NCAA “A” Cut Update: 59 individuals qualified after December invites

All times are based on USA Swimming’s Event Rank database for NCAA Division I.

With the brunt of mid-season invitationals now wrapped up in the NCAA’s Division I, it’s time to take a look at how many swimmers have already punched their tickets to the NCAA Championships.

As of December 15th, 59 different swimmers have qualified individually – 32 women and 27 men.*

That’s just a tick behind the 65 athletes who had qualified by this time last year.

To qualify at this point, athletes must hit an NCAA “A” standard in at least one event. Any athlete who hits an “A” standard can swim that event at the national championships, plus any other events where they get to a “B” standard. You can find this year’s “A” and “B” cuts here.

Late this winter, after conference meet season, the official NCAA selections will be made. Any athlete who gets an “A” cut is automatically in, and then the NCAA invites the next fastest “B” cuts in each event until they hit their athlete cap – only 270 men are allowed in and 322 women.

That’s a bird’s eye view of what’s a somewhat complex invite process. To get a more in-depth look, you can read our refresher from last season here.

*Note: USC’s Cristian Quintero is officially listed with an “A” cut in the 200 free, based on a conversion of his short course meters time from Short Course Worlds. However, Quintero is not competing with USC until next semester, and any qualifying time he swims shouldn’t count until he officially becomes eligible. We’ve left him off our list unless we get confirmation that his qualifying time does indeed count.

Individuals

At this point, we can only speculate as to what kinds of “B” cut times will ultimately get invited, but we can tell who is for sure into the meet by tallying up “A” cuts. So far this year, we’ve got 32 women and 27 men under the cut in at least one event. You can check out the full list at the bottom of this post.

The California and Georgia women lead all programs with 5 individuals already qualified. Virginia sits at 3. On the men’s side, Texas and Georgia have each qualified 4, while Cal has 3 men in.

Relays

The relay process is similar. The NCAA has “Qualifying Standards” (essentially “A” cuts for relays) and “Provisional Standards” (somewhat like “B” cuts).

Any team that hits a qualifying standard in any of the 5 relay events is eligible to enter all 5 relays at NCAAs. The catch is that the team must qualify at least one individual for the meet as well.

Once a team has at least one relay “A” cut and one individual qualified, the team can bring up to 3 “relay-only” swimmers along to NCAAs to fill out the relay races.

So far, 15 women’s programs and 9 men’s programs have hit at least one qualifying standard. Each of these schools are very likely to get an individual into the NCAA Championships, but 2 women’s teams and 2 men’s teams have yet to have an individual make an A cut.

Here are the schools that have hit qualifying standards in a relay. We’ve italicized the programs that have to officially qualify an individual before they can swim at NCAAs:

Women:

Stanford: 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
California: 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
Texas: 200 free, 400 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
Virginia: 200 free, 800 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
Georgia: 200 free, 400 free, 400 medley
Florida: 200 free, 400 free
Missouri: 200 free, 400 medley
Auburn: 200 free, 200 medley
Texas A&M: 400 free, 400 medley
Southern Cal: 200 medley, 400 medley
Wisconsin: 200 free
Kentucky: 800 free
Indiana: 800 free
Florida State: 200 medley
Michigan: 400 medley

Men:

Georgia: 400 free, 800 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
Texas: 200 free, 400 free, 200 medley 400 medley
Louisville: 400 free, 800 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
California: 200 free, 200 medley, 400 medley
Auburn: 200 free, 400 free
Arizona: 200 free
Ohio State: 400 free
Missouri: 200 free
Stanford: 400 free

And, of course, here are the individuals who have already hit NCAA “A” cuts, plus the events they’ve qualified in. Swimmers don’t neccessarily have to enter all of these events at NCAAs, and swimmers qualified in more than three races will have to choose three individuals to swim at NCAAs.

Note: Events that have been converted from short course meters (as is allowable under NCAA rules) are marked with an asterisk.

Women:

Men: