NCAA Women’s Diving Preview: How Zone Scores Project To Impact The Team Race

2023 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Just as we score out the psych sheets every year prior to the NCAA Championships, we’ve decided to do a similar exercise with the diving events to give us an idea of where the points might come from this week at Women’s NCAAs in Knoxville.

When we score out the psych sheets, we know things aren’t going to go exactly as projected for a myriad of factors, with things such as taper, nerves, event schedules and everything else playing into how swimmers perform on the big stage.

In diving, there’s a different set of variables at play, as the NCAA qualifiers competed at five different Zone meets last week, meaning there were five different sets of judges. Therefore, comparing scores across multiple meets is far from being an exact, definitive ranking, but it does give us some indication of who the favorites are heading into NCAAs.

Below, find the top 16 scores in each of the three women’s diving events across the five Zone meets (using finals results only), and how they would stack up against one another in an NCAA scoring format (with their hypothetical point total included).

WOMEN’S 1-METER

Rank Diver School Zone Score Points
1 Delaney Schnell ARIZ E 696.00 20
2 Mia Vallee MIAF B 648.60 17
3 Brooke Schultz SCAR B 645.85 16
4 Chiara Pellacani LSU D 643.10 15
5 Helle Tuxen LSU D 642.55 14
6 Joy Zhu UMIN D 635.55 13
7 Hailey Hernandez TEX D 632.80 12
8 Aranza Vazquez Montano UNC B 629.70 11
9 Anne Fowler IND C 625.65 9
10 Bridget O’Neil TEX D 623.10 7
11 Nike Agunbiade USC E 612.25 6
12 Daphne Wils PSU A 610.80 5
13 Lena Hentschel OSU C 609.30 4
14 Sophie Verzyl SCAR B 608.95 3
15 Montserrat Lavenant LSU D 607.55 2
16 Skyler Liu IND C 603.95 1

On 1-meter, Arizona’s Delaney Schnell is ranked first with a bullet with her score of 696.00 from Zone E, while Miami’s Mia Vallee and South Carolina’s Brooke Schultz had near-identical scores from Zone B to rank second and third.

Vallee won the NCAA title last season with a score of 365.75 (different scoring format than Zones), while Schnell was fifth (339.05) and Schultz took ninth (331.95).

WOMEN’S 3-METER

Rank Diver School Zone Score Points
1 Anne Fowler IND C 737.90 20
2 Mia Vallee MIAF B 736.50 17
3 Hailey Hernandez TEX D 733.10 16
4 Chiara Pellacani LSU D 728.50 15
5 Delaney Schnell ARIZ E 727.80 14
6 Bridget O’Neil TEX D 713.45 13
7 Aranza Vazquez Montano UNC B 711.15 12
8 Skyler Liu IND C 698.45 11
9 Elizabeth Kaye UVA A 683.90 9
10 Daryn Wright PUR C 677.05 7
11 Carolina Sculti USC E 675.55 6
12 Kyndal Knight UK C 670.50 5
13 Emily Grund UNC B 668.40 4
14 Viviana Del Angel UMIN D 666.10 3
15 Joslyn Oakley TAM D 664.35 2
16 Joy Zhu UMIN D 658.30 1

Indiana’s Anne Fowler was 20th and didn’t score on 3-meter last season at NCAAs, but produced the highest point total at the Zone meets this year with a tally of 737.90, edging out Vallee (736.50) and Texas Olympian Hailey Hernandez (733.10).

The top three finishers from the 2022 NCAAs aren’t competing, including Indiana’s Tarrin Gilliland, who is listed as a junior this year but wasn’t at Zones. So Fowler will be looking to fill the void for the Hoosiers, who also had Kristen Hayden finish second last year.

The top returner is Schnell, who ranks fifth with her Zones score but is within 10.1 points of Fowler.

WOMEN’S PLATFORM

Rank Diver School Zone Score Points
1 Delaney Schnell ARIZ E 745.00 20
2 Viviana Del Angel UMIN D 718.10 17
3 Skyler Liu IND C 690.60 16
4 Else Praasterink UL C 649.35 15
5 Jordan Skilken TEX D 626.00 14
6 Maggie Merriman PUR C 625.80 13
7 Montserrat Lavenant LSU D 621.00 12
8 Daryn Wright PUR C 612.00 11
9 Aliyah Watson DUKE B 606.20 9
10 Eden Cheng UCLA E 599.95 7
11 Maycey Vieta PUR C 597.80 6
12 Aranza Vazquez Montano UNC B 585.10 5
13 Janie Boyle TEX D 579.40 4
14 Anna Bradescu GT B 573.20 3
15 Nike Agunbiade USC E 572.65 2
16 Tanesha Lucoe TENN B 572.65 1

Schnell will surely be the favorite on platform, having posted the top Zones score by a wide margin after finishing second at NCAAs last year to Gilliland.

Texas’ Jordan Skilken and Janie Boyle may not have posted the top scores at Zones, but they were third and fourth in the event last season at NCAAs and should be relied upon for some crucial points for the Longhorns.

SCORING THE ZONES RESULTS – TEAM STANDINGS

Rank School Points
1 Texas 66
2 LSU 58
3 Indiana 57
4 Arizona 54
5 Purdue 37
6 Miami (FL) 34
7 Minnesota 34
8 UNC 32
9 South Carolina 19
10 Louisville 15
11 USC 14
12 Virginia 9
13 Duke 9
14 UCLA 7
15 Penn State 5
16 Kentucky 5
17 Ohio State 4
18 Georgia Tech 3
19 Texas A&M 2
20 Tennessee 1

Using the Zones scores (and acknowledging it’s an imperfect projection), the University of Texas projects to score 66 points across the three diving events, which would bring their combined total (including the scored swimming psych sheets) up to 453.75.

Virginia ranked first on the scored psych sheets with 464.5 points, but the Cavs have diver Elizabeth Kaye in position to score nine points, which would put them at a theoretical total of 473.5, just under 20 points clear of Texas.

The LSU Tigers, who have been rejuvenated in the pool with the addition of superstar Maggie MacNeil, are projected for 58 diving points, led by Chiara Pellacani‘s 30, which could potentially push them into the top 10 if everything falls right.

After a strong SEC performance, LSU ranked 12th on the scored swimming psych sheets, but adding in diving, the Tigers jump up into ninth, passing SEC champion Florida on the way.

Below, find the projected team scores if we combine the scored psych sheets and the Zone diving rankings:

PROJECTED SCORES – PSYCH SHEETS + ZONE RESULTS

Rank School Total Individual Relay Diving
1 Virginia 473.5 270.5 194 9
2 Texas 453.75 245.75 142 66
3 Stanford 325 173 152 0
4 NC State 301.5 163.5 138 0
5 Louisville 257.583 112.583 130 15
6 Ohio State 256.5 126.5 126 4
7 Tennessee 213.5 150.5 62 1
8 Indiana 185 55 73 57
9 LSU 177 63 56 58
10 Florida 169.5 61.5 108 0
11 Alabama 158 82 76 0
12 Cal 129 69 60 0
13 UNC 107.333 21.333 54 32
14 Georgia 102.75 78.75 24 0
15 USC 94 42 38 14
16 Michigan 64 22 42 0
17 Wisconsin 60 54 6 0
18 Arizona 54 0 0 54
19 Duke 48 34 5 9
20 Minnesota 47 13 0 34
21 Miami (FL) 37 3 0 34
22 Purdue 37 0 0 37
23 Kentucky 36 31 0 5
24 Auburn 34 20 14 0
25 Texas A&M 30 28 0 2
26 VA Tech 29 13 16 0
27 Georgia Tech 28 25 0 3
28 Arizona State 25 23 2 0
29 Hawaii 19.5 1.5 18 0
30 Penn 19 19 0 0
31 South Carolina 19 0 0 19
32 Arkansas 15.5 1.5 14 0
33 UCLA 13 6 0 7
33 Penn State 5 0 0 5
34 Missouri 4 4 0 0
35 Cincinnati 1 1 0 0
36 Pitt 0.75 0.75 0 0
37 Northwestern 0.333 0.333 0 0

In This Story

0
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

0 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

About James Sutherland

James Sutherland

James swam five years at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, specializing in the 200 free, back and IM. He finished up his collegiate swimming career in 2018, graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 2019 he completed his graduate degree in sports journalism. Prior to going to Laurentian, James swam …

Read More »