2024 Tennessee Invite
- November 19-22, 2024
- Knoxville, Tennessee
- Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center
- SCY (25 yards)
- Prelims: 9am Est/Finals: 6pm EST
- 2025 NCAA Championship Standards
- Psych Sheets
- Live Stream
- Day 1 Finals Live Recap
Jordan Crooks started the first midseason meet with a bang in the 200 freestyle. Crooks led off the Tennessee men’s 800 freestyle relay with a blistering 1:30.00. He is currently the number 8 performer all time, but you could write a book with all of the places this time is #1. Fastest he has ever been. Fastest Vol in history (beating his own record of 1:30.41 from NCAAs). Fastest swimmer this year. Fastest midseason 200 freestyler ever.
Let’s start with the personal best time. At this meet last year, he went a 1:32.07 leading off the same relay. At the time, this was a two second drop from his previous best time, also leading off the 800 free relay at the Tennessee invite of 1:34.30. He dropped more time at SECs where he swam the event individually and went 1:31.45 and 1:31.17 in prelims and finals respectively. Finally in prelims at NCAAs he went his best time until this evening at 1:30.41. This means in about 3 months, Crooks dropped a second and a half after previously being known as pretty-exclusively a drop dead sprinter.
Here are his splits from NCAAs and from tonight:
| 2024 NCAAs | 2024 Tennessee Invite |
| 20.64 | 20.48 |
| 43.56 (22.92) | 43.22 (22.74) |
| 1:06.82 (23.26) | 1:06.42 (23.20) |
| 1:30.41 (23.59) | 1:30.00 (23.58) |
What about the fact that this is at a midseason meet? Is Crooks the fastest midseason 200 freestyler ever? Yes. Here are the top 6 midseason times in history:
- 1:30.00- Jordan Crooks: 2024 Tennessee Invite
- 1:30.57- Drew Kibler: 2020 Texas Hall of Fame Invite
- 1:30.83- Drew Kibler: 2019 Minnesota Invite
- 1:30.86 Andrew Seliskar: 2018 UGA Fall Invite
- 1:31.10- Drew Kibler: 2020 Texas First Chance Qualifier (October)
- 1:31.30- Charlie Hawke: 2023 Tennessee Invite
Crooks’ time this evening is more than 5 tenths faster than the next fastest time at mid-season. Drew Kibler is on the list 3 times though, which makes the list look especially fast. Here are the top 6 performers in history:
- 1:30.00- Jordan Crooks: 2024 Tennessee Invite
- 1:30.57- Drew Kibler: 2020 Texas Hall of Fame Invite
- 1:30.86- Andrew Seliskar: 2018 UGA Fall Invite
- 1:31.30- Charlie Hawke: 2023 Tennessee Invite
- 1:31.65- Joao de Luca: 2013 Winter Nationals
- 1:31.73- Grant House: 2021 NC State Invite
Only two other people have ever been 1:30 at this point in the season, which just makes Crooks’ time that much more impressive. It does leave the world of swimming with a lot of questions. Is he next to go under 1:30? How will Luke Hobson respond at the Texas Invite later this week? Can we expect another half second drop in March? One thing is certain, however. It is only November, and only the first day of the meet. There is a lot more swimming in store, and if tonight is any indication, it is going to be exciting.
Is the math not mathing for anyone else when looking at the 2024 Tennessee invite splits? Either the second 50 split is off or the cumulative 100 split time is…
Sorry about that, fixed.
Nerd question: do you have a template to copy/paste times into, or when you publish do you usually have to type them all out?
We type them out. We’ve experimented with templates and stuff, but because the format of results swings so wildly, it becomes more trouble than it’s worth. We only programmatically pull things if we’re doing something off big data as a one-off.
Talk about consistency. Check out his final 100 split compared to ncaa last year. Hell of a swim!
Is he going to Budapest?
Him.
Big swim for Gui and Blackman too.
I forgot just how versatile Andrew Seliskar was. Besides Marchand, I think he’s the most versatile male NCAA swimmer.
Definitely. What Marchand has become was what a lot of people thought seli would become coming out of high school. Though he impressively didn’t deviate too far from that
Spitz?
Dressel had NCAA records in 3 strokes + IM
I think this comes down to how you define “versatile.” Seliskar swam across more distances, 50 – 400, while Dressel was 50 – 200. I lean toward Dressel’s insane feat of holding the 100 fly, 100 breast, 100 free, and 200 IM, but there’s something inherently impressive about Seliskar’s range.
In the event where they meet, the 200 IM, their PBs are .01 apart, as well… which makes it a fun comparison.