other two Thursday night relays. Ryan Held and Andreas Vazaios each have posted individual top-three finishes.

Both Texas and Cal, considered the odds-on national championship favorites before the meets, each had rough moments on Thursday before rebounding. Florida? The Gators have some guy on their team named Caeleb Dressel—perhaps you’ve heard of him—and Jan Switkowski added an NCAA title in the 200 IM.

That’s where they stood after Thursday night, and after Friday morning’s swimming prelims, the Golden Bears looked poised for a run. Below are the individual ups and downs for the top five teams. (Additionally, all five put their 4×50 medley relay teams in the A-final.)

Cal: 6/4
Texas: 5/2
Indiana: 5/1
NC State: 3/2
Florida: 3/1

Cal’s massive morning included three men getting into the 100 fly final: Justin Lynch, Matthew Josa and Ryan Hoffer. Lynch and Josa were expected to make it back, while Hoffer came in seeded 41st. The Bears also got an unexpected boost when Bryce Mefford, seeded 31st in the 200 free, swam a time of 1:32.84 to qualify eighth for the final.

Caeleb Dressel — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Three of the other schools have at least one individual title contender in the finals: Cal’s Andrew Seliskar in the 400 IM, Dressel in the 100 fly, Pieroni and Texas’ Townley Haas in the 200 free and Indiana’s Ian Finnerty in the 100 breast. But the superstars were always going to get theirs—what do their teams get behind them?

For Texas, two of the five A-finalists came out of the 100 back: John Shebat and Austin Katz. Shebat, last year’s runner-up in the event behind Ryan Murphy, was seeded 14th, was taken off Texas’ 4×100 medley relay team in finals after a poor prelims split of 45.60, but he bounced back to qualify second in prelims at 45.00.

Indiana lost a bit in prelims when Gabriel Fantoni, seeded third in the 100 back, ended up 17th, while Florida will hurt a bit from Mark Szaranek missing out on an extremely fast 400 IM A-final. As for NC State, the only surprise came when Justin Ress, seeded sixth in the 200 free, did not compete.

Then came the twist: This is the swimming and diving championships, and 3-meter diving prelims came up after the morning swimming. Three of those contending schools will not score a diver, but two of them will benefit big-time on the boards.

Indiana’s Hixon, Andrew Capobian and James Connor finished second, fourth and eighth, respectively, in prelims. For Texas, Grayson Campbell and Jordan Windle took fifth and sixth. With that in mind, here’s what the updated ups and downs look like.

Indiana: 8/1
Texas: 7/2
Cal: 6/4
NC State: 3/2
Florida: 3/1

Before the conclusion of diving prelims, statistician Price Fishback supplied updated projections for the final order of finish. The numbers below reflect points already scored, Friday morning’s prelims placings scored out and Saturday’s psych sheet projections—but again, no 3-meter or platform diving.

ncaa-men-score-projections-friday-pm-2018

Already, you can see that the two schools with point-scoring divers have a distinct advantage, not even factoring in the chunks of diving points the Hoosiers and Longhorns will receive later on. Cal and NC State are still in range, but Florida, even with Dressel’s continued heroics, could fall of the pace.

Important disclaimer: There’s still a long way to go, and a lot of this could change. But in this moment, before the Friday night finals sessions, Texas and Indiana have to be feeling good, while Cal, despite an incredible run of prelims success the past two days, still has work to do.

UPDATE: Fishback sent out a new version of his score projections that include 3-meter diving prelims, and as expected, those numbers show Indiana and Texas with an advantage over the rest of the pack.

ncaa-men-score-projections-friday-pm-2018-updated

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