27 Schools Qualify Relays for 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships

There are a lot of ways to measure success of collegiate swimming programs on a holistic level. From the overly-simplistic (points scored at NCAAs) to the complex (improvement curves and attrition rates), swimming is a sport made to analyze a team’s success.

One of my favorites, though, is looking at the number of relay qualifications that a school has.

To me, when a school starts to get 5 relays qualified for the NCAA Championships, it enters them into a special level of depth among NCAA teams. It means they need at least 5 really good swimmers, and more typically 7 or 8. It means they’re beginning to put together some level of depth and not just relying on a single star or two to carry them.

To get even a single relay qualified for the NCAA Championships is a huge turning point for a lot of programs.

Below is a chart of which teams have made which relays for the 2022 Women’s NCAA Division I Championships.

How Relays Qualify 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 in which they have a “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.

Some Observations:

• More signs of the year 1 turnaround for Ryan Wochomurka at Auburn: the Tigers had 0 relays qualify for last year’s NCAA Championship meet, and this year they have 5 qualified.
• The Florida State women also had no relays qualified last year, but this year they have three qualified.
• The Arizona State women are taking advantage of a little-used rule that allows them to enter “B” standard relays even without an “A” standard relay because they have four individual swimmers qualified. Jade Foelske was invited in the 200 fly, Erica Laning was invited in the 200/500/1650 frees, Lindsay Looney was invited in the 200 fly, and Emma Nordin was invited in the 200/500/1650 frees. All very good swimmers, but not a lot there that lends itself to relays. They do have a Provisional Standard in the 800 free relay, so they are eligible to race that event.
• The Kentucky women have really good swimmers in the stroke events, and they have some really good 200 freestylers, but they don’t have much in the way of sprint freestylers. That leaves the Wildcats in an odd position of having 3 “A” standard relays, and a 200 free relay that didn’t even hit the “B” standard. Every other team with at least 3 “A” standard relays was able to qualify at least 5 total relays.
• 27 schools qualified relays for the NCAA Championships this year. That’s a big jump from the 22 that qualified last year, though it’s still below the 30 that qualified for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 NCAA Championships. This is also the second-straight season where no mid-major programs qualified relays for the NCAA Championships, after two straight years where they did.

Qualifications: