Projecting The Cut Line: 2025 Men’s NCAA Division I Championships

2025 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 26-29, 2025
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center, Federal Way, Washington
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Pre-Selection Psych Sheets

Note: Pre-cut psych sheets are not final. Final selections will be released on Wednesday, Mar. 12. Any changes before the release of the official psych sheets will change the math on the cut-line. Changes made after the release of the final selections–such as a swimmer scratching the meet, which often happens–will pull in the next alternate regardless of event. 

Numbers and Projections thanks to Andrew Mering

The NCAA released the pre-selection psych sheets for the 2025 Men’s NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships on Tuesday, March 11. The sheets show teams’ bidded entries for this month’s championships in Federal Way, Washington. 

The pre-selection psych sheets don’t show exactly who is invited to the meet, but they allow SwimSwam to project where that cut line will fall. This year, the projected cut line falls six spots into line 29. Last year, the cut line fell one row into row 31, where it was the year before that. 

Each year, 270 men qualify for the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. Here’s a quick refresher on how the selection process for an individual championship berth works for swimmers.

Selection Process

1. 31 of the men’s spots and 41 of the women’s spots at the NCAA Championships are set aside for divers, who qualify for the meet at Zones. That leaves 235 men’s spots and 281 for women. 
2. Every ‘A’ cut swum this season is added to the meet. 
3. The next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries. For example, if the 50 free has the most ‘A’ cuts of any individual event with ten, then every other event would get swimmers with the top ten fastest times added to the championships. 
4. Finally, one entry is added to each event to keep the entries per event even. This process is repeated until all of the swimming spots are filled. Swimmers will double and triple up on events as more rows are added. The #1 seed in the 200 backstroke may be the #15 seed in the 100 backstroke. As the 15th row of swimmers is added to each event, this swimmer will be added to the 100 backstroke list but won’t take up another of the invite spots as he’s already earned his official invite. 
5. The final row of swimmers won’t come out even. In the final row, the swimmers with entry times closest to the NCAA ‘A’ cut will get added first, and when the 235th man is added, the process stops. So, the 100 fly could have 38 men and the 200 fly 39 – that would mean the 39th 200 flyer was closer to the NCAA ‘A’ cut than the 39th 100 flyer and therefore won the “tiebreaker” for the final spot. 

The issue of a “tiebreaker” is relevant this year because SIU’s Alex Santiago and LSU’s Stepan Goncharov are tied in the 100 freestyle (41.95), giving them the same ‘A’ cut ratio right where the cut line is supposed to fall. This means the second tiebreaker is needed to determine which swimmer is the “last in” and which is first alternate. 

First, let’s look at the official rules on how a second tiebreaker works, per the NCAA’s official rulebook. 

When two or more swimmers are tied for the final selection spot, the committee will use the swimmers’ times in the next event, in which each swimmer is highest on the list and therefore closest to being selected in that event. The committee will compute the percentage of each respective swimmer’s time in his or her next-best event to the automatic qualification time, or “A” standard, for the events. The competitor who is closest in percentage to the “A” standard time for their next-best event will be invited to the meet. If there are multiple student-athletes tied for the final selection spot, only those who are not already selected to the championships will be compared using the tiebreaking procedures. Student-athletes who are already selected to the championships in another event will be automatically invited in the event for which there is a tie. 

Now, let’s examine how the rule plays out in practice between Santiago and Goncharov. 

Santiago’s next best event is the 100 fly, where he ranks 33rd with a time of 45.30. The ‘A’ cut is 44.51, so 44.51/45.30 = 0.98256. 

Goncharov’s next best event is the 100 back. He’s seeded 33rd with a 45.39. The ‘A’ cut is 44.48. 44.48/45.39 = 0.97995. 

Since .982 is greater than .979, Santiago wins the tiebreaker. The tiebreaker always uses the ‘A’ cut comparison in the swimmers’ next best ranked time. So, the fact that Santiago and Goncharov both rank 33rd in their next best event is a fun coincidence, but does not matter for tiebreaker formula purposes. 

Santiago projects as the last swimmer to qualify for the championships. However, Cal qualified 19 swimmers for the meet, which means the Golden Bears will have to cut a swimmer, even before factoring in any divers they may want to add to the championships roster. Texas, with 18 qualified swimmers, will also face cuts. Since divers count differently for roster management purposes, we expect that Goncharov will eventually be added to the championships even though Santiago won the tiebreaker.

Teams with cuts to make had until noon on Tuesday to do so.

• See the full projections here

Projected Alternates 

We expect Goncharov to be added to the meet but for now, based on our projections, he is the first alternate. 

Invited Qualifiers By Team

Below is a list of individual qualifiers by team. The maximum roster size is 18 athletes, including both swimmers and divers, which means California will need to cut at least one athlete if they want to bring divers to Federal Way. With 18 qualified swimmers, Texas is in a similar situation.

Projected Qualifiers