2024 Women’s Big Ten Champs: Huge Morning Has IU Primed to Expand Lead (Day 2 Up/Downs)

2024 WOMEN’S BIG TEN SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Feb. 21-24, 2024
• Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center
  • West Lafayette, Indiana
• Defending champions:
  • Women: Ohio State (4x)
• SCY (25 yards)
• Preview: Fan guide
• Championship central
• Schedule
• Live stream (B1G+)
• Live results
• Day 1 Finals Live Recap
• Day 2 Prelims Live Recap

With the first prelims session of the 2024 Women’s Big Ten Championships in the books, it’s time for our first edition of “up/downs” for the meet. Since the Big Ten scores out to 24th place, it’s actually an “up/mid/down” report for this meet. If you’re unfamiliar with our up/downs, here’s a quick explanation:

• “Up” = number of ‘A’ finalists for each team
• “Mid” = number of ‘B’ finalists for each team
• “Down” = number of ‘C’ finalists for each team

They’re presented in the format “up/mid/down”, which, for example, if a team had 2 ‘A’ finalists, 1 ‘B’ finalist, and 3 ‘C’ finalists in an event would be represented as “2/1/3”.

Now, before we get into the data from this morning’s prelims session, let’s quickly remind ourselves of the team scores heading into tonight’s finals session.

Team Scores After Day 1:

1. Indiana – 118
2. Ohio State – 116
3. Michigan – 112
4. Wisconsin – 106
5. Northwestern – 100
6. Minnesota – 96
7. Nebraska – 88
8. Purdue – 86
9. Illinois – 78
10. Iowa – 72
11. Rutgers – 64
12. Penn State – 34

Indiana holds a 2-point lead over Ohio State, while Michigan is sitting right there as well. Naturally, everything is going to be pretty bunched up right now, as the only events that have been scored so far are 2 relays. We’ll see a bit more separation by the end of tonight’s finals session, where we can expect the top 4 teams (Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin) to really start breaking away from the rest.

The numbers from this morning back that expectation up. First, let’s take a look at the “up/mid/downs” from each team during this morning’s prelims, which includes 1-meter diving.

As the data shows, Indiana is off to a terrific start at this meet. They’re leading in team scoring heading into tonight’s finals session and they had the best prelims this morning in terms of scoring potential for tonight. As the table shows, Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin each had fantastic mornings as well, all earning at least 12 finalists each.

Now, let’s take a look at the scored prelims session. Keep in mind, all this table represents is what the scoring would look like if the placement from this morning stayed exactly where it was tonight during finals. That won’t happen but it’s still a good exercise for getting an idea of what the projected scores will look like after tonight’s session.

SCORED PRELIMS BY EVENT

One small thing to note. For diving, there is no ‘C’ final at this meet, but the events are still scored out to 24th. That means that those who finished 17th-24th in prelims this morning are locked into those places and there will be no movement.

Here is a look at the scored prelims totals for the session for each team.

SCORED PRELIMS TOTAL

Once again, the scoring looks great for Indiana, who not only leads in the scored prelims but also has a ton of potential to move up from the prelims positions, as opposed to Ohio State, which finds themselves largely in the opposite position. What I mean by that is Ohio State had a lot of athletes finish 1st, 9th, and 17th in prelims this morning, which means that the best they can do in finals tonight is hold those positions, they can’t improve them, but they can fall further down from them. The Buckeyes had 2 1st place finishes this morning, 2 9ths, and 3 17ths, while Indiana, on the other hand, had a single 1st and 1 17th. Moreover, the Hoosiers had 2 athletes finish 8th in this mornings prelims, meaning the worst they can do is hold steady, while Ohio State had no one come in 8th, 16th, or 24th.

All that is to say that it’s more likely Indiana outperforms their scored prelims tonight than Ohio State does, simply because it’ll be far more difficult for the Buckeyes to do so due to their positioning this morning. For what it’s worth, Michigan benefits from the same thing tonight. The Wolverines went 6-7-8 in the 200 IM this morning, which means the absolute worst they could do in finals tonight is 6-7-8 again, barring something unforeseen like a DQ, of course. Michigan also had an 8th this morning in the 50 free, so there are a few areas where they could really have significant point swings tonight.

Finally, let’s take a look at this morning’s scored prelims added into the actual scores from last night, which will give us an idea of what the scores will look like after tonight based on where things stand now. Keep in mind, there is also a relay tonight, which isn’t being accounted for in these projections.

SCORED PRELIMS PLUS DAY 1 ACTUAL

Once again, it’s similar to the rest of the data. We can see Indiana is likely to still be holding the lead following tonight. That being said, it’s likely Ohio State takes the lead at some point in the session, then Indiana reclaims it once diving concludes. We can also see the top 4 beginning to separate from the rest of the teams, while Minnesota will probably firmly plant themselves in 5th.