NCAA Men’s Championships: Momentum to Golden Bears After Huge Friday Morning (Up-Downs)

Liam Bell. Photo Courtesy: Justin Casterline/KLC Fotos

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NCAA Men’s Championships: Momentum to Golden Bears After Huge Friday Morning (Up-Downs)

The question at the NCAA Men’s Championships is never whether the two dominant men’s swimming programs of the last decade, Texas and Cal, will perform well. Year after year, both the Longhorns and Golden Bears outperform their seeds by a huge margin, and through two days of finals at this year’s meet, Cal is +54 Texas is +41. The title usually comes down to which team beats expectations by a greater margin and whether Texas gets the boost of significant diving points.

So far in 2022, diving has been a non-factor at the top of the team race as the Longhorns did not score in the 1-meter event, while Cal’s performance in the pool has been well ahead of pre-meet projections that saw the Bears narrowly edging out Texas for the title. During Friday’s prelims, Cal was the top-scoring team with seven championship finalists and five swimmers making the consolation final, and the Bears were an astounding +62 compared to the psych sheet. Texas was solid with five A-finalists and six B-finalists (although Alvin Jiang scratched the 100 backstroke B-final to focus on the 100 fly and 400 medley relay), and the Longhorns finished at +23 compared to the psych sheet. Still, that left Texas with a big deficit compared to Cal.

Both Texas and Cal had one swimmer jump up from outside scoring position into an A-final. David Johnston making the jump from the 30th seed to sixth in prelims wasn’t shocking since he finished eighth in the event last season, while the 100 breaststroke will be the first NCAA final for Cal’s Liam Bell, a transfer from Alabama competing this week in his hometown of Atlanta. Bell swam a 50.66 in prelims to jump up from the 24th seed to second place going into finals, and he also cut seven tenths from his lifetime best to become the sixth-fastest performer in history in the event.

Cal did see Jason Louser drop from the fourth seed in the 400 IM to 12th place in prelims, but they will still have two A-finalists in that event with Hugo Gonzalez and Sean Grieshop. Cal will have four swimmers in the 100 back competing at night, with Bjorn Seeliger and Destin Lasco in the A-final plus Daniel Carr and Bryce Mefford in the B-final.

The Longhorns will get an enormous chunk of their individual points Friday night in the 400 IM, where brothers Carson and Jake Foster are seeded 1-3 for the final in addition to Johnston. Texas also has Drew Kibler seeded first in the 200 free and Caspar Corbeau entering the 100 breast final seeded second.

Florida and North Carolina State were next with four A-finalists each, while the Gators also got two into the consolation heats. Florida looks like the strong favorite to finish third right now, while NC State’s +22 morning should help the Wolfpack put some distance on Arizona State (-27) in the battle for fourth place. Nyls Korstanje (100 fly) and Kacper Stokowski (100 back) were favorites to contend in their respective events, but Aidan Hayes (100 fly) and Luke Miller (200 free) were not, so NC State should get a welcome boost in those events.

In addition to Arizona State, both Indiana (-25) and Stanford (-48) lost points from their projections in Friday’s prelims, which hurt their chances at making a late run for the top-five. However, both teams received a boost of diving points in the one-meter event Thursday, and the Hoosiers, at least, should definitely see that trend continue through the weekend.

Up-Downs from Friday Prelims:

Cal 7-5
Texas 5-5
Florida 4-2
NC State 4-0
Louisville 3-1
Indiana 2-3
Georgia 2-1
Arizona State 2-0
Harvard 2-0
Stanford 1-3
Virginia Tech 1-3
Ohio State 1-2
Alabama 1-1
Arizona 1-0
LSU 1-0
Minnesota 1-0
USC 1-0
Tennessee 1-0
Auburn 0-2
Michigan 0-2
Missouri 0-2
Georgia Tech 0-1
Northwestern 0-1
Notre Dame 0-1
Penn 0-1
Princeton 0-1
Towson 0-1
Virginia 0-1
Wisconsin 0-1

Team scores through Thursday:

  1. Texas                             180   2. Florida                           159
  3. California                        158   4. NC State                          124
  5. Arizona St                        111   6. Georgia                           100
  7. Stanford                           94   8. Indiana                            78
  9. Virginia                         70.5  10. Virginia Tech                      69
 11. Ohio St                            56  12. Arizona                            48
 13. Louisville                         46  14. Alabama                            41
 14. Harvard                            41  16. Lsu                                36
 17. Michigan                           24  18. Texas A&M                          20
 19. Tennessee                        17.5  20. Purdue                             16
 21. Columbia                           15  22. UNC                                11
 23. Auburn                              8  24. Princeton                           5
 25. Minnesota                           4  25. Smu                                 4
 27. Utah                                2  28. Georgia Tech                        1

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