SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers to predict the most impactful transfer in the women’s NCAA this season:
RESULTS
Question: Who will be the most impactful transfer this NCAA women’s season?
- Miranda Tucker to Michigan – 47.1%
- Stanzi Moseley to Tennessee – 16.8%
- Annie Ochitwa to Missouri – 15.5%
- Taylor Garcia to Michigan – 6.4%
- Lexie Lupton to NC State – 14.2%
A little less than half of voters predicted Miranda Tucker as the most impactful transfer of the upcoming NCAA swim season on the women’s side. That’s not a bad prediction: before sitting out a year to complete her intra-conference transfer, Tucker was an NCAA runner-up in the 200 breast (2:06.27) and third in the 100 (58.10) as a freshman for Indiana.
Tucker didn’t better either of those short course yards times in her gap year, but the time off from NCAA swimming did allow her an increased focus on long course, where she hit lifetime-bests in both breaststrokes between the summer of 2016 and summer of 2017 while competing for Club Wolverine. She’ll officially join the Michigan Wolverine roster this fall.
It was a tight finish for second in our poll. College-based polls tend to be our most unpredictable, because team fandom runs strong. 16.8% of voters selected former USC freestyler Stanzi Moseley. Moseley gets the relay boost, as her top times (22.1/48.1/1:43.9) make her an elite contributor in potentially all five relay events. She eked out that spot by just five votes over Annie Ochitwa, who left Arizona for Missouri. Ochitwa (51.2 back, 51.0 fly, 22.1 free) could have similar relay impact, but doesn’t quite have the yardage range of Moseley.
And just four votes behind Ochitwa is Lexie Lupton, another 22-second sprinter who joins NC State from Texas A&M. Lupton has solid times (22.4/49.0), but her biggest draw in this poll is probably the upside of joining one of the hottest sprint programs in the nation in Raleigh.
Ochitwa’s former Arizona teammate and Tucker’s new Michigan teammate is the last name on this list. Don’t count out Garcia (22.6 free, 51.8 back) to play a big role for Michigan, as the Wolverines look like perhaps the most-improved team in the nation heading into this season.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters the same question about the men’s side:
ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE
The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
what is the sample size?
Not too hard to calculate. 4 votes = 1.3% according to the gap between Ochitwa and Lupton. That means roughly 308 votes.