As was discussed in our women’s post yesterday, measuring the ‘eliteness’ of a college swim program is a difficult task. Many variables enter the equation that complicate things, as the number of conference titles a team wins or how many NCAA points they score in a given year may not paint the whole picture.
One useful way of determining the strength of a team is by looking at how many relays they have qualified for NCAAs, and separating them between the number of automatic standards they have the number of provisional standards.
When analyzing the women’s qualified relays yesterday, we found there was a total of 33 teams qualify at least one relay, with a third of those teams securing five automatic standards. The men had a few less teams qualify, with a total of 29, but have a total of 13 who qualified with five auto standards, two more than the women. Though there’s a little less quantity on the men’s side, having 13 of 29 qualified relay teams manage five auto standards indicates there’s a little less parity for the men.
After this year’s NCAA Championship meets, we’ll combine number of swimmers invited, number of relays qualified, and the actual NCAA standings, along with any others that we think are worthy, and come up with an overall final power rankings for the season. While the final NCAA championship scoring will be the one that goes into the record books, we hope that our final stat-based power ranking can help smooth-out the data to try and eliminate outlier data or anomalies to give a better view of the overall NCAA season.
BEST-OF-THE-BEST
Teams in this category qualified all 5 of their relays for the NCAA under the NCAA Automatic Qualifying Standard. These teams took no shortcuts on depth or provisional entries, and even without having to, were still good enough to earn automatic entries to NCAAs for all 5 relays.
13 teams fall into this category for the 2017 Men’s NCAA Championships:
|
ALL FIVE AUTO RELAY QUALIFICATIONS |
|
University of Florida |
|
University of California, Berkeley |
|
University of Southern California |
|
University of Alabama |
|
University of Texas at Austin |
|
North Carolina State University |
|
Ohio State University |
|
Indiana University, Bloomington |
|
Arizona State University |
|
University of Missouri, Columbia |
|
University of Notre Dame |
|
Auburn University |
|
University of Michigan |
GIVE THEM A LANE
There are six more teams who also qualified 5 NCAA relays, but didn’t qualify them all with automatic entry times. We feel that this is the one spot where it’s important to distinguish between the two, because while still challenging, NCAA provisional standards do provide more leeway. Still, these teams have a lane and a chance to score in all 5 relays, which is important.
Among these six teams, Stanford, Arizona, Minnesota and Louisville needed to only use one provisional standard for NCAAs.
|
ALL FIVE RELAYS QUALIFIED, NOT ALL AUTO |
|
Stanford University |
|
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities |
|
University of Arizona |
|
University of Tennessee, Knoxville |
|
University of Louisville |
|
Harvard University |
4 RELAYS ENTERED
Five teams qualified four relays for NCAAs. Three of Wisconsin’s four were automatic, while both Texas A&M and Georgia earned two auto and two provisional each. Florida State and Virginia each had just one auto.
|
FOUR RELAYS QUALIFIED |
|
Florida State University |
|
Texas A&M University, College Station |
|
University of Wisconsin, Madison |
|
University of Virginia |
|
University of Georgia |
3 RELAYS ENTERED
Only two programs, LSU and Virginia Tech, qualified three relays for NCAAs. It is an improvement for both, as last year VT qualified just one relay and LSU didn’t qualify any. Both made one automatic standard and two provisional.
|
THREE RELAYS QUALIFIED |
|
Louisiana State University |
|
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
2 RELAYS ENTERED
Denver and South Carolina come in with two relays entered, again both improving on last year. South Carolina only had one relay qualify in 2016, but have added an auto standard to the provisional they earned last year. Denver, like LSU, didn’t qualify any last year.
|
TWO RELAYS QUALIFIED |
|
University of Denver |
|
University of South Carolina |
1 RELAY ENTERED
North Carolina was the only team who qualified just one relay, though it turned out to be an automatic qualification in the 800 free. An incredible 18 of their 20 relay swims in 2016 have graduated, which is why they find themselves going from five relays qualified last season to just one this year.
|
ONE RELAY QUALIFIED |
|
University of North Carolina |
THE FULL RANKINGS
Below, see the team rankings based on number of relays eligible to swim at NCAAs, and then by number of relays with automatic times.
|
RANK |
TEAM |
RELAYS INVITED |
QS |
PS |
|
1 |
University of Southern California |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
Auburn University |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of California, Berkeley |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Florida |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Texas at Austin |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
North Carolina State University |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Alabama |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
Ohio State University |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
Indiana University, Bloomington |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
Arizona State University |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Missouri, Columbia |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Notre Dame |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
1 |
University of Michigan |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
14 |
Stanford University |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
14 |
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
14 |
University of Louisville |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
14 |
University of Arizona |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
18 |
Harvard University |
5 |
3 |
2 |
|
19 |
University of Tennessee, Knoxville |
5 |
2 |
3 |
|
20 |
University of Wisconsin, Madison |
4 |
3 |
1 |
|
21 |
Texas A&M University, College Station |
4 |
2 |
2 |
|
21 |
University of Georgia |
4 |
2 |
2 |
|
23 |
Florida State University |
4 |
1 |
3 |
|
23 |
University of Virginia |
4 |
1 |
3 |
|
25 |
Louisiana State University |
3 |
1 |
2 |
|
25 |
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
3 |
1 |
2 |
|
27 |
University of Denver |
2 |
1 |
1 |
|
27 |
University of South Carolina |
2 |
1 |
1 |
|
29 |
University of North Carolina |
1 |
1 |
0 |
Below are some useful links for the upcoming championships:
A great (alternative) definition of an elite program is making this list without a single swimmer on scholarship. Go Crimson!
If ya ain’t first, you’re not elite
i laughed at how not funny this was
I really hope Dressel can swim all four legs of Florida’s 400 medley this year
Would be interested when looking at relay strength you could take into consideration how many different swimmers are able to be switched out…for example Florida being able to take out Dressel in the morning and maybe not being able to qualify to 8. Versus Texas being able switch out Schooling and Conger in the morning. Obviously Texas is stronger in the relays based on that. Just a thought!
That’s an interesting thought.
Yes, Texas could conceivably swap out Schooling for Conger in the 200 medley if they want, but that’s like saying Florida could swap out Rooney for Dressel in the 800 free. It’s something that could happen, but why would you do it?
I would suggest that Texas has both the strongest relay position (they could put any one of possibly 5 guys in the fly spot and still have a comparable fly split to the best teams) and the weakest relay position (if Licon isn’t swimming breaststroke, they add around 3 seconds onto their 400 medley) between those two teams.
The more I look at permutations of this though, the more it seems like less of… Read more »
I think he meant have both Schooling and Conger sit out of the relays in the morning and still have a (mostly) guaranteed spot in the top 8. Basically that some teams have enough depth that they can swim 4 in the morning and have 2-4 different swimmers at night.
That was exactly what I meant, thanks!