Swimulator is Now Part of the SwimSwam Family of Nerds

by Andrew Mering 6

October 24th, 2016 College, News

Swimswam has partnered with Swimulator to expand our college swimming coverage. Swimulator has tools for predicting conference and national meets, simulating hypothetical dual meets, and ranking programs. It was created by Kevin Hallman and myself, Andrew Mering (though I’ll admit, Kevin did more work).

SwimSwam will continue to produce its more subjective power rankings, but Swimulator will provide more objective opportunities to develop statistically-based rankings, and enhance our journalists’ decision-making tools when putting together our subjective power rankings.

Some examples:

What would happen if the 2016 Texas men dueled the 2014 Cal men? (Texas 135 Cal 123)

What would women’s nationals look like last year with only times December 31st and earlier? (Georgia still wins)

What would happen if the D2 champion dueled the D3 champion? (Men: Queens 175 Dennison 82, Women: Queens 159 Emory 99)

The conference and national predictions are based on current season times, so for this season they won’t become accurate until later in the season when more times have been posted. However, it is possible to rank teams based on the quality of their returning swimmers. Swimulator has a ranking of the top 25 teams based on returning swimmers. Each team was given an optimized line up of returning swimmers (obeying roster/event limits and assigning swimmers to their best events), and after accounting for expected improvement, a power point score based on their times. The teams were ranked on their overall power points. This isn’t a prediction of how teams will stack up at the end of the year as it doesn’t include freshmen (ex. Katie Ledecky of Stanford), transfers (ex. Cierra Runge of Wisconsin), swimmers who didn’t compete last year (ex. Simone Manuel of Stanford) or divers (dives aren’t in swimulator’s database). 

For more detailed rankings check here (including simulated conference win percentage and dual and invite power scores):

https://swimulator.herokuapp.com/preseason

Swimulator Returning Swimmer Rankings

D1 Men D1 Women D2 Men D2 Women D3 Men D3 Women
1 Texas California Lindenwood Queens (NC) Kenyon Emory
2 California Stanford Queens (NC) Wingate Denison Kenyon
3 NC State Virginia Nova S’eastern Colorado Mesa Emory Denison
4 Michigan Georgia Tampa Drury Johns Hopkins Williams
5 Florida Southern Cali Delta State West Florida MIT NYU
6 Stanford Texas A&M Drury Grand Valley NYU Wash U. MO
7 Auburn NC State Florida Southern NMU Williams MIT
8 Georgia Tennessee Colorado Mesa Lindenwood Wash U. MO Wheaton IL
9 Indiana Indiana Saint Rose Hillsdale Chicago Chicago
10 Southern Cali Texas Clarion Wayne State Claremont MS Calvin
11 Arizona Michigan St. Cloud State Nova S’eastern Rowan St. Thomas
12 Louisville Arizona UCSD Florida Southern TCNJ Amherst
13 Ohio St Louisville Lewis Cal Baptist Calvin Pomona-Pitzer
14 Alabama Missouri Truman St. Kutztown Stevens UWEC
15 Missouri UNC Saginaw Valley Bentley Amherst Johns Hopkins
16 Tennessee Auburn West Chester Jewell Pomona-Pitzer UW-L
17 Princeton Ohio St Bentley Southern Conn Tufts Connecticut
18 UNC Florida Jewell Northern State UW-Stevens Point IWU
19 Wisconsin UCLA Indy WSCU St. Thomas Gustavus
20 Penn Boise St Southern Conn Carson-Newman DePauw DePauw
21 Harvard Minnesota IUP Simon Fraser Worcester Poly Keene St.
22 Notre Dame Virginia Tech Florida Tech Saginaw Valley Wheaton IL W&L
23 Arizona St Kentucky Limestone Assumption Connecticut Springfield
24 Denver LSU Mines Delta State Carthage Bates
25 Virginia Wisconsin Bloomsburg Mines Whitworth Mary Washington

AB

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Maggie alexander
7 years ago

Wow! This is awesome! Team analysis lives on.

The Grand Inquisitor
7 years ago

Does it include divers also? If not, can they be added as well?

Scottishswimmer
Reply to  The Grand Inquisitor
7 years ago

It doesn’t seem to include the mile

Rick Henderson
Reply to  Andrew Mering
7 years ago

Your swimulator is incredible. The UOP results from the UNLV invitational are not yet in. The NCAA stats for that meet are now in. The MPSF calculations will be a lot more fun when UOP is included. Thanks for this wonderful toy!!!