Projecting the Cut-Line: 29 to Go, Plus 3 from 30, to 2016 Men’s NCAAs

Updated after our readers caught an error at 9:30 AM.

The invited cut-line for the 2016 men’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships has gotten a little more lenient than it was last season.

• See the pre-selection sheets here.

The NCAA doesn’t send out invitations based on “number of swimmers per event,” rather they invite a total number of individual competitors by taking the top swimmer in each event, then the 2nd, then the 3rd, until they’ve reached 235 total UNIQUE individual swimmers invited (plus 35 divers – which are chosen independently).

• Read the full selection criteria in this document.

By our math, the top 29 swimmers in each individual event goes through 232* swimmers, and with 235 individual swimmers selected to the meet, that leaves 3 spots for swimmers ranked 30th in their event.

Note: This includes two ties for 29th that aren’t obviously indicated on the pre-selection sheets: Kyle Darmody in the 100 free (who’s already selected anyway), and Yuri Samouilich of Hawaii, who’s tied for 29th in the 200 free.

Tie-Breaker

Among the 11 swimmers sitting on the 30th line, 4 swimmers have already qualified in other events and aren’t considered in this analysis. That leaves 7 swimmers to vie for those final 3 spots, and that tie is broken by taken each swimmer’s entry time and comparing it to the NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP MEET RECORD (not overall record) in that event. The times that are closest to that NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP MEET RECORD, by percentage, get selected.

That analysis is here:

By our math, that means that Ohio State’s Brayden Seal, Florida’s Blake Mandaniello, and Kentucky’s Kyle Higgins will all earn NCAA Invites, while Michigan’s Ian rainey, Ohio State’s Dustin Tynes, Duke’s James Peek, and Arizona’s Gage Crosby will all go to the alternate list.

Rainey has at least some opportunity for an invite, as there frequently are scratches after pre-selection sheets are released (we’ve already seen one on the women’s side, for example). Texas already has 17 swimmers entered, and while divers only count as one-half of a competitor, Texas already had at least two qualify through the first day of zone competition.

The List

Below, see a full list of athletes expected to earn invites to the 2016 NCAA Championships, sorted by team. Note that both Texas and North Carolina have a swimmer named Sam Lewis; this was the only double-name scenario we identified, though if we missed one, it would affect the analysis above.