Fishback Breaks Down Scenarios; Michigan Looks Comfortable Headed Into Final Day

by SwimSwam 5

March 29th, 2013 College, News

University of Arizona economist Price V. Fishback just-so-happens to have a passion for swimming. In fact, he himself is a former college swimmer, and was the “Sam Kendicks” of the 1990’s, travelling all over the world calling swim meets.

The last two weeks, he’s been doing a great job of making some by-the-numbers predictions throughout both the men’s and women’s NCAA Championship meets. Check out below as he runs through the meet as it sits now, and some scenarios for the meet’s final outcome.

Leaders after Friday

Michigan 336
Cal           301.5
Arizona 234.5
Southern Cal 212
Florida 196.5
Texas 192
Stanford  169
Auburn 167.5
Indiana 151
Georgia 106

The predictions below are ranked by the predicted final score on Saturday night.  It is composed of the score at the end of Friday’s session (including diving) plus the psych sheet predictions for Saturday (no diving).

The Final finish at the top if everybody swims to seed tomorrow with no diving points will be:

Michigan 462
California 375.5

Michigan has fallen off by -48 points relative to the psych sheet on the first two days, while Cal is up 85.5 relative to the psych sheet after two days.  If the trends continue, Michigan will fall back another 20-25 points and California will rise by 40-45, which would close the gap to:

Michigan 437-442
California  415.5-420.5

Neither team has divers, so it will all come down to the swimming.

The battle for third and fourth is a tight one.  If they swim to seed tomorrow the next grouping will end up:

Florida 308.5
Arizona 299.5
Southern Cal 285
Auburn 254.5
Texas 248
Stanford 248

But the psych sheet is missing key trends. Among this group the big gainers relative to the psych sheet have been:

Texas  97     (swimming 86 diving 11)
Arizona 76.5  (73.5 swimming and 3 diving points)
Stanford 63 (20 swimming   43 are diving points)
Southern Cal 26
Florida 12.5
Auburn is down -14.5.

Stanford would have gained even more but lost both its medley relays, which likely would have been in the top 8.

Among this group, diving is as follows:

Arizona has a platform diver, Rafael Quintero, who was second on the platform at Zone E.

Stanford has three platform divers.  Kristian Ipsen won both the 1m and 3meter events here and won the Zone E platform.  Taylor Shisc was third in the Zone E platform event.

Texas has Will Chandler who has second at his zone meet.

While watching basketball and yearning for swimming, I got the crazed idea to start predicting how individual swimmers might move up.  The following is based on how swimmers have been swimming and moving up in earlier events and being optimistic that the teams don’t lose points on their top ranked swimmers.

Give Texas 18 extra points for Surhoff and Darmody in the 200 back,  6 extra  for Youngquist in the 100 free,  12 points for Chandler in the diving, and 4 extra points in the relay.   This totals an extra 40 points.

Give Florida an extra 10.

Give Arizona 8 points for Shepard, Miller, and Friedemann in the 200 back, 10 points for Mickelson and 6 points for Steel in the 200 breast, 7 points for Meyer in the 200 fly.  This comes to an extra 31 points for swimming and add 11 for Quintero in the platform.

Give Southern Cal 5 extra points for Quintero in the mile, 9 points for Colupaev in the 100 free, 5 points for Klarskov in 200 Breast.  This sums to 19 points.

Give Stanford 3 for Thomson in the 1650, Nolan 5 points in the 200 back, Swanston and Thomson 6 points in the 200 back,and Kremer 9 in the 200 fly. Add 23 to their total plus 31 in diving for a sum of 51.

Auburn does not seem to have much upward movement, so I will not add anything.

This leads to the following bold statements among this group:

Arizona 299.5+42= 341
Florida 308.5+10= 318.5
Southern Cal 285+19=304
Texas 248+40= 288
Stanford 248=299
Auburn 254.5

Indiana and Georgia seem to be pretty settled in at 9th and 10th.

There is a pretty tight battle from 11th through 15th between

NC state
Ohio State
Louisville
Missouri
Wisconsin
Penn State
Tennessee

TEAM

Final Score Day 2.

Saturday Score Psych Sheet

Predicted Final Score:  Friday total +Saturday Psych

Psych Predicted Final Score

Gain/ Loss Friday total relative to Psych Total

mi

336

126

462

510

-48

cal

301.5

74

375.5

290

85.5

fl

196.5

112

308.5

296

12.5

az

234.5

65

299.5

223

76.5

socal

212

73

285

259

26

au

167.5

87

254.5

269

-14.5

st

169

79

248

185

63

tx

192

56

248

151

97

in

151

48

199

203

-4

ga

106

28

134

129

5

ncs

54

35

89

95

-6

osu

66

15

81

101

-20

lou

44

33

77

59

18

mo

55

15

70

33

37

wi

48

17

65

56

9

psu

51

13

64

55

9

tn

36

23

59

113

-54

fsu

36

22

58

135

-77

mn

39

19

58

35

23

asu

46

3

49

3

46

tam

28

13

41

40

1

ncs

1

35

36

95

-59

duke

34

0

34

0

34

vt

32

1

33

49

-16

ky

30

0

30

0

30

ha

0

29

29

48

-19

va

13

13

26

35

-9

pu

19

1

20

21

-1

io

14

0

14

0

14

lsu

7

7

14

10

4

br

0

12

12

28

-16

dart

0

12

12

15

-3

emich

0

12

12

12

0

unlv

12

0

12

6

6

nc

0

11

11

23

-12

socar

4

7

11

19

-8

pr

0

10

10

10

0

msu

7

2

9

11

-2

smu

0

9

9

19

-10

ut

6

2

8

2

6

al

6

0

6

1

5

nd

2

1

3

12

-9

wy

1

0

1

4

-3

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StuartC
10 years ago

Anybody know why the Harvard men are not swimming any of their individual events and also skipped some relays. Every event they qualified in their lanes are empty?

10 years ago

Louisville could be on a better place for 11th if de Lucca swam the relay like the 200 free..

Michigan_Fan
10 years ago

The Psych sheet doesn’t even have Cal in the top 16 for the 400 Free relay… did you take that into account? I don’t see them being lower than 5th. That is major points… this is going to be a very close meet coming down to the last relay.

CoachNerd
Reply to  Michigan_Fan
10 years ago

It’s going to be awesome. Can’t wait 🙂

James P
Reply to  Michigan_Fan
10 years ago

I really don’t see it being particularly close. Say Cal is 5th in that relay and Michigan is 2nd or 3rd. That’s still a pickup for Michigan. And Michigan is all but assured of picking up big points in the 1650, with 3 guys in the seeded final heat to Cal’s zero. Michigan also is going to pick up points in the 100 free, perhaps significant points. That just leaves the three 200 yard stroke events to erase what is likely a 50-60+ point gap. Are we expecting Cal to be 2 and 3 up in each of those races, and Michigan to have nobody scoring? Sure, 200 back will be a pick one for Cal. But Funk is better… Read more »