2021 M. NCAAs: Mixed Bag When Comparing Day 2 Prelims to Previous Years

2021 NCAA MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, March 24 – Saturday, March 27, 2021
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
• Prelims 10 AM/ Finals 6 PM (Local Time)
• Short course yards (SCY) format
• Defending champion: Cal (1x) – 2019 results
• Streaming:
• Championship Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results

While it’s been a very weird year in many senses, it’s still interesting to take a look at the times from NCAA prelims and see how they compare to the same events from previous years, especially in terms of what it takes to make the top 8 or top 16 and get a second swim.

And, unlike the women’s meet, where the time that placed 8th in prelims wouldn’t have even scored in recent years, it was actually tougher to score in the 500 free this morning that it was in 2018 or 2019.

Here’s a quick look at all of of the 8th and 16th place times this morning, as well as those times from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 meets:

While this wasn’t quite the fastest 500 free prelims ever, it was definitely a quicker field than we saw in 2018 or 2019. On one hand this isn’t too surprising — we’ve already seen a pair of 4:06s and a 4:08 this year. On the other hand, a lot of teams have had training interrupted due to various Covid protocols or restrictions, and the 500 free was notably slower on the women’s side than usual. Additionally, 16 out of 53 swimmers in the 500 free this morning dropped time from seed, whereas it was 4/52 on the women’s side last week. Georgia freshman Jake Magahey put up the fastest time of the morning with a 4:09.36, while top-seeded Kieran Smith, who like Magahey went 4:06 in this event last month, holds the #3 seed with his 4:11.03.

The 200 IM was remarkably similar to 2017-2019 in terms of what it took to make each final. In fact, going back to 2017, there’s been less than a tenth of a second difference in what it took to make the A-final. Additionally, 18 out of 49 swimmer dropped time relative to seed, including 11 of the top 16. Cal freshman Destin Lasco had the fastest swim of the morning, dropping over five seconds off of seed to touch in 1:40.61, and Shaine Casas, who we expect to make a run at Caeleb Dressel’s all-time record tonight, touched 2nd in 1:40.74.

The real outlier this morning was the 50 free, where times were markedly slower than they were in 2017-2019, and 11 out of 50 swims were faster than the seed times. On the surface, this seems counterintuitive, since this season actually saw more sub-19s before NCAAs than ever before, and the 8th-fastest seed this year (19.03) was faster than the 8th-fastest seed in 2019 (19.14) and right in line with the 8th-fastest seed in 2018 (19.04). So, for whatever reason — teams going more “all in” for conference and not hitting the double taper, more top-end talent in the 500 free, some members of a freshman-heavy 50 free class having to adapt to their first NCAAs (including a DQ by Matt King, the #6 seed), or a lack of Cal/Texas swimmers in the event — the 50 free was the outlier this morning in what was otherwise a pretty fast morning. Of course, Cal’s Ryan Hoffer was still plenty fast, going 18.43 to break the pool record and moving to #2 all-time in the event.

We’ll keep an eye on the prelim times over the next two days and see if we can spot any more trends.