2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- March 20-23, 2024
- Gabrielsen Natatorium, Athens, Georgia
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Official Psych Sheets (with cutlines)
- Invited swimmers by team (not including relay swimmers)
- Alternates list
- Eligible Relays
The 2024 Women’s NCAA Championships are just around the corner: psych sheets are out, the cut lines are official, and the eligible relays have been published. With the eligible relays official, we’re beginning to get a clearer picture of how the points race will play out in Athens, which we scored out based on the psych sheets.
25 schools have qualified relays for the meet, down four from last season. But before we get too far into the weeds, below is a quick refresher on how NCAA relay qualification works.
How to qualify relays for NCAAs:
- The simplest way to qualify relays for NCAAs is to hit the ‘A’ cut, formally known as the “Qualifying Standard” in a relay.
- Once a team has an ‘A’ standard relay, they can also enter all relays where they’ve earned the ‘B’ standard, formally known as a “Provisional Standard.”
- Teams with four individual swimmers qualified can swim relay events in which they have at least a ‘B’ standard and bring up to four uninvited relay swimmers.
- Relays are qualified “to the team”, not the individual swimmers so teams can take whichever swimmers they want to use on the relay.
- Teams must have at least one individual invite to send relays.
Relay qualification is important for a myriad of reasons. First and perhaps most obviously, the relays score double the points of an individual event. For schools aiming to finish highly in the team standings, it’s essential that the relays not only qualify and score, but score highly. That means that for schools that want to finish in the top 20, having all five relays qualified is crucial–it’s a challenge to make up the gap that missing out on a relay points.
But relays also matter for teams that aren’t aiming to hold a trophy at the end of the meet. Qualifying a relay to NCAAs is a benchmark of a program’s health. It means that at least four swimmers contribute to the program’s success, they aren’t only relying on one or two stars.
We saw this play out last year with LSU and Hawaii qualifying relays for NCAAs for the first time in a long time (decades in Hawaii’s case). Hawaii didn’t qualify relays this year but LSU did, showing that the vitality of their program went beyond Maggie MacNeil‘s history-making splits.
We checked in on relay qualification status after midseason invites, but things have changed since then, so here’s the state of play heading into next week’s championships.
Schools Qualified To Send 1+ Relay to 2023 NCAAs
Note: The table is organized by number of ‘A’ cuts, in descending order, then alphabetically.
| School | # of ‘A’ Cuts | # of ‘B’ Cuts | Total | A’ Cut Event(s) | B’ Cut Event(s) |
| California | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Florida | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Indiana | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Louisville | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Ohio State | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Tennessee | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Texas | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| USC | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Virginia | 5 | 0 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Auburn | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | 800 FR |
| Georgia | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR | 400 MR |
| Michigan | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR | 400 MR |
| NC State | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | 800 FR |
| Stanford | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR | 400 MR |
| Wisconsin | 4 | 1 | 5 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 400 MR | 200 MR |
| Alabama | 4 | 0 | 4 | 200 FR, 400 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | — |
| Texas A&M | 3 | 2 | 5 | 800 FR, 200 MR, 400 MR | 200 FR, 400 FR |
| Duke | 2 | 3 | 5 | 200 MR, 400 MR | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR |
| Virginia Tech | 2 | 1 | 3 | 200 FR, 400 FR | 800 FR |
| UNC | 1 | 4 | 5 | 200 MR | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 400 MR |
| Arizona State | 1 | 2 | 3 | 800 FR | 400 FR, 400 MR |
| Florida State | 1 | 2 | 3 | 200 MR | 400 FR, 400 MR |
| LSU | 1 | 1 | 2 | 400 FR | 200 FR |
| Princeton | 0 | 4 | 4 | — | 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 MR |
| South Carolina | 0 | 2 | 2 | — | 400 FR, 800 FR |
Possibly the biggest “winner” of all the schools is Wisconsin. Last year, they had to take advantage of the lesser-known rule about NCAA relay qualification that states that teams with four individual swimmers qualified can swim relays where they’ve earned a ‘B’ cut. Using that rule, they were eligible for three relays.
That was a surprising situation for the Badgers to find themselves in last season, one year after making a big turnaround and qualifying all their relays with ‘A’ standards. They’ve rebounded from that setback by qualifying all five relays, showing off the strides their freestyle group has made this season. They only missed the ‘A’ cut in one event, the 200 medley relay.
Including Wisconsin, five teams took advantage of the four-individual-swimmer rule in 2023. This year, like 2022, only two teams are eligible to use the rule: Princeton and South Carolina. Because of the rule, Princeton has four eligible relays while South Carolina has two.
Other schools that have made improvements from last season are Florida State and Texas A&M. Like Wisconsin, Florida State had to use the four-swimmer rule last season. They are no longer in that position, courtesy of their ‘A’ cut in the 200 medley relay. That ‘A’ cut also gives them swims in the 400 freestyle and 400 medley relay, giving them two more eligible relays than last season.
Texas A&M has 5 relays qualified this year (as they did last year) but they’ve swum two more ‘A’ cuts than 2023, which points to them potentially climbing the standings.
From a team standings perspective Florida, Tennessee, and USC have made significant jumps. These three teams are all projected to heavily outscore their 2023 relay totals.
| School | 2023 Actual Relay Points | 2024 Projected Relay Points |
| Florida | 96 | 154 |
| Tennessee | 82 | 140 |
| USC | 50 | 126 |
Florida has been making steady improvements in the relays since last season. It was a large part of why they won their 2023 SEC title. The arrival of Bella Sims and Isabel Ivey, along with returners Micayla Cronk and Olivia Peoples continuing to drop time has only continued their improvement trajectory. This year at SECs, they won four of the five relays and set two SEC records.
The Volunteers improved their projected points total by qualifying all five relays with ‘A’ cuts. In 2023, the Volunteers only had four eligible relays after they missed putting up a ‘B’ cut time in the 200 free relay. That hurt their relay points ceiling, but this year they’re projected to outscore themselves by 58 points which puts them in a stronger position to improve on their 8th place finish.
USC is in a similar position to Tennessee. They only qualified four relays last year and had three ‘A’ cuts. They swam five ‘A’ cuts this year, which automatically improves their projected points. For reference, in 2023 they were only projected to score 38 relay points.
On the flip side, there are several teams that have lost ground from a relay perspective. Of the top-10 hopeful teams, Stanford is the team that’s lost the most from 2023 actual vs. 2024 projected points, going from 150 points in 2023 to a projected 64 points this season. That was expected based on their rebuild this season and losing three major relay pieces. Ohio State is also projected to score 30 fewer relay points this season.
Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, UCLA, and Hawaii all missed qualifying relays after have eligible relays last season. Missouri, Arkansas, and UCLA all clocked at least one ‘B’ cut but did not swim an ‘A’ cut and don’t have enough swimmers qualified to have their relays eligible despite that.
Neither Kentucky nor Hawaii hit a ‘B’ cut this season.
Great synopsis
How common is it for schools to get in on the 4 qualified swimmers but no A cut method? I wasn’t aware of it until this year, and prior articles that talk about relay qualification don’t mention it, so I assume not that common, but from this article it looks like it happened at least three times in the last two years, so apparently not rare.
You might have 4 distance swimmers and/or IMers qualify for the meet, and then your sprinters can come and swim their B cut relays
If a team has B cut relays, can they swim the relays at NCAAs with 2 swimmers and 2 divers qualified? I know they would be able to bring swimmers to do the relays. I wasn’t sure if divers impact the number of invited competitors.