The official psych sheets for the 2017 NCAA DII Championships were released on Wednesday, and when compared to data from the 2016 NCAA DII Championships it shows that there’s a large increase in the number of swimmers invited.
What’s a noticeably interesting trend from 2016 to 2017 is not only the fact that there’s a larger number of swimmers invited, but the cut-off times are extremely similar indicating that there are more swimmers this year swimming around last year’s cut-off time. It demonstrates an increase in competitiveness at the meet. Last year, there were approximately 12-13 swimmers in each event for the men, now there’s approximately 22 in each event.
A rule change to draw the cut-off line much lower and invite more athletes has also helped increase the numbers. The cut-off is now placed on just individual swimmers, uninvited relay-only swimmers can no longer swim in individual events.
In the case of the 50 freestyle for example, the cut-off remains the same at 20.21, however this time around there are 23 swimmers as opposed to 12 last year who are invited. In the 400 IM the cut-off is actually faster than last year, and there are 22 swimmers invited compared to the 13 from last season.
MEN
| EVENT | CUT-OFF 2016 | NUMBER OF INVITES 2016 | CUT-OFF 2017 | NUMBER OF INVITES 2017 |
| 1000 Freestyle | 9:16.21 | 12 | 9:19.70 | 22 |
| 200 IM | 1:48.58 | 12 | 1:49.04 | 21 |
| 50 Freestyle | 20.21 | 12 | 20.21 | 23 |
| 200 Medley relay | 1:28.77 | 9 | – | – |
| 200 Free relay | 1:20.86 | 8 | – | – |
| 400 IM | 3:55.10 | 13 | 3:54.80 | 22 |
| 100 Fly | 48.31 | 12 | 48.42 | 21 |
| 200 Freestyle | 1:37.43 | 13 | 1:38.26 | 22 |
| 400 Medley relay | 3:15.34 | 9 | – | – |
| 500 Freestyle | 4:27.16 | 13 | 4:28.22 | 22 |
| 100 Backstroke | 48.69 | 12 | 49.18 | 22 |
| 100 Breaststroke | 54.3 | 13 | 54.74 | 21 |
| 200 Fly | 1:48.25 | 12 | 1:48.95 | 21 |
| 800 Free relay | 6:34.50 | 9 | – | – |
| 1650 Freestyle | 15:33.69 | 12 | 15:43.94 | 21 |
| 100 Freestyle | 44.33 | 13 | 44.55 | 23 |
| 200 Backstroke | 1:47.06 | 12 | 1:47.89 | 21 |
| 200 Breaststroke | 1:58.83 | 12 | 2:00.12 | 21 |
| 400 Free relay | 2:58.00 | 9 | – | – |
Things are no different on the women’s side. There’s a clear indication of growth and an increase in competitiveness based on the data comparison.
Just like the men, there are more swimmers invited per event. Last year there was an average of about 17-18, this year there’s approximately 28 swimmers per event. The cut-off times have remained similar. In the case of the 200 IM, 50 free, 100 free, and 200 backstroke, the cut-off times are faster than last year’s and there’s 10 more swimmers invited in both the 50 free and 100 free, and 11 in the 200 IM and 200 back.
WOMEN
| EVENT | CUT-OFF 2016 | NUMBER OF INVITES 2016 | CUT-OFF 2017 | NUMBER OF INVITES 2017 |
| 1000 Freestyle | 10:12.34 | 18 | 10:13.62 | 28 |
| 200 IM | 2:04.73 | 17 | 2:04.43 | 28 |
| 50 Freestyle | 23.51 | 18 | 23.48 | 28 |
| 200 Medley relay | 1:43.19 | 11 | – | – |
| 200 Free relay | 1:34.02 | 11 | – | – |
| 400 IM | 4:25.60 | 17 | 4:27.74 | 27 |
| 100 Fly | 55.67 | 17 | 55.69 | 29 |
| 200 Freestyle | 1:50.78 | 17 | 1:51.26 | 28 |
| 400 Medley relay | 3:46.29 | 11 | – | – |
| 500 Freestyle | 4:57.73 | 17 | 4:58.76 | 28 |
| 100 Backstroke | 55.9 | 17 | 56.27 | 27 |
| 100 Breaststroke | 1:03.33 | 17 | 1:03.86 | 28 |
| 200 Fly | 2:04.19 | 17 | 2:04.41 | 27 |
| 800 Free relay | 7:29.14 | 11 | – | – |
| 1650 Freestyle | 17:06.46 | 18 | 17:18.01 | 28 |
| 100 Freestyle | 51.26 | 18 | 51.16 | 28 |
| 200 Backstroke | 2:01.49 | 17 | 2:01.37 | 28 |
| 200 Breaststroke | 2:17.52 | 17 | 2:18.15 | 28 |
The indication of growth for DII swimming is in the numbers, and statistically speaking sets this meet up to be more competitive than last year’s, with a larger number of swimmers swimming at the same speed or faster.
Check out the psych sheets for the 2017 NCAA DII Championships here.
Click below for psych sheets from the 2016 NCAA DII Championships.
To clarify, the same total number of individual Women & Men Swimmers/Divers were invited in 2017 as in 2016. With the change in selection process, not inviting relays, the “cut line” went deeper, meaning there were more swimmers invited per event, but the total number of invited swimmers/divers per gender has stayed the same.
What should be noted though, as a result of the elimination of relay invites, the number of teams with at least one invited swimmers has significantly increased for both genders from 2016 (and prior) to 2017 (I don’t have the numbers at hand, but know this to be true from talking to one of the coaches who pushed for this change). The result being there are… Read more »
Ah, I see what happened. They removed the relay swimmers being able to swim other events. I didn’t notice they made that change – I was wondering how the cut lines went so much further down than they used to.
Amazing how much DII has grown in the past few years, just look at how many men’s teams have relay qualification times that either weren’t in the NCAA or didn’t have swim programs a decade ago: Queens, Nova, Lindenwood, CO Mesa, Fresno, Carson-Newman, Limestone, Florida Tech, Cal Baptist, St. Leo, Northern Michigan, McKendree, William Jewell, Bridgeport, Simon Fraser.