2019 Men’s NCAA Championship: Day 2 Ups/Downs

2019 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, March 27 – Saturday, March 30
• Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, Austin, Texas
• Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (Central Time)
• Defending champion: Texas (4x) (2018 results)
• Psych Sheet
• Live Stream
• Live results

For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims at the NCAA National Championships, swimmers and divers qualify for one of two finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, and places 9 through 16, the B final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time, or score the most diving points, of any heat in the final.

With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups,” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, “Down” to swimmers in the B final.

With the first prelims session of the meet in the books, it’s time to look at how many swims for each team will be returning tonight to score points. The top take away from this morning: with projected points from prelims, Cal is projected to net gain +20.5 points versus the psych sheet against Texas today. Without diving included (where Texas will surely make up some ground), Cal is projected to be ahead by 97.5 points after tonight.

In the battle between Texas and Cal that is shaping (with IU still in the mix after overperforming versus the psych sheet a little as well this morning), both teams had some misses. Notably for Texas, Sam Pomajevich, who finished 6th in the 500 last year, came in 33rd this morning. Also, Alex Zettle was seeded 14th for the Longhorns but missed both finals. Drew Kibler also finished 9th in the 50, missing the A final by .03 seconds. Similarly for Cal, Trenton Julian came in 9th in the 500, missing the A final by .01 seconds. Zheng Quah came in 17th in the 200 IM, missing the B final by .08, and Nick Norman was 18th in the 500.

Moving on from the current top two teams, Harvard massively outperformed the psych sheet, returning two individual A finalists and one relay A final (their 2nd top 8 relay of the meet). The projections from this morning have the Crimson +48 points versus the psych sheet. Most the teams you’ll see in the middle of the the ups/downs report below were more or less right at their projections from the psych sheet.

The team that had the most (or the most consequential) misses this morning was Michigan. The Wolverines only managed to bring back one individual A finalist, two individual B finalists, and failed to get either relay back to finals tonight. The biggest miss for Michigan, and possibly the most shocking story coming out of this morning, was Felix Auboeck missing finals entirely in the 500 free. Auboeck is a 3-time Big Ten champion in the 500 and came in 2nd last year. With this morning’s projected scores, Michigan is -57 versus the psych sheet.

Here is the ups/downs report for Day 2. Keep in mind, this does not include diving.