2024 BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP
- Dates: Tuesday, February 27 – Saturday, March 2
- Location: The Aquatic Center at Mylan Park, Morgantown, WV
- Defending champions (men): Texas (27x)
- Defending champions (women): Texas (11x)
- Live Results
- Live Video
- Championship Central
- Teams: BYU, Cincinnati, Houston (women), Iowa State (women), Kansas (women), Texas, Texas Christian, West Virginia
Earlier this week, we reported that Carson Foster would not be competing at this week’s Big 12 Championships, in spite of a cryptic Instagram post that led many to believe he would.
In more surprising news, his older brother Jake Foster, who has made a single dual meet appearance for the Longhorns this season, will also not be competing at the Big 12 Championships according to entries published on Meet Mobile.
Jake Foster, a 5th year senior, was supposed to be done with his Texas Longhorn career too, initially opting to skip his 5th year of eligibility to focus on Olympic training before matriculating to medical school. Then he showed up at a dual meet in January and swam an NCAA season-leading time.
He swam a pair of dual meets, against NC State (three events) and against Duke (one event). In hindsight, it’s now clear what his goal was: he locked up an NCAA Invite in the 100 breaststroke (51.22), and swam NCAA “B” cuts in the 200 IM (1:45.46) and 200 breast (1:53.05), which allows him to swim those as bonus races at the NCAA Championships.
We’ve seen other ‘limited competition’ schedules at the top end of men’s college swimming before, often in Olympic years. Like in the 2020-2021 season (which was also the COVID-19 year), Hugo Gonzalez swam one two-day dual meet against USC, the Pac-12 Championships, and the NCAA Championships.
Foster, though, will apparently not even swim the conference meet, instead returning to training shortly after his appearance at the World Championships two weeks ago.
There, he finished 9th in the 100 breaststroke (59.48) and 4th in the 200 breaststroke (2:09.31) in long course meters.
While Texas has hosted most of the Big 12 Championships meets since Missouri and Texas A&M left in 2013, this year’s meet is at West Virginia, meaning that travel days would interrupt training.
Luke Hobson, who also swam for Texas at the World Championships, is likewise skipping out on this year’s Big 12 Championship meet, though he has raced most of the season for the Longhorns.
I am going to be interested to see at NCAA’s how the swimmers that are skipping conference champs do in comparison to those that do not. Might be a fun idea for an article if there is enough data to make it worthwhile
Do any of Foster/Hobson’s times from Worlds convert and be eligible for NCAA cuts?
I’m not going to do all the math, but there are conversions for LCM times. I have no idea if international competition is valid for NCAA qualification. My instinct says it would be need to be a domestic meet, which is very stupid and NCAA-like.
https://swimswam.com/ncaa-releases-2024-championship-standards-long-course-conversion-formula/
The 2024 World Championships (and 2023 Pan American Games) were both approved for NCAA qualifying this year. It’s fairly common to allow one big international short course meters meet every year to count.
But I’d love to know more about why you think that it’s stupid for the NCAA to focus on NCAA meets for NCAA Championship qualifying. Can you imagine the nightmare it would be administratively for them to just allow any meet anywhere in the world to count?
They used to do NCAA’s in SCM in Olympic years I assume to stop this from happening where a bunch of swimmers skip the entire college season in an Olympic year. I think the last time they did it was ‘04?
Their LCM times adjusted per the conversion factors are not faster than what they have already been SCY. Which is insane of course
Why is that insane? I’m not saying it isn’t be it would be nice to hear your explanation for how and why you have concluded that it is “…insane of course.”
Not insane maybe, but definitely another sign of bad conversions.
Despite my user name I’m not specifically a UT fan – it seems to me that any decisions of this sort that are made with the swimmer’s interest in mind are by definition reasonable. Olympic years are funky – so be it
Going all in to try to move from 8th seed at NCAA to 7th
The fosters are not saving texas from their inevitable failure
Smart. I hope he makes the team in the 200BR this summer. What are the current rankings of USA swimmers in that event?
I think he’s got a good chance in the 100 as well. After Fink, it’s a lottery.
Unless MA somehow surfaces….
A bet on MA is a win for the house.
2:07 Fallon
2:08 Foster, Matheny, Fink
It’ll be interesting to see how TX approaches conference next year in the SEC. At this point, don’t they pretty much just use it as a taper meet for guys who still need to make NCAA cuts or times, and for guys who aren’t making the NCAA team with the ones that are already locks training through? It’ll be interesting to see if they invest in trying to win conference next year.
New conference AND a new coach!
Hobson is also not on the psych sheets, went to Doha with Jake, and should have his invite secured with that 1:31.8 200 free in the NC state dual meet.
I am a fan of the cryptic messages. I’m here for the buzz!