Maxime Rooney to Swim 50 Free, 100 Free, and 100 Fly In His Final NCAAs

by Robert Gibbs 12

March 10th, 2020 Big 12, College, News

2020 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships

  • Wednesday, March 25 – Saturday, March 28, 2020
  • IU Natatorium, Indianapolis, IN
  • Prelims
  • Defending champs: Cal (1x) – results
  • Championship Central
  • Live Stream
  • Psych Sheets
  • Live results

Texas senior Maxime Rooney will be swim his 4th different lineup in 4 NCAA Championship campaigns later this month, going with a sprint-oriented lineup that will include the 50 free, the 100 fly, and the 100 free.

Rooney, who transfered from Florida last spring, will be swimming the 50 free at NCAAs for the first time. He’s brought his lifetime best down from a 19.41 to a 19.24 since he arrived at Texas, and is seeded 17th on the psych sheet, just outside of scoring range. Rooney will swim the 100 fly for the 2nd-straight NCAAs, after taking 4th in that event last year. The 100 free is the one event that has remained constant throughout Rooney’s college career; he’s yet to score at NCAAs in that event, but he’s definitely had the times for it, and he’s seeded 6th this year.

He won’t swim the 200 free, where his lifetime best of 1:31.96 from last fall would put him 4th on the psych sheet, or the 200 fly, where his lifetime/season bests of 1:40.87/1:40.94 would also project him for a top-8 finish. Rather than doubling up with one of those events and the 100 fly or 100 free, Rooney will swim the 50 free, presumably leaving him fresher for the Longhorns’ relays. He’s likely to swim on all three free relays, as well as one of the two medley relays.

Here’s a quick year-by-year look at Rooney’s NCAA lineup:

2019

  • 100 fly – 4th
  • 100 free – 18th
  • 200 fly – 39th

His seed times would’ve made A-final in the 100 free and the 200 fly, but that’s a tough double. He also swam on the 800 free relay, 200 free relay, 400 medley relay, and 400 free relay.

2018

  • 200 IM – 35th
  • 200 free – 21st
  • 100 free – 28th

1:32.97 seed time would’ve put him just outside of the A-final. Competed on the 800 free relay, 400 medley relay, and prelims of the 400 free relay.

2017

  • 500 free – 48th
  • 200 free – 6th
  • 100 free – 28th

Competed on the 800 free and 400 free relays.

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Daniel Jablonski
4 years ago

Mans boutta pull a Seliskar on us

Definitely Not Sun Yang
4 years ago

chomp chomp :((((((((

AuggieBuschFan
4 years ago

For someone as good as he is looking at these numbers i’d say he’s had quite an underwhelming career so far as an individual at NCAAs

Back2Back
Reply to  AuggieBuschFan
4 years ago

Me thinks that is about to change!

Jabroni Pepperoni
4 years ago

I wonder what relays he’ll be on. My guess is he’ll sit out the 200 medley in favor of the 8free. Texas has a lot of sprint depth that they could use his 200 talent on the 8fr relay.

Wow
Reply to  Robert Gibbs
4 years ago

I think he’ll be on both medleys. Jiang may be moved for backstroke on both medleys after his 44.9 at Big12s

Will 37
Reply to  Wow
4 years ago

I totally think this will be the case too. Eddie will probably switch swimmers from prelims to finals based on performance.

PsychoDad
4 years ago

What a great young man! I posted here several times before how much good attitude he brought to Texas sidelines and how much his teammates like to be around him. After meeting him last few days, that was only reinforced, to a great extend. I am sad our son will not be able to be his teammate and learn from him how to compete and be a great teammate. We are all huge fans of Maxime.

Horns up
Reply to  PsychoDad
4 years ago

You never know… a lot of Pro swimmers hang around after they graduate. John Shebat Wil Licon, Townley and Clark Smith have swim at Texas a lot this year.

Horninco
4 years ago

He’s due after only scoring 2 out of 9 events

N P
4 years ago

After the summer he had… I think this is going to be by far his best NCAA meet.

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