{"id":245037,"date":"2017-03-07T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=245037"},"modified":"2017-04-04T15:20:42","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T22:20:42","slug":"morning-splash-special-did-the-ncaa-swimming-bubble-burst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/morning-splash-special-did-the-ncaa-swimming-bubble-burst\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Splash Special: Did the NCAA Swimming Bubble Burst?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Rieder.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s March, and in the American sports scene, that means a lot of talk about bubbles. No, not going underwater and blowing bubbles. This kind of bubble refers to an individual or team right on the edge of making it into the field for various college sports championships.<\/p>\n

In men\u2019s basketball, experts say this year\u2019s NCAA tournament bubble is unusually weak<\/a>, meaning that the last few teams earning at-large bids don\u2019t have a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as strong as what it normally takes to make the cut.<\/p>\n

In women\u2019s swimming, this season is quite the opposite.<\/p>\n

Last week, top Division I female swimmers across the country had their eyes glued to the internet, eagerly awaiting the release of the psych sheets for the NCAA championships. The handful at the top knew they\u2019d get into the meet safely, but for those who had swum right around the times that were invited to last year\u2019s NCAA championships\u2014the ones squarely on the bubble of getting in or being left out\u2014those waiting moments were some nervous ones.<\/p>\n

But when the pre-cut lists<\/a> came out, most of those women who thought they were on the bubble were in for some disappointing news\u2014and another chunk of swimmers who might have figured they were\u00a0safely qualified had a surprise in store. One day later, the release of the official psych sheet<\/a>\u00a0would only confirm those disappointments<\/p>\n

Since the cut-off line for the women’s NCAA championships usually falls somewhere between the places 38 through 41 on the pre-selection entry list, plenty of swimmers didn’t need to wait 24 hours for the\u00a0official psych sheet<\/a>.\u00a0Those lists would only confirm what was already inevitable.<\/p>\n

For the first time since 2009, the invited time was faster in all 13 individual events, and, in fact, the mark required to get to Indianapolis was the fastest in history for each event. Some of the drops were extraordinary. Check out the chart below.<\/p>\n

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The women's NCAA D1 Champs just keeps getting faster. Check out the times it takes to get invited to the meet over the last ten years. pic.twitter.com\/IG3E46hmQW<\/a><\/p>\n

— USA Swimming News (@USASwimmingNews) March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n