The NCAA has agreed that the East Carolina swimmers who earned NCAA Championship invite times at the Liberty University last chance meet did not swim their times at a bona fide meet, as defined by the NCAA rules book, and has withdrawn the two swimmers from the meet. This means that East Carolina sophomore Gustavo Santos and freshman Jacek Arentewicz are both out of the 2018 meet that will begin next Wednesday.
Rather than re-running the invites from scratch, the NCAA will instead just reach into the alternates list and call up the first two names: Daniil Antipov and Youssef El Kamash from Grand Canyon University. Both swimmers were already entered to the meet as part of Grand Canyon’s relay efforts. Had the selections been re-run without the East Carolina swimmers, Antipov still would have been invited as the next swimmer from the 29 line, while South Carolina’s Lionel Khoo would’ve replaced Jacek Arentewicz in the 200 breaststroke.
Grand Canyon will now have 3 individual swimmers, with Mark Nikolaev being the other as the 2nd seed in the 100 back, in their first year eligible for the NCAA Division I Championships after transitioning from Division II.
The NCAA still hasn’t responded to our request for more information on the breakdown in the entries process.
The updated lists are below:
OFFICIAL LISTS
- Official psych sheets
- Invited swimmers by team
- Alternates
- Teams eligible for relays
- Scoring the psych sheets (still valid)
Updated Alternates List (Next 5 in):
- Brennan Balogh, Florida, 200 back (1:41.19)
- Lionel Khoo, South Carolina, 200 breast (1:54.51)
- Thomas Anderson, Arizona, 100 back (46.16)
- Karl Luht, LSU, 100 back (46.16)
- Kevin Litherland, Georgia, 500 free (4:16.14)
Any scratches? Is Balogh going to make it in?
None released yet. While scratches pretty frequent, this close to the meet, it becomes very rare to see scratches.
South Carolina’s Lionel Khoo should be in the meet. If the NCAA is going to stick by the book with its rules, the only way to “right” the mistake is invite the person who would have been invited. Going into the alternate list isn’t fair to the guy who actually qualified.
Braden, did you request information as to why they took an alternate rather than Lionel Khoo?
In practice, the rulebook needs to be changed next year to allow these types of situations to count. The Texas Intrasquad meet showed up in collegeswimming.com the entire season as a real meet, even though they did not have any opposing teams. If someone is allowed to time trial at a… Read more »
Completely agree Khoo should be given the invite. If they had followed their own rules from the beginning and not allowed the last chance meet, Khoo would have been in.
Totally agree that Lionel Khoo should be at the meet. Without the errors by NCAA, he is ranked 28th in the 200m breaststroke. He has been training very hard up till today!!
He was ranked 26th after completion of all conferences and dual meets – but because of the last chance meets (at the very last days) he was pushed down to 29th. Now with the “error” corrected, he is now ranked 28th, yet he is left out??
Strictly following the letter of the law for one rule but then not another does seem pretty dumb.
You can be super strict or not, pick one.
What are the rules when a swim is disqualified after the seeding has been done.
You are making comments without knowing the rules. Your comments are what you feel is right. Rules are rules and they need to be followed. Straight from the NCAA Championship meet rule book below. They followed their own rules to a tee!
“Time standards, consideration standards and optional-entry standards for all events must be achieved in bona fide competition. The definition and requirements for meeting bona fide competition are detailed in Rule 9 of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 NCAA Swimming and Diving Rules Book. Any attempt to circumvent either the intent of a bona fide competition or the application of the NCAA-approved starting, judging and timing procedures is prohibited. Such an attempt may result in a severe penalty to… Read more »
Gotta love letting your feelings to decide right and wrong.
Ok, but they’re claiming that the ECU swimmers times don’t count… therefore should’ve never been accepted into their database. Which pushes the SC swimmer to line 28 and subsequently into the meet. If following to a tee, then they should’ve re- selected.
Nevermind it’s a mess they created for themselves by deregulating the need for sanctioning last chance meets for 17-18.
I expected one of two outcomes: they were either going to leave it as is, or they were going to let all 4 swim. I was shocked when they pulled them out. It’s a longshot that any of the swimmers involved will score individually – really expected them to find a way to not remove any of them.
They used to pre-sanction last chance meets. That stopped happening for whatever reason.
Ineligible to mean injured or sick. Not error made and not allowed to swim are two different thing.
The swimmers didn’t “become ineligible or unavailable”, they never were eligible in the first place.
Khoo absolutely should be the one who gets invited, It’s so unfair that a swimmer not even in the event’s top 50 get to swim it instead of him.
Join the iscussion
ECU should have known rules and made sure another male team at the meet….it’s quite clear…it’s on coaches.
If not another male team then go to a different meet.
Khoo deserves to be there, and his coach is to blame. The times/rankings were accessible on USA Swimming long before the official invitations were extended. When a coach has a swimmer on the cusp of being invited, he should check to make sure all the timers faster than his swimmer’s time are legal times.
What about the liberty meet was outside the bounds of bona fide?
To be a bona fide meet, at least two teams of the same gender have to be participating ie two mens teams or two womens teams. The Liberty meet had multiple womens teams there but ECU Men’s swimming was the only men’s team there.
I guess I have missed all the uproar about this rule in the previous days/years.
Nothing stupid about this. The East Carolina coaches are to blame. Before you go to a meet, you need to make sure the times will be official. It only takes two teams, it is not complicated. They could have went to any of the other dozen or so Last Chance meets. I don’t think any other last chance meets would have closed them out. I am glad the NCAA stuck to the rules. Rules are in place for a reason.
The rule is in place for what reason?
If the officials did happen to “miss” an infraction that happened who would have cared. It seems they feel when more than one team is involved you are more likely to have a “bona fide” meet. I can imagine the types of things that would go on letting teams have private meets. I know there was also a girls meet going on at some point. Edit: Joseph Schooling would hold every record imaginable just based on their practices, much less a 1 team meet.
As long as a meet has the required amount of officials I really don’t see a problem. How often do coaches argue about infractions done by kids from other teams?
If this is going to be a rule then cuts achieved in time trials should also not be allowed
The time to argue the rules is before you participate.
I agree that there is a rule in place and East Carolina should know the rules, I’m making a point that the rule is pointless
To make qualifying more legitimate and bona fide. I know of a 74′ course being used to qualify swimmers by a hall of fame coach 30+ years ago and stopwatch times instead of the automatic timing system 15+ years ago. Both of these situations were with only one team present. I believe that is the rationale behind the two team requirement. Remember, the rules committee made this recommendation and it was voted on by the membership and then forwarded to the NCAA for approval. The rules committee = coaches and a few administrators and the membership = coaches. In the future, I’m confident that Coach Jabs (and hopefully all coaches) will inquire as to how many teams will be present… Read more »
Well like I said, there needs to have to be the required amount of officials to make it an official meet. If the rule is there because of coaches fudging times 30 years ago then this is an outdated rule that really isn’t necessary at this level.
They would not have known until getting to the meet that no other men’s teams would be there. It was not closed to men, just so happen no other men showed up. Last chance meets should be the exception to the this rule.
The first words out of the coaches mouth when they got there should have been: “Sorry boys these times aren’t going to count.” If they had no information before hand of who may be going to the meet.
Nice. The NCAA is as corrupt as USA Swimming and FINA.
Wow, that’s really really low. But they probably get under the bar don’t they?
So stupid ugh!
Beyond stupid. The NCAA has really outlived it usefulness and relevance. Hey, maybe the NCAA can take the lead from USA Swimming and sell alcohol at the swim meets?
At this rate:
Dear 2,703rd Alternate (sitting at home on spring break eating pop-tarts),
Congratulations! You have now been invited to compete in the 200 fly at NCAA’s next week. We realize that you haven’t trained for 3 weeks now, but s’all good. Go get ’em!
P.S. All hotels and flights are booked.