Can Anyone Outscore The Texas Men In Their Quadrathlon Competition?

The Texas men held their annual Quadrathlon competition on Friday, where the team’s top swimmers competed in a 4×50 on 8:00 with each 50 being a different stroke, and scored points in each event. Texas pro swimmer Shaine Casas won the Quadrathlon with 5,166 points, becoming the first person in the meet’s history to score over 5,000 points.

• Read more about the Texas Quadrathlon here.

Upon receiving the results from the Texas Quadrathlon, we asked ourselves: How many points could swimmers from other teams score in a Quadrathlon, and are any of them capable of beating out Casas’ point total? Luckily for us, we do have Quadrathlon results from other teams, as Indiana did one in September 2021 and Virginia did one in March 2022, right before NCAAs. However, neither team scored their results the way Texas did. So in this article, we decided to score out the times from the IU and UVA Quadrathlons using the Texas scoring system, and compare them to the scores of the Texas men.

We acknowledge that IU and UVA may have done their 50s on a different interval compared to Texas, so their times may not be 100% reflective of their true capabilities in a Texas-style Quadrathlon.

Before we get started with the comparisons, here’s a quick refresher on the Texas scoring system:

• For each 50 event, there is a time associated that is worth 1000 points. Every tenth of a second faster that a swimmer goes adds 10 points, whereas every tenth of a second slower will subtract 10 points. In the end, the swimmer with the highest point total after the 4×50 is declared the winner.
• The 1000-point times were set by Texas head coach Eddie Reese back in the 1980s and haven’t been changed since. Those times are 23.0 in the 50 fly, 24.0 in the 50 back, 28.0 in the 50 breast, and 21.5 in the 50 free.
• According to Texas assistant coach Wyatt Collins, very few swimmers have scored over 4,900 points before, and that anything above 4,600 points is considered “elite”.

Here were Texas’s results:

Indiana

• Full IU Results

Out of the top Indiana swimmers, only two of them were able to break 4,600: Gabriel Fantoni and Van Mathias, who scored 4,878 and 4,852 points respectively. Fantoni’s point total was largely boosted by a 20.85 50 fly and a 20.99 50 back, which accounted for 516 out of the 878 points that he added to his base 4,000. In fact, he joins Casas as the only two men in this hypothetical IU-UVA-UT showdown to break 21 seconds in both the 50 back and 50 fly. Mathias had a strong 19.80 50 free and 24.86 50 breast, with his 50 free time being the fastest out of all IU men and his 50 breast time being the second-fastest.

In addition, Brendan Burns, Luke Barr, and Rafael Miroslaw were all less than 50 points away from hitting 4,600.

Compared to Texas, Indiana was much weaker in breaststroke and freestyle. While Texas had six swimmers break 25 seconds in the 50 breast, Indiana only had two in their competition. In freestyle, Texas had three swimmers go under 20 seconds, whereas Indiana only had one.

Indiana’s Top Scorers:

Virginia

• Full UVA Results

Points-wise, Virginia performed better than Indiana in this hypothetical competition. This is not a surprise, considering that the Cavalier men are extremely sprint-heavy. Matt Brownstead had a very impressive showing, scoring 4,909 points to get over the elusive 4,900-point barrier. His 19.49 50 free time was the third-fastest amongst the UT, IU, and UVA swimmers, with only Matt King‘s 19.34 and Casas’ 19.3 being quicker.

Josh Fong, Jack Aikins, Matt King, and Justin Grender were all able to score over 4,600 points as well.

Similar to Indiana, Virginia was also weak in breaststroke compared to Texas, as they had two swimmers in their Quadrathlon break 25 seconds in the 50 breast compared to Texas’ six. However, their freestyle was stronger than Texas, as they had four swimmers under 20 seconds versus Texas’ three.

Virginia’s Top Scorers:

Total Rankings

After scoring both the Indiana and Virginia men, we decided to compile the Quadrathlon results from all three teams and make a top ten leaderboard. And while Texas still dominates, holding six of the top ten spots, Virginia and Indiana both got two of their swimmers into the top ten as well. That being said, we only know of three different schools who have done a Quadrathlon and shared their results to us. Hopefully this article will spark a chain reaction (just like the 75 with fins race videos), and we’ll get more schools participating in this challenge using the Texas-style scoring format. Maybe after that, we’ll get a variety of different schools in the top ten, and potentially someone challenging Shaine Casas‘ 5,166 point total.

SwimSwam’s Quadrathlon Top Ten Leaderboard:

1. Shaine Casas, Texas — 5,166 points
2. Carson Foster, Texas —4,993 points
3. Matt Brownstead, Virginia — 4,909 points
4. Caspar Corbeau, Texas — 4,896 points
5. Gabriel Fantoni, Indiana — 4,878 points
6. Van Mathias, Indiana — 4,852 points
7. Jake Foster, Texas — 4,845 points
8. Danny Krueger, Texas — 4,811 points
9. Will Licon, Texas — 4,760 points
10. Josh Fong, Virginia — 4,730 points

What About The Women?

Of course, we couldn’t end this article without highlighting what the Virginia women could have done in this Quadrathlon. And while the Texas scoring format was designed for male swimmers, elite female swimmers of today’s era are certainly capable of beating out the 1,000-point times set by Eddie Reese. The Texas women didn’t participate in this, but when looking at the results from the Indiana and Virginia women in their respective competitions, we discovered that Virginia’s Kate Douglass was the only female swimmer to not earn negative points in any 50 stroke event. In fact, she accumulated 4,201 total points, a feat that she accomplished in the midst of tapering for 2022 NCAAs—where she went on to break three American records in three strokes.

Gretchen Walsh also broke the 4,000 barrier, scoring 4,112 points, while her sister Alex Walsh was close with 3,969 points.

Considering that Douglass is the fastest woman ever in the 50 fly (relay split) and 50 free (flat start), is also an American record holder in a breaststroke event, and has the fastest recorded time in the women’s 100 IM, it’s reasonable to assume that she would probably be the highest female scorer in the history of this Texas-style Quadrathlon. That being said, anything can happen, and if there’s a woman out there who thinks they can beat Douglass’ point total, feel free to try (For example, Maggie MacNeil would probably be a strong candidate to do so).