In team battles that are expected to be as contentious as the SEC Championships, every swimmer in every A, B, or C final can have a huge impact on a team’s overall finish. With that in mind, let’s take a look at who ended up where after day 2’s prelims. For the sake of time, we’ll focus on the teams expected to be contending for top 3 finishes at this meet.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology: “Up” means a swimmer who is in the A-final, as those swimmers cannot fall lower than 8th barring a DQ. “Mid,” new for this year, is what we’ll call teams in the “B” final, who are bound from 9th-16th places. “Down” will mean C-finalists, who are between 17th-24th place. Keep in mind only the A-final in diving is fought-out.
Day 4’s prelims session at the 2015 SEC Championships showed off how different programs have transformed themselves in the past few seasons. For example, the Georgia women, who a few years ago were devoid of butterfliers, now have 4 in the A-final of the 200 fly. Similarly, even without a sprint freestyle event, it is the Auburn Tigers men who have the most A-finals on day 4.
At the end of the day, however, expect the same two teams to be leading this meet. The Georgia Bulldogs’ women’s team have 9 individual swims in finals. They should grow their 156-point lead, even though the A&M women have more total swims.
On the men’s side, while Florida is one qualifier short of Auburn in the A-finals, but four extra swims in B-Finals will more-than-make-up for that scoring difference.
Also in day 4’s finals, keep an eye on the lesser finals. This conference has gotten so deep, that we could see swimmers out of B and C finals with times fast enough to earn invites to NCAA’s. In what seems almost an absurd level of depth, LSU’s Silas Dejean swam a 53.89 in the 100 breaststroke, and wound up 17th in prelims. If he drops another half-a-second, he’ll have a shot at NCAA qualifying.
TEAM SCORES THROUGH DAY 3:
Women:
1. Georgia, University of 804
2.Texas A&M University 648
3. University of Florida 547
4. Louisiana State University 404
5. Tennessee, University of, Knox 389
6. Auburn University 332
7. Kentucky, University of 300
8. University of Missouri 292
9. South Carolina, University of, 255
10. Arkansas, University of, Fayet 245
11. University of Alabama 240
12. Vanderbilt University 90
Men:
1. University of Florida 707.5
2. Georgia, University of 634
3. Auburn University 540.5
4. Tennessee, University of, Knox 537.5
5. University of Alabama 424.5
6. University of Missouri 371
7. South Carolina, University of, 324
8. Louisiana State University 310
9. Texas A&M University 291
10. Kentucky, University of 220
Day 4 Up/Mid/Downs
Note: These do not include results from prelims of the women’s platform event.
Women
| Up | Mid | Down | |
| Georgia | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| Texas A&M | 3 | 6 | 1 |
| Missouri | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Tennessee | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Auburn | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Alabama | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Kentucky | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| LSU | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Florida | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Arkansas | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Vanderbilt | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| South Carolina | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Men
| Up | Mid | Down | |
| Auburn | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Florida | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| Georgia | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Tennessee | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Alabama | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Missouri | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| LSU | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Kentucky | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Texas A&M | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| South Carolina | 0 | 2 | 3 |