2019 WOMEN’S B1G CHAMPIONSHIPS
- When: Wednesday, February 20th to Saturday, February 23rd | Prelims 11am | Finals 6:30pm (6pm Saturday)
- Where: Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatics Center, Bloomington, IN (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champion: Michigan Wolverines (3x) (results)
- Live Results
- Streaming: Big Ten Network
- Championship Central: here
FINAL TEAM SCORES
1. Indiana 1386.5 2. Michigan 1302.5 3. Ohio State 1162.5 4. Minnesota 942 5. Wisconsin 717 6. Purdue 596.5 7. Northwestern 490 8. Nebraska 428.5 9. Penn State 404 10. Iowa 400.5 11. Rutgers 392 12. Michigan State 192 13. Illinois 190
Indiana pulled off what I’ll label as a mini-upset at the Big Ten Championships, leading throughout the meet and beating Michigan. In our Big Ten preview, Michigan was picked as the slight favorite, but it was acknowledged that it was going to be a tight meet. In fact, leading up to the meet, the Swimulator was showing Michigan winning the meet by just 9.5 points. In the end, IU won by 84.
While its hard to pinpoint something specific that led to the Hoosiers claiming the crown, a good place to start is insane depth in specific events. IU scored 1100.5 individual points between swimming and diving. Now, hold on to your seats, because I’m going to hit you with some shocking numbers. Of those 1100.5 individual points, 509.5 came from just the 100 breast, 200 breast, 200 IM, and 400 IM. To further contextualize that mind-blowing number, it means that 46.3% of IU’s individual points came from just 4 of the 16 individual events.
Let’s take a deeper look at those 4 events. Here is the scoring breakdown of those events:
- 100 breast – 98.5
- 200 breast – 163
- 200 IM – 130
- 400 IM – 118
200 breast was far and away their top event, which was to be expected. 163 points means that from that one event, IU gained 14.81% of its total individual points. Additionally, IU was helped by some very heavy hitters in terms of individual scores. A whopping 12 swimmers scored 50+ individual points, with 7 of those swimmers scoring 60+ points. Here is the list of those 12 swimmers:
- Jessica Parratto – 91
- Lilly King – 90
- Bailey Andison – 83
- Morgan Scott – 73
- Christine Jensen – 62
- Josephine Grote/Mackenzie Looze – 60
- –
- Noelle Peplowski – 59
- Shelby Koontz – 57
- Christin Rockway – 55
- Laura Morley/Cassandra Jernberg – 53
Diver Jessica Parratto was the highest individual scorer, thanks to 2 event wins and a 3rd place finish. Lilly King was right behind, thanks to 2 event wins and a 4th place finish.
This also pokes a hole in the argument that college swimming is dominated by the sprints! It would be interesting to see the same analysis done on the SEC meet – I think you’d find a similar pattern.
This was probably the best coaching job Ray Looze, Mike Westphal have done! And let’s remember that this is only year 2 for coley stickels!
Great things happening in Bloomington!!! #GOHOOSIERS
I think it’s a question of conference vs. national meet. At conference meets, relays are relatively unimportant. A great relay team only outscores a good relay team by maybe 30 points on relays, on scale of 1000 points that’s very small. At NCAAs, a great relay team might outscore a good relay team by 40 points on a scale of 300-400 points. That’s much more significant.
I agree somewhat about the relays but a relay only scores double with 4 swimmers. Put 3 or 4 guys in the final in an event and you not only outscore a relay but stop the other teams from scoring. Like Texas in the fly a few years ago. Or reaching way back the Urbanchek Wolverines in the 400 IM, 500 Free and 1650 along with a couple of sprinters win NCAA’S.
It pokes a hole, but a small one. It’s much easier for relays to score at conference championships than at NCAAs. To win there, you have to have 4 top-8 sprint relays. We pulled it out here, but it doesn’t look like any of our free relays will score next month, which will make it difficult to stay in the top 10. Sprint depth is essential at NCAAs. But you’re right that IU just showed that you can win a conference meet without any sprint depth.
Interesting analysis. It suggests that developing a few specialties, focusing on a limited number of events to be really good at, may be a better approach than trying to be good at everything.