2023 SECs Day 4 Ups/Mids/Downs: Kentucky Women Pushing Tennessee For Second

2023 SEC SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, February 14 – Saturday, February 18, 2023
• Rec Center Natatorium, College Station, TX.
• Defending Champions:
  • Women: Tennessee (1x)
  • Men: Florida (10x)
• Championship Central
• Women’s Fan Guide
• Men’s Fan Guide
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Video
• Day 4 Prelims Live Recap

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, swimmers qualify for one of three finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final and places 17 through 24 the C 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 of any heat in the final.

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

TEAM SCORES THRU DAY 3

WOMEN

1. Florida – 760
2. Tennessee – 483
3. Kentucky – 452
4. LSU – 439
5. Georgia – 391
6. South Carolina – 385
7. Alabama – 364
8. Auburn – 326
9. Texas A&M – 319
10. Arkansas – 245
11. Missouri – 217
12. Vanderbilt – 94

MEN

1. Florida – 810.5
2. Texas A&M – 628
3. Auburn – 560
4. Tennessee – 537
5. Georgia – 424.5
6. Alabama – 354
7. Missouri – 297.5
8. South Carolina – 270.5
9. Kentucky – 266
10. LSU – 177

With just three events on the schedule for Friday morning’s prelim session at SECs, there was no clear dominant team on either side in terms of scoring, especially so for women.

Six different schools put three swimmers up into an ‘A’ final, with Arkansas surprisingly emerging with the most second swims among those teams with nine.

However, it was actually Kentucky, with just one ‘A’ finalist in the form of Izzy Gati in the 200 fly (she was also eighth), who project to score the most points based on the prelim results, thanks to putting seven women into consolation finals and three more into ‘C’ finals for a total of 11 second swims.

That result projects the Wildcats to come within one point of Tennessee in the battle for second, while with no Maggie MacNeil this morning, LSU projects to drop down one spot to fifth.

The Tigers came out of Thursday night trailing Kentucky by just 13 points for third, but are projected to be outscored by the Wildcats by 88.5 points in today’s three individual events (not accounting for diving or tonight’s 400 medley relay).

DAY 4 UPS/MIDS/DOWNS – WOMEN

Credit to Andrew Mering for running the numbers.

SCORED PRELIMS — WOMEN

SCORED PRELIM + ACTUAL — WOMEN

It’s been all Florida all meet thus far on the men’s side and that was the case once again, as the Gators claimed the top seed in all three events and went 1-2-4 in the 100 breast.

Auburn had just two ‘A’ finalists but 10 total second swims to rank them second in terms of scored prelims, pushing them past Texas A&M into second based on projections.

Mizzou went 4/4/4, putting them within striking distance of Alabama for sixth.

DAY 4 UPS/MIDS/DOWNS – MEN

Credit to Andrew Mering for running the numbers.

SCORED PRELIMS — MEN

SCORED PRELIM + ACTUAL — MEN