For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of three finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final and places 17 through 24 the C final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.
With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups,” “Mids” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, “Mid” to swimmers in the B final and “Down” to swimmers in the C final.
2016 MEN’S & WOMEN’S SEC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, February 16 – Saturday, February 20
- Mizzou Aquatic Center, Columbia, MO (Central Time Zone)
- Prelims 10AM / Finals 6PM (Wed-Sat), Tuesday Times Finals 5:30PM (Central Time)
- Defending Men’s Champion: Florida (3x) (results)
- Defending Women’s Champion: Georgia Bulldogs, 6 Consecutive Titles (results)
- Championship Central
- Psych Sheet
- Live results
- Live Video
- Men’s Fan Guide
- Women’s Fan Guide
At the end of last night on the women’s side, Texas A&M sat in first place with 657.5 points, not far ahead of Tennessee’s 645.5. Georgia came into today’s session in 3rd with 584.5 points, and this morning’s preliminaries were key for the defending SEC champion Bulldogs to stay in the Hunt for a 7th straight team title.
UGA got the job done this morning, getting 5 A-finalists to tie with Missouri for the most championship final swims tonight. Overall, the Bulldogs will total 8 individual scoring swims tonight, with 2 B-finalists and a C-finalist.
Both Tennessee and Texas A&M have 4 A-finalists tonight. The team race between the two will continue to be close, as Tennessee got 5 B-finalists in, but Texas A&M has 4 B-finalists and 2 C-finalists.
Outside of the top 3, Auburn (5th) and Missouri (6th) are separated by 2 points, and will look to make a move on Florida for 4th. Auburn has 4 ups to Mizzou’s 5, but Auburn is set up better with 3 mids and 1 down to 0 mids and 2 downs. Florida holds a 72 point lead over Auburn at the moment, and will look to capitalize off of their only 2 individual scorers tonight in the 200 fly A-final.
WOMEN’S UPS/MIDS/DOWNS – DAY 4
| Up | Mid | Down | |
| Georgia | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Missouri | 5 | 0 | 2 |
| Auburn | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| Tennessee | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Texas A&M | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| LSU | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Florida | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Alabama | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Kentucky | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| South Carolina | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Arkansas | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Vanderbilt | 0 | 0 | 2 |
On the men’s side, Florida is in a solid position to hold their lead. The Gators have 8 total scoring swim and lead the teams in number of championship finalists with 5 ups.
Georgia, however, has the most scoring swims overall. The Bulldogs put 11 swimmers into finals tonight, and will look to close in on Auburn for 2nd. The Tigers trail Florida heading into tonight’s finals, and will have 8 scorers (4 ups, 3 mids, 1 down).
MEN’S UPS/MIDS/DOWNS – DAY 4
| Up | Mid | Down | |
| Florida | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| Georgia | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Auburn | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| Missouri | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Alabama | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Texas A&M | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| LSU | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Kentucky | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| South Carolina | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Tennessee | 0 | 5 | 1 |
Vanderbilt women’s team should be performing way better than that. For god sake, the Nashville Aquatic Club is in the city and you can not recruit any of their top girls?
Yes, you would think that Vandy could recruit better. Here is a little first hand experience-our daughter visited Vandy last spring, on an unofficial visit following a swim meet in Nashville. This was her first visit to any school as a prospective 2016 student athlete. She was a year round swimmer, top 5 state championship finisher for 3 years and at the time just shy of some jr. nat cuts. One of her first takeaways – an assistant coach told her they would not offer spot on the team to anyone without a junior cut. She was definitely qualified to attend Vanderbilt and with just a bit of encouragement she might have wanted to continue to talk to them! Since… Read more »
Jillian Vitarius and Sarah Reynolds are also in the A final of the 100 Backstroke (7th & 8th).
HSwimmer- They’ve been accounted for. I didn’t list each team’s individual placing by event. These are the number of total A, B, and C finalists each team has going into finals.