Swimswam has partnered with Swimulator to expand our college swimming coverage. Swimulator has tools for predicting conference and national meets, simulating hypothetical dual meets, and ranking programs. It was created by Kevin Hallman and myself, Andrew Mering (though I’ll admit, Kevin did more work).
SwimSwam will continue to produce its more subjective power rankings, but Swimulator will provide more objective opportunities to develop statistically-based rankings, and enhance our journalists’ decision-making tools when putting together our subjective power rankings.
Some examples:
What would happen if the 2016 Texas men dueled the 2014 Cal men? (Texas 135 Cal 123)
What would women’s nationals look like last year with only times December 31st and earlier? (Georgia still wins)
What would happen if the D2 champion dueled the D3 champion? (Men: Queens 175 Dennison 82, Women: Queens 159 Emory 99)
The conference and national predictions are based on current season times, so for this season they won’t become accurate until later in the season when more times have been posted. However, it is possible to rank teams based on the quality of their returning swimmers. Swimulator has a ranking of the top 25 teams based on returning swimmers. Each team was given an optimized line up of returning swimmers (obeying roster/event limits and assigning swimmers to their best events), and after accounting for expected improvement, a power point score based on their times. The teams were ranked on their overall power points. This isn’t a prediction of how teams will stack up at the end of the year as it doesn’t include freshmen (ex. Katie Ledecky of Stanford), transfers (ex. Cierra Runge of Wisconsin), swimmers who didn’t compete last year (ex. Simone Manuel of Stanford) or divers (dives aren’t in swimulator’s database).
For more detailed rankings check here (including simulated conference win percentage and dual and invite power scores):
https://swimulator.herokuapp.com/preseason
Swimulator Returning Swimmer Rankings
| D1 Men | D1 Women | D2 Men | D2 Women | D3 Men | D3 Women | |
| 1 | Texas | California | Lindenwood | Queens (NC) | Kenyon | Emory |
| 2 | California | Stanford | Queens (NC) | Wingate | Denison | Kenyon |
| 3 | NC State | Virginia | Nova S’eastern | Colorado Mesa | Emory | Denison |
| 4 | Michigan | Georgia | Tampa | Drury | Johns Hopkins | Williams |
| 5 | Florida | Southern Cali | Delta State | West Florida | MIT | NYU |
| 6 | Stanford | Texas A&M | Drury | Grand Valley | NYU | Wash U. MO |
| 7 | Auburn | NC State | Florida Southern | NMU | Williams | MIT |
| 8 | Georgia | Tennessee | Colorado Mesa | Lindenwood | Wash U. MO | Wheaton IL |
| 9 | Indiana | Indiana | Saint Rose | Hillsdale | Chicago | Chicago |
| 10 | Southern Cali | Texas | Clarion | Wayne State | Claremont MS | Calvin |
| 11 | Arizona | Michigan | St. Cloud State | Nova S’eastern | Rowan | St. Thomas |
| 12 | Louisville | Arizona | UCSD | Florida Southern | TCNJ | Amherst |
| 13 | Ohio St | Louisville | Lewis | Cal Baptist | Calvin | Pomona-Pitzer |
| 14 | Alabama | Missouri | Truman St. | Kutztown | Stevens | UWEC |
| 15 | Missouri | UNC | Saginaw Valley | Bentley | Amherst | Johns Hopkins |
| 16 | Tennessee | Auburn | West Chester | Jewell | Pomona-Pitzer | UW-L |
| 17 | Princeton | Ohio St | Bentley | Southern Conn | Tufts | Connecticut |
| 18 | UNC | Florida | Jewell | Northern State | UW-Stevens Point | IWU |
| 19 | Wisconsin | UCLA | Indy | WSCU | St. Thomas | Gustavus |
| 20 | Penn | Boise St | Southern Conn | Carson-Newman | DePauw | DePauw |
| 21 | Harvard | Minnesota | IUP | Simon Fraser | Worcester Poly | Keene St. |
| 22 | Notre Dame | Virginia Tech | Florida Tech | Saginaw Valley | Wheaton IL | W&L |
| 23 | Arizona St | Kentucky | Limestone | Assumption | Connecticut | Springfield |
| 24 | Denver | LSU | Mines | Delta State | Carthage | Bates |
| 25 | Virginia | Wisconsin | Bloomsburg | Mines | Whitworth | Mary Washington |
AB
Wow! This is awesome! Team analysis lives on.
Does it include divers also? If not, can they be added as well?
It doesn’t seem to include the mile
The inclusion of the mile depends on context. Most dual meets don’t swim the mile, so dual meets sims don’t include it. Instead they use the 1000. If you look at invite simulations like the nationals sim, the mile is included.
Your swimulator is incredible. The UOP results from the UNLV invitational are not yet in. The NCAA stats for that meet are now in. The MPSF calculations will be a lot more fun when UOP is included. Thanks for this wonderful toy!!!
No divers. It’s much harder to find comprehensive diving results than swimming results. Plus more subjective judging makes comparing scores from different meets and environments more difficult. I agree that divers would be a welcome inclusion.