The NCAA has released the pre-selection psych sheets for the 2016 NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships and although they don’t yet confirm who will receive a championship meet invite, they do give details on which swimmers will be entering which events.
Earlier in the year, there was some speculation that Florida speed demon Caeleb Dressel would potentially tackle the 100 breaststroke as an individual event, given his stellar performances.  The sophomore kicked off the season clocking a 55.34 in the 100 breast at the All Florida Invite in September, then followed that up with a second swifter swim of 54.29 in the Gators’ dual against South Carolina in November.
Later that same month, Dressel scored an eye-popping mark of 51.88, a result which, even after all of the men’s conference championship meets, still sits as the NCAA’s 5th-fastest time this season.  In fact, Dressel’s outing would have finished in 7th at last year’s NCAA Championships, lending credence to those swim enthusiasts who thought the thoroughbred sprinter would dabble in the event come the NCAA meet this year.
Alas, Dressel is sticking to his well-established domain of the 50y/100y freestyle and the 100y butterfly races, looking to become a triple sprint NCAA Champion. As the American Record Holder in the 50y and 100y events, Dressel heads into NCAAs as the top seed in both freestyles (41.07 in the 100, 18.23 in the 50), while positioned in between 2 Longhorns, top seed Joseph Schooling (44.62) and 3rd seed Jack Conger (45.19) as the 2nd seed in the fly (44.80).
I think he could challenge the Longhorns in the fly races!
cant wait to see him, schooling and conger go at it in the 100 fly.. I think all finish around 44.5
I think schooling wins with a 44.2 or 44.3
No breaststroke? I’m not sure that deserves a headline.
Is it a surprise? 🙂
We’ll see if he can improve his SECs times. It would be great but I’m not sure. He has put the bar very high. At least in the 50 free. Still some tenths to drop in the 100 free.
Maybe not a surprise – but it was a real question given his 51.0 breast split at SECs and the hurdle of getting past Schooling/Conger in the 100 fly.
Not sure whether I’m more excited for the all out battle in the 100 fly, or to see him win the 50 by a bodylength again, or to see if he can take down Vlad’s 100 free record
hmmmm….
Can Dressel be fully tapered for NCAAs and then have enough time to get back into hard training and be fully tapered again for OTS? If so great! Should be a show. Can’t wait for the 100fly. It will be tough to improve on 18.23 but he may go after that USOpen record of Vlad in the 100free.
OTs aren’t for another 3.5 months. That’s plenty of time for more training. And resting periodically is always good in the long run. The gators have plenty of training volume over the past year and I’m sure are prepped for these next few important cycles.