{"id":128249,"date":"2015-03-22T04:25:44","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T11:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=128249"},"modified":"2016-02-22T15:06:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T22:06:16","slug":"womens-ncaa-division-i-championships-swimming-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/womens-ncaa-division-i-championships-swimming-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Women&#8217;s NCAA Division I Championships: \u201cThat\u2019s Why We Swim the Meet\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Editorial content for the NCAA Division I Championships is sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nikeswim.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nike Swim<\/a>. For full Swimming World coverage, check out our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/2015-ncaa-womens-di-swimming-and-diving-championships\/\" target=\"_blank\">coverage page<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Commentary by Jeff Commings<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Only three things were certain for this year\u2019s Women&#8217;s NCAA Division I Championships: Missy Franklin would bring her megawatt smile, P.A. announcer Sam Kendricks would continue to demonstrate why he\u2019s the best in the business and my predictions for the top 10 places would not hold up by meet\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<p>What is never certain is the outcome of the team race. That was evident after the first day of prelims, when Georgia made a big statement. But California responded well in the remaining five sessions to earn the victory, while Stanford simply could not match the depth California and Georgia had this year. While I am proud of correctly predicting the top three, I\u2019m even prouder of teams such as Louisville, Virginia and Texas for stepping up their games and swimming much better than I \u2013 and even they, for that matter \u2013 believed was possible. If the meet had turned out as many had predicted, the Louisville Cardinals would have had a so-so meet, the Longhorns would have been just another top-ten team and the Virginia Cavaliers would have pretty much just been happy with one win from Leah Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Southern California was quietly having a great meet, which could not have been easy with the absence of vital performer Jasmine Tosky, who retired from the sport halfway through the Pac 12 championships three weeks ago. She was sorely missed on relays, where she would have helped the Trojans place much higher in a couple of races.<\/p>\n<p>Below are my predictions for the top 10 performances, with the actual rankings following.<\/p>\n[table \u201c\u201d not found \/]<br \/>\n\n<p><strong>Talking points:<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2022 Minnesota showed why relays are vital at the NCAA championships. The Gophers only scored in two of the relays (ninth in 400 free relay and 16th in 800 free relay), which didn\u2019t help back up the superb swimming going on for the team in individual events. Brooke Zeiger didn\u2019t perform as well as I thought she would in her first NCAA championships, not scoring in the 200 back and \u201conly\u201d finishing fifth in the 400 IM. Kierra Smith winning the 200 breast was the major highlight for Minnesota, and though she is now done with her collegiate career, she\u2019ll likely give Minnesota momentum to get back into the top 10 next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Virginia had the best meet of any team outside of the top three. In his second season with the Cavaliers, Augie Busch has molded a team that relied on more than stars Courtney Bartholomew and Leah Smith. Though having those stalwarts helped a great deal (especially in the 400 medley relay), it was the efforts of Laura Simon (top four in both breaststrokes) that helped Virginia turn some heads. Butterflyer Ellen Williamson is the only scorer not to return next year, so look for Virginia to hold its first team trophy next year. But which spot in the top four will it be?<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 California will not have Missy Franklin next year. Stanford will have Katie Ledecky next year. Transfer the 60 points that Franklin scored in individual events to Stanford (Ledecky is almost assured of three wins) and the 2016 team title will be a bit closer. Georgia is the wild card. If they perform as well in 2016 as they were expected to do in 2015, it\u2019s going to be an exciting meet next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editorial content for the NCAA Division I Championships is sponsored by Nike Swim. For full Swimming World coverage, check out our coverage page. Commentary by Jeff Commings Only three things<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[56870,24700,25522,25514,25203,25031,25511,25513,25136,28241,2542],"class_list":["post-128249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-2015-womens-ncaa-division-i-championships","tag-brooke-zeiger","tag-courtney-bartholomew","tag-ellen-williamson","tag-jasmine-tosky","tag-katie-ledecky","tag-laura-simon","tag-leah-smith","tag-missy-franklin","tag-sam-kendricks","tag-the-ncaa-division-i-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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