SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers if the standings at a midseason invitational are relevant:
Question: Do team standings/scoring matter at midseason invitationals?
RESULTS
- No – 73.6%
- Yes – 26.4%
The University of Texas opted to have their Hall of Fame Invite meet last week run without any team scores, which was a puzzling move to some given the midseason meets are one of the rare times in a college swimming season where teams taper down and aim to post some quick times.
Team scores aren’t as much of a focus at these competitions relative to conference championship meets, and of course NCAAs, but they’re still a good indicator to gauge a team’s performance, a measuring stick of sorts, relative to other squads midway through the season.
We have seen certain invites stray away from the traditional invitational scoring format, such as last week’s Tennessee Invite, which only featured three teams and was scored as a double dual meet between Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
In our latest poll, we asked SwimSwam readers if team scoring mattered during midseason invites, and an overwhelming majority said no.
Perhaps the primary reason why only 26.4% of readers put any significance on team standings during invites is that there’s usually a wide disparity between teams and their ability, with only a few top-tier squads attending each meet.
For example, the Longhorn women would’ve had a challenge from Stanford if the Texas Hall of Fame Invite had scoring, but the men would’ve been absolutely dominant over the entire field, which also included USC, BYU and Wisconsin. At the UGA Fall Invite there was a clear hierarchy with Florida, Georgia and Alabama going 1-2-3 for both men and women, while the Virginia women and Tennessee men were clearly a few steps ahead of their competition in Knoxville. We also saw a team like Texas A&M host the Art Adamson Invite and cruise past the competition, with the TCU women and Utah men claiming the runner-up spots.
There are also different scoring formats used at different meets, with the Wolfpack Elite Invite, for example, scoring down to the ‘C’ final (top 24), while many others do top 16 (‘B’ final).
There’s also the fact that many teams will send their divers to one invite and their swimmers to another, resulting in the team standings not fully reflecting the strength of a squad.
Ultimately, it seems coaches and swimmers are focused more on posting times for individual and relay qualification for NCAAs, to take some pressure off for their conference championship meets, compared to where their team finishes in the standings.
On the other hand, there are still over a quarter of readers who believe the standings matter, and for teams who line up against another squad that’s in a similar tier to theirs at an invite, they should.
The Arizona State men topped NC State at the Wolfpack Elite Invite, while the NC State women beat the Sun Devils by a similar margin. Although the ASU men getting the upper hand on the Wolfpack should be significant for them, it’s likely that the gap between NC State and ASU on the women’s side is bigger than what the final scores suggest, likely due to the ‘C’ final scoring.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks: Which performance marked the biggest breakthrough last week?
Loading ...
ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE
The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner.
It’s all about landing on the psych sheets for the big show.
Cal hasn’t even had their mid season yet…
And now ask the swimmers on all the teams that were fighting for a team place or two during the 4x1FR at the end of the meet. While I understand why the fans are focused on the top 25 and all of their machinations during a season, the reality is. for hundreds of teams, they have no hope of getting a swim at the big show and these mid season meets are their chance to shine a little.
What’s the point of scoring dual meets? They don’t matter, teams may be at different phases of their training, and the growing trend of swimmers redshirting the fall semester makes them pointless. Really, we should get rid of them altogether. They interfere with training schedules and are an unnecessary travel expense. The only thing anyone gets out of them is practice racing, but teams can hold intra-squad practice meets and get the same results while not having to travel and being able to still have practice after. The swimming community has no desire for swimming to be a spectator sport, so let’s get ready for the funding cuts from the House settlement, and cut the expense of these pointless meets.… Read more »
Aren’t you just all rainbows and sunshine on a cloudy day?
I’m trying to point out the silliness. If we want people to care about swimming, we need to make in-season meets as interesting as possible for people who aren’t devoted swim nerds. If we want founding and ad revenue, we need to get people to care. Making in-season meets matter even less is not the way to convince athletic directors swimming is worth the cost.
Go to the Princeton-Harvard-Yale meet sometime, and see how much the swimmers care about dual meets (or whatever the equivalent term is when three teams are involved), and how much the spectators are into it. For 90% of all collegiate swimmers, its not about the NCAA championships.
The purpose of these invites is not to see which team is better, it is to give the swimmers the chance to race under meet conditions and perhaps swim in events other than those they would in a scored meet.
At the risk of missing the mark; You’ve tapped into the deep seated nature of excellence here. When it comes to the individual, which tribe matters not.
The tribe nourishes on its members, and the members fend for themselves.
The question then becomes; of what use is the tribe, gifted as it is with such valuable commodity.
No one truly desires to toil for someone else. Excellence lives and that is our hope.
An audience takes what they pay for. An athlete on the other hand…
Sounds like someone who has never been part of a team. Or maybe just someone you wouldn’t want on your team.
>No one truly desires to toil for someone else.<
What in libertarian hell is this? Ask Jason Lezak if passion for team success leads to faster swimming than doing it for yourself alone. Ask a parent if they’re happier while volunteering for their kid’s extracurriculars or while working their regular job. Humans are a balance of individual and collective, and though that balance is different for everyone, saying no one wants to work for the benefit of others is asinine. It sounds like something a 13 year-old edgelord would say to try to get out of doing the dishes.
This reads like an IA bot answer. In season meets are becoming more exciting and have made progress in being more relevant. Mid season meets do matter, conference championships definitely matter and of course NCAAs are the pinnacle.
What? No need to make an absurd effort to sound profound, this is the comment section on a swim website.
Think you can squeeze anymore cheesy cliches in that comment?
I enjoyed your haikus.
We humans are served well by instincts including; survival and herding to mention two relevant to your post. The survival instinct serves self (“fend for themselves”) whereas the herding instinct serves others (“tribe nourishes on its members”. When a soldier covers a grenade with his/her body to save others, herding instinct prevails over survival instinct.
Invitationals, dual meets, practice, teams cheering together, teammates both celebrating and consoling each member’s result, teams proudly wearing their “colors” and hanging their banner are all beautiful elements of our sport. Perhaps we can agree that swimming can be life giving when held to moderation!
Dumb poll, nothing means anything until NCAA. Unfortunately that is how its all set up
teams definitely care about scoring at conference
Too many invites which means no depth which means scoring is generally kind of pointless