NCAA Releases 2016-2017 Division I Time Standards

The NCAA has released the time standards for the 2016-2017 NCAA Division I Championships. Both meets will be hosted at Indianapolis’ IUPUI Natatorium, with the women’s meet running from March 16th-18th and the men’s meet from March 23rd-25th.

The individual event standards represent more of a measuring stick of progress than anything that has a massive impact on the outcome of the NCAA Championships. While “A” cuts are indicative that a swimmer is a big contender in March, it would be very unusual for anything beyond the “top X swimmers per event” standard to impact who is actually going to the NCAA Championships.

Just like last year, the “B” standards have remained unchanged. While the “A” standards have gotten a bit faster in some places, there hasn’t been a significant move in those races, and in most cases on the women’s side they too have remained the same. That’s an indicator of a relatively slower NCAA qualifying meet last season than they year before, as compared to the men’s standards, which have changed more significantly (including the “A” standard in the 200 back dipping under 1:40, for example).

A brief refresher on how NCAA qualifying works (read the fuller explanation here):

  • Individual Events: In individual races, all swimmers with “A” standards automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships. Thereafter, swimmers are chosen event-by-event, lined up to an equal number across all events, until the maximum number of individual swimmers have been selected (235 for men, 281 for women).
  • Relay Events: All relays with the Qualifying Standard can swim at the NCAA Championships, provided they have 1 individual (swimmer or diver) invited to the meet as well. Once a team has a relay invited, they can swim any relay in which they have a provisional standard as well. Relays are qualified “to the team,” not to the individual swimmers, so teams can take whichever swimmers they want to participate in relays.

 

Men   Women
A Standard B Standard YARDS A Standard B Standard
19.09 20.19 50 free 21.80 22.99
42.25 44.29 100 free 47.69 49.99
1:32.97 1:37.99 200 free 1:43.63 1:47.99
4:13.22 4:24.99 500 free 4:36.30 4:47.79
14:44.43 15:30.39 1650 free 15:53.50 16:30.59
45.73 48.29 100 fly 51.49 54.49
1:41.86 1:47.99 200 fly 1:54.01 1:59.59
45.37 48.49 100 back 51.45 55.09
1:39.87 1:46.39 200 back 1:51.95 1:59.19
51.93 55.39 100 breast 59.04 1:02.49
1:52.99 1:59.79 200 breast 2:07.33 2:15.99
1:42.15 1:49.09 200 IM 1:55.35 2:01.59
3:40.76 3:54.49 400 IM 4:05.36 4:19.39
Qualifying Provisional   Qualifying Provisional
1:17.77 1:18.46 200 free relay 1:28.98 1:29.75
2:52.45 2:53.68 400 free relay 3:15.78 3:17.11
6:20.67 6:24.50 800 free relay 7:05.68 7:08.93
1:25.05 1:25.86 200 medley relay 1:37.21 1:37.71
3:07.75 3:09.68 400 medley relay 3:33.40 3:34.96

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MSU all the way
6 years ago

100 fly cut is fast but I still have a lot of time

eramthgin
7 years ago

I graduated in 1976 and swam at Kansas the breaststroke quals are seconds faster then the winning times at NCAA’s

eramthgin
7 years ago

I graduated in 1976 and swam at Kansas the breaststroke quals are seconds faster then the winning times at NCAA’s

weirdo
7 years ago

It actually doesn’t matter what the cuts are….they use the formula so they will still only take the fastest under the quota. The A standards are only fast enough to make sure they dont’ go over their quota.

PsychoDad
7 years ago

I am at Fort Wayne, IN, right now, visiting a new customer. I will make sure the customer needs me badly the week of March 20, 2017. That would be my 4th NCAAs in a row and 3rd watching Tejas win it all. Hook’em!

ct swim fan
7 years ago

They do make them hard to attain.

Kordez
7 years ago

Those breastroke “A” standards are might fast ….

SWIMGUY12345
Reply to  Kordez
7 years ago

I think it’s pretty comparable to other strokes. Winning time in the 100 is about a second faster than that usually (sometimes more sometimes less). Same as the other 100’s of stroke.
The 200 A cut you is about the same. 4 seconds faster than that is close to the winning time (at least for last year).

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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