2020 NCAA D3 Psych Scoring Update: How Diving Will Affect the Team Battle

2020 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships

• March 18-21, 2020
• Greensboro, NC
• NCAA Meet Info

The 2020 NCAA Division III Championships are less than 2 weeks away, and the official psych sheets have now been updated to include diving qualifiers.

Unlike Division I, Division III does not sponsor a platform diving competition, meaning athletes can qualify on either 1-meter or 3-meter.

• View the OFFICIAL NCAA D3 PSYCH SHEETS here.

29 female and 24 male divers have qualified for the national championship after last week’s regional competitions. To qualify for a regional competition, divers must have achieved the qualifying standard at least once at a bona fide conference championship event or twice during any other bona fide competition.

The NCAA Division III diving selection procedure is as follows:

1. First place finishers from each board will be selected. If the same person finishes first on both boards, only one allocation will be used for that athlete, otherwise two of the allocated spots will be used.
2. Second place finishers from each board will be selected, again using two of the allocated spots unless the same person finishes second on both boards, or one/both of the athletes have already been selected, meaning only one or no allocations will be used.
3. This will continue with each finishing spot (third, fourth, fifth, etc.) until all the allocated spots have been assigned for each region.
4. If there is one allocation left and the next finishing spot has two divers who have not been selected, the committee will use the percentage to the DIII established qualification standard for each board to determine who will advance. The competitor who has the highest percentage will be invited to the meet, earning the final allocation in that region.

Below is a link to the regional results, along with diving psych sheet allocations and the full qualifiers list by region. Just as in swimming, diving also includes a set standard for regional qualification, followed by combining both scores from 1-meter and 3-meter to select qualifiers.

• View REGIONAL RESULTS via DiveMeets.com here.
• View the REGIONAL diving psych sheets and selection allocations here.
• View FULL D3 QUALIFIERS across all four regions here.

Seeded D3 Scores – Diving (1M + 3M)

*data utilized via DiveMeets.com. Diving rankings are based on performances from 2020 NCAA Diving Regional Championships. Note that unlike swimming, the measures of scoring in diving are more subjective, so comparisons across different meets becomes less significant, though at higher level competitions scoring will be more consistent.

On the men’s side, Emory’s lone diver Lucas Bumgarner had the highest score on both 1-meter and 3-meter at the regional meets. If Baumbarner were to successfully sweep both boards, that would be worth 40 points for the Eagles. Last season, he finished 2nd at the D3 championships on the 1-meter and 6th on the 3-meter.

MIT has the next-largest dive score seed with 31 points, including defending 3-meter national champion Jay Lang. Meanwhile, Denison (2) is seeded to receive minimal impact from diving while Kenyon has no qualified divers.

Switching to the women’s side, Chicago is seeded with 68 points, thanks to their four qualified divers. Amherst’s Lindsey Ruderman enters the 2020 NCAAs as the top diver on both boards from regionals, setting herself up for a second-straight potential 40-point sweep as a junior. MIT (53), Williams (31), and Tufts (11) all have scoring opportunities with their divers while Denison and Kenyon do not have top-16 divers.

Diving Impact on Seeded Team Scores

N/A: previously unranked with no swimming points

After adding in the seeded diving scores, most top-8 teams remained unchanged in the rankings. On the women’s side, Denison’s 120-point lead remains in tack with the addition of diving. However, Amherst’s additional 50 diving points from the psych sheets bumped them to 6th. MIT (7th) and Tufts (8th), who were ranked higher than Amherst before diving, now could face a battle for the top six. Similarly, Chicago also dropped four places to 10th place with adding in seeded diving scores.

Nazareth, on the other hand, drastically improved from 37th to 26th with the help of diving points. Similarly, SUNY-Cortland and Ithaca now enter the team rankings with diving.

On the men’s side, Denison’s 2 diving points boosts their total seeded score to 501 points, 80 points ahead of Kenyon. The rest of the top 8 all remain in place, with each team nearly equidistant from one another. While Rowan and Amherst fell out of top-10 contention from diving scores, UW-Eau Clare’s diving points bumped them from 20th to 15th place. In the same manner, CMS (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps) saw a 2-place improvement to 19th place with diving points included in their seeded team score.

Entering the team rankings with diving points include SUNY-Geneseo (24th), Ithaca (26th), SUNY-Oswego (33rd), Rochester (37th), and Westminster (38th).

Full Seeded Team Scores (With Diving)

• Read more on the SCORED SWIMMING PSYCH SHEETS here.

The Denison Big Red women (534) remain the heavy favorites for the 2020 team title. While the Emory women (414) still sit in 2nd, Kenyon (361) and Williams (346) are separated by 15 points on paper.

Behind 5th seed NYU (268) is a one-point separation between Amherst (225) and MIT (224) for 6th place. Tufts comes in as the #8 team with 194 seeded points, followed by Johns Hopkins (159) and Chicago (140).

On the men’s side, Denison (501) remains the top team by 80 points over rival Kenyon (421) for the 2020 team title. Emory (378), MIT (304), Chicago (269), Williams (221), and NYU (163) fill in the remaining top 7 teams.

Tufts (140), Johns Hopkins (132), Pomona-Pitzer (123), Rowan (117), Amherst (115), and Carnegie Mellon (114) are all in close contention for 8th, 9th, and 10th place.