What Does It Take To Qualify For The 2016 NCAA DI Championships?

In the Division I NCAA qualifying system, there are “A” standards, which earn an automatic invite to the NCAA Championship meet, and there are “B” standards, which both allow the next X number of swimmers to be invited to the meet, and additionally allows invited swimmers to swim bonus events in which they weren’t invited.

Though nobody is a sure-fire invite until they get an A-cut or until the invite list comes out, every college coach in the country has some idea of the times that might safely earn an invite, even without officially being automatic. For example, a 4:38-high in the women’s 500 free isn’t automatically invited, but it’s pretty close to a ‘sure thing’.

Below, we’ve laid out the slowest time that was invited in each race (which doesn’t include optional entries from swimmers invited in other races), this year’s automatic qualifying standard, and the number of seniors invited to last year’s meet. That number of seniors should give an idea in each event how many invitees have moved on. Of course, that doesn’t include swimmers who went pro early, or swimmers who are missing this season for injury, transfer, or an Olympic redshirt, but all-in-all, those things are mostly balanced out by swimmers returning from redshirts or transfers who sat out last season.

Additionally, we took a look at the top times from this season and compared them to the cut off line from the 2015 NCAA Championships. These projections are slightly skewed because not all of the division mid-season invites are over, but it does allow us to take a look at where the top teams in the country stand.

On the men’s side, the Louisville Cardinals appear to be the most secure team at the moment with 12 different swims under last year’s cutoff times. The Florida Gators actually have the highest number of swims under the cutoff line, but because Caeleb Dressel’s times this season would have made it in five events last year, we had to subtract two swims from their total.

Men – (Highest Number of Potential Swims As of 11/28/2015)

1. Louisville – 12
2. Florida – 13 (-2 because Dressel is under the cutoff in 5 events)
3. NC State – 9
4. Alabama – 8
5. Missouri – 6
6. Tennessee – 4

On the women’s side, The Texas A&M Aggies looks to be the most secure team at this point in the season with 20 potential individual swims at the NCAA Championships. The Stanford Cardinal and the Tennessee Volunteers are sitting in second and third overall in our count with 14 and 13 potential swims, respectively. The Louisville Cardinals recorded 14 swims under last year’s cutoff time, but was hurt a little bit because by Kelsi Worrell‘s versatility. She was under the cutoff in six events, which takes away three of Louisville’s swims because three is the maximum number of individual events someone can swim at the NCAA Championships.

Women – (Highest Number of Potential Swims As of 11/28/2015)

1. Texas A&M – 22 (-2 because Galat and Gastaledello are each under the cutoff in 4 events)
2. Stanford – 17 (-3 because Hu is under the cutoff in 5 events and Eastin is under the cutoff in 4 events)
3. Tennessee – 13
4. Louisville – 14 (-3 because Worrell is under the cutoff in 6 events)
5. Florida – 11 (-1 because Hinds us under the cutoff in 4 events)
6. Missouri – 10
7. NC State – 10 (-1 because Zevnik is under the cutoff in 4 events)

If you would like to do your own investigations, here are the psych sheets from last year with invite lines drawn in:

• 2015 NCAA DI Women – Official Psych Sheet
• 2015 NCAA DI Men – Official Psych Sheet

The time standards got much quicker this year, with 94.4% of the “A” standards faster than there were in 2015. All of the individual “B” standards remained the same, but all of the provisional relay standards are now faster.

*Does not include those not competing this season due to injuries or Olympic redshirts. 
**As of 11/28/2015.

2015-2016 Men’s Swims Under The 2014-2015 Cutoff Line

2015-2016 Women’s Swims Under The 2014-2015 Cutoff Line