Up/Downs: Women’s NCAA Day 1’s

At the intermission between prelims and finals of each day of the 2012 NCAA Championships, we will take a look at how many swimmers the top teams have “up” and how many they have “down” for that evening’s finals session. This is a rubric that coaches in team meets use as sort of an indicator of how their team is stacking up in a prelims/finals meet. For those unfamiliar with the lexicon, “up” refers to a swimmer qualifying for the A-final, and “down” refers to a swimmer qualifying for the B-final. The distinction is key, given that even record-breaking swims from the B-final can only score 9th-place points, and the worst (legal) swim in the A-final can only fall as far as 8th.

The reason why coaches stay more vague between prelims and finals is because different teams and swimmers will approach morning races differently – some swimming fast, some doing just enough to final.

Interestingly, none of the top teams fared very well in the sprint free – though they have plenty of great sprinters who just aren’t in that event individually. Generally speaking, if a team has more up/downs than they were seeded to in an event, a coach is happy.

The number in parenthesis is where they were seeded in the race.