With conference championships coming up and the NCAA official announcement about a month away, what will it take to make the 2025 NCAA Championships?
Invite times have historically gotten faster but the historic charts give a solid baseline of what the estimated cutlines by time may be. The women’s meet had a cutline in the middle of line 37 in 2024, up from line 39 in 2023. The men’s cutline fell at the start of row 31 in 2024, slightly lower than the middle of line 30 it fell in 2023.
In addition to making the cutline, last year saw the Virginia women and NC State men have to drop a swimmer after having 19 swimmers make the cutline. The roster cap stands at 18 athletes. Virginia went on to drop another swimmer as well to make room for a diver.
The women’s meet is set for March 19-22 while the men’s meet is scheduled from March 26-29. Both meets will take place at Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Washington just outside of Seattle.
Women’s Invite Time History
| EVENT (SCY) | 2020 INVITE TIME | 2021 INVITE TIME | 2022 INVITE TIME | 2023 INVITE TIME | 2024 Invite time |
| 50 free | 22.21 | 22.32 | 22.16 | 22.15 | 22.11 |
| 100 free | 48.51 | 48.76 | 48.44 | 48.37 | 48.34 |
| 200 free | 1:45.23 | 1:46.25 | 1:45.42 | 1:45.31 | 1:44.80 |
| 500 free | 4:41.20 | 4:44.77 | 4:43.08 | 4:41.09 | 4:41.19 |
| 1650 free | 16:17.45 | 16:25.47 | 16:16.47 | 16:13.73 | 16:14.82 |
| 100 fly | 52.34 | 52.7 | 52.35 | 52.2 | 51.88 |
| 200 fly | 1:56.06 | 1:57.42 | 1:56.14 | 1:55.92 | 1:55.88 |
| 100 back | 52.73 | 53.01 | 52.46 | 52.36 | 52.28 |
| 200 back | 1:53.99 | 1:55.05 | 1:53.97 | 1:53.94 | 1:54.01 |
| 100 breast | 59.98 | 1:00.12 | 59.87 | 59.73 | 59.75 |
| 200 breast | 2:10.12 | 2:10.37 | 2:09.15 | 2:09.68 | 2:09.55 |
| 200 IM | 1:57.31 | 1:57.62 | 1:56.85 | 1:56.90 | 1:57.03 |
| 400 IM | 4:10.39 | 4:13.19 | 4:11.60 | 4:11.36 | 4:10.74 |
Men’s Invite Time History
| EVENT (SCY) | 2020 INVITE TIME | 2021 INVITE TIME | 2022 INVITE TIME | 2023 INVITE TIME | 2024 Invite Time |
| 50 free | 19.32 | 19.46 | 19.28 | 19.21 | 19.13 |
| 100 free | 42.57 | 42.88 | 42.34 | 42.32 | 42.19 |
| 200 free | 1:34.07 | 1:34.04 | 1:33.08 | 1:32.85 | 1:32.93 |
| 500 free | 4:16.49 | 4:16.75 | 4:14.96 | 4:14.36 | 4:14.90 |
| 1650 free | 14:57.07 | 15:01.33 | 14:55.21 | 14:53.54 | 14:54.92 |
| 100 fly | 45.97 | 46.29 | 45.57 | 45.57 | 45.37 |
| 200 fly | 1:43.18 | 1:43.47 | 1:42.42 | 1:42.57 | 1:42.10 |
| 100 back | 46.22 | 46.37 | 45.87 | 45.7 | 45.56 |
| 200 back | 1:41.49 | 1:41.81 | 1:40.92 | 1:40.62 | 1:40.62 |
| 100 breast | 52.46 | 52.4 | 52.2 | 51.9 | 51.89 |
| 200 breast | 1:54.03 | 1:54.28 | 1:53.23 | 1:52.94 | 1:53.12 |
| 200 IM | 1:43.79 | 1:44.15 | 1:43.36 | 1:43.14 | 1:43.05 |
| 400 IM | 3:44.36 | 3:45.67 | 3:43.50 | 3:42.99 | 3:42.93 |
Out of curiosity I ran a simple linear regression on qualifying times to make a 2025 prediction and got this. (I’m sure formatting is going to be a bit ugly because these comments aren’t really WYSIWG and I don’t have enough control to just have a fixed width font to solve the problem that way, but I’ll try some edits to help)
Women
EVENT – 2025 Prediction
50 free – 22.08
100 free – 48.27
200 free – 1:44.86
500 free – 4:41.16
1650 free – 16:12.4
100 fly – 51.87
200 fly – 1:55.73
100 back – 52.10
200 back – 1:53.87
100 breast – 59.64
200 breast – 2:09.23
200 IM – 1:56.76
400 IM – 4:11.12… Read more »
It’s interesting that men’s times have dropped more than women’s times since 2020. To what do we attribute that? More of an influx of international men vs international women since 2020? Better training methods (emphasis on strength and power) helping men more than women? More men than women taking Covid 5th years? That’s all I can think of.
Does anyone know why there’s been a higher improvement curve for men’s invite times here? From 2020 to 2024, the margin between an event’s past and current invite times is larger in every single event other than the women’s 1650. No clue why that’s the case, just an observation.
Women’s 100 fly and breast are super fast. Those time would have basically guaranteed you an A-Final swim 10 years ago
It’s possible the qualifying times are slower this year with less 5th years in the mix.
There should be the same if not more 5th years this year, given that this is the last year for the Covid exception and athletes have had the most time to plan out their education to allow for a 5th year of competing. Next year I would expect times to regress slightly or at least not gain as much as in previous years. Not this year though.
It’s crazy how fast times have become.
I was thinking if you took Michael Phelps best times, he wouldn’t be the fastest in any event and would only qualify for a handful of swims.
Of course Phelps strength was LCM.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t think that’s quite true – NCAA swimming has certainly gotten a lot faster over the years, but Phelps’ best times would have still qualified him for the meet today. He was 41.9/1:32.0/4:10 in the 100/200/500 free, 44.9/1:39 in the 100/200 fly, 1:40/3:36 in the 200/400 IM, all of which would have qualified him for NCAAs. I can’t find his backstroke best times in yards but I’m sure those would qualify him too. None of those times today would win today, but you also have to remember that we never got to see Phelps in peak form racing in SCY since he was so focused on LCM
Catch me at D3 nats next year 🙏