2017 MEN’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 22 – Saturday, March 25
- IUPUI Natatorium – Indianapolis, IN
- Prelims 10AM/Finals 6PM (Eastern Time)
- Defending Champion: Texas (results)
- Championship Central
- Psych Sheet
- Live stream: Wednesday/Thursday Prelims & Finals, Friday/Saturday Prelims / Friday/Saturday finals on ESPN3
- Event Previews
- Live Results
Yesterday, we took at look at what it took to make it back to the championship and consolation finals this year compared to last year, and it was clear that this year was as substantially faster.
Unsurprisingly, the trend continued today, although some of the times weren’t quite as crazy as some may have expected. Here’s a look:
| 8th, 2017 | 8th, 2016 | 16th, 2017 | 16th, 2016 | Place 2017 | |
| 400 IM | 3:40.64 | 3:41.42 | 3:43.64 | 3:43.20 | 14th |
| 100 Fly | 45.47 | 45.66 | 45.87 | 46.16 | T-24th |
| 200 Free | 1:33.21 | 1:33.18 | 1:33.58 | 1:34.23 | 23rd |
| 100 Breast | 52.06 | 52.35 | 52.41 | 52.70 | 23rd |
| 100 Back | 45.27* | 45.77 | 45.87 | 46.10 | 17th |
| 200 Med Relay | 1:23.97 | 1:24.79 | 1:25.11 | 1:26.12 | 24th |
*Two swimmers tied for 8th place with this time. Winning swim-off time was 45.21.
Perhaps the event that stands out the most is the 200 free. This event has seen a quantum leap forward over the past two years, and some fans were predicting that it could take a 1:31 to make the championship final today. In fact, only one man cracked the 1:32 barrier this morning, defending champion and US Open record holder Townley Haas of the Texas Longhorns.. Not only that, but, this was the only event this morning where the 8th place time was slower than last year, albeit only by 0.03 seconds. However, in a testament to how deep this event is getting, the time to make the consolation final jumped up by over a half a second.
The only other benchmark to be a bit slower this year was 16th place in the 400 IM. This year’s time of 3:43.64 was about four-tenths of a second slower than last year’s 16th place. Still, for a few minutes this morning, we thought that it might take a sub 3:40 to make the A-final, as guys like Robert Owens of Virginia Tech and Jonathan Roberts of Texas broke that barrier. As it turned out, seven of the eight A-finalists did indeed break 3:40, with Cal’s Andrew Seliskar being the only swimmer to go 3:40 and still make it back.
If you’d been watching the times teams were throwing down in the 200 medley relay this year you knew it was going to be a dogfight to get into the top eight, and sure enough it was. Seven of the top eight teams were under 1:24 this morning, with Texas’s 1:23.17 leading the way. Last year, only team cracked 1:24 in the morning, the Cal Bears. With relay depth getting so crazy, even the top teams are finding it nearly impossible to rest anyone, or risk missing out on the A-final. Looking at the top eight, any changes tonight may be to sacrifice some points in order to keep top swimmers rested after using them in the morning to make the finals (as NC State has been known to do), as opposed to swapping in top swimmers after resting them this morning under the assumption that alternates would still be enough to make finals.
While some of tonight’s times may regress a little bit as swimmers expended all of their energy just to make finals, we will see the US Open record holders in four of the five individual events, so there’s a good chance we could see one or more of those records go down this evening.
