Queens Women, Indy Men Lead D2 Swimulator Rankings

With the end of the major mid season invites, pretty much every team in the country has had a meet that they’ve taken seriously. This means that we can finally start to get some useful information by comparing team’s times so far. The easiest way to do this is with our Swimulator. The Swimulator takes everyone’s top times so far this season and scores out a national meet.

Swimulator has a few issues scoring D2 nationals as the rules are different from the other divisions. Swimmers can do 4 individual events. Swimulator limits them to 3. The 1000 is an event. Swimulator only includes the 1650 as is standard in the other two divisions. Swimulator still provides a reasonable baseline, so keeping those caveats in mind, let’s take a look at the rankings.

• D1 Men’s Rankings
• D1 Women’s Rankings
• D3 Men and Women’s Rankings

Women

The Queens women have a commanding lead over the rest of the field based on times so far this season. They have 625 points in the current Swimulator rankings nearly 400 ahead of 2nd place Drury.

Drury, who were 2nd at nationals last year, probably have the ability to pick up some points over their projection. Their 400 free relay is 28th right now and they are 5th and 3rd in the 200 and 800 free relays. Drury’s problem is how much they lost. They graduated 154 individual points and return only 134. Their freshmen scored 0 points last year and their juniors only scored 5. This is reflected again this year. Their now juniors remain strong with 107 projected points, and they brought in a decent freshman class with 75 projected points. Their seniors project to 3 and the sophomores 0. Even with their solid recruiting class they’re doing no better than treading water in the standings.

Meanwhile, Queens got stronger. All of their returning classes are projected to score at least 35 points more than they were at this point last season or in the final Swimulator rankings. Queens hold the top seed in all 5 relays. They have 17 swimmers ranked in scoring range including 10 projected to score 20 or more points.

Another story line so far this year has been the drop off of several former power teams. Nova Southeastern, 3rd place last year project to only 120 points, 215 behind their projection at this point last season, a projection they followed pretty well at nationals. Nova’s drop off came mostly through lack of replacement of their seniors. They graduated 80 individual points and their freshmen project to 0 points right now. That loss of speed has also affected their ability to score in the relays.

Carson Newman, 9th last year project to only 82.5, less than half of the 183 they had at this point last season. Graduation also hit them hard. They lost 52.5 individual points and their freshmen project to only 11.

When enough big teams fall off other teams have to take over those points. One big riser has been UC San Diego. UCSD have 206 projected points this year well ahead of their 83 from this point last year. All of their projected individual points come from freshmen (52) and sophomores (23), a sign of a team on the rise. Delta State (179 now, 98 last year) and Simon Fraser (164.5 now, 87 last year) have also jumped up the standings.

History says Drury should pick up a bunch of points and secure second, but 3rd place looks potentially competitive. UCSD picked up a ton of points over projection last year, so they’re the 3rd place favorite (and who knows maybe that 2nd place upset is possible). However, they rely a lot of freshmen which makes them a bit more of an unknown. If they stumble, Lindenwood (198 projected), Tampa (195 projected), Delta State (179), or Simon Fraser (164.5) could all make a run. Delta State’s drop off last year from 98 mid season to 36 at nationals is a bit of a red flag, but more than half of their projected individual points are from freshmen, so who knows?

Men

Indy lead the Swimulator projections for the D2 men with 327.5 points, but don’t mistake them for runaway favorites. Their chances to win are good, but there’s a case to be made for other teams. First let’s look at Indy. Indy picked up 41.5 points over their mid season projection at nationals last season, they graduated 0 individual points, brought in 18 projected freshmen points, and return 47 diving points, all good signs that they will be able to beat or at least match their projected total. 400 seems about their ceiling, but this year that might be good enough to win.

Defending champions Queens are projected to only 249 points, but they were seeded with 376 at this point last year and ultimately scored 558. Queens graduated an astonishing 227 individual points and only have 33 projected freshmen points, so a return to the top isn’t certain. However, that point jump last year can’t be ignored. They are ranked in the top 3 in only 1 relay, but ranked to score in all of them. Marius Kusch could easily score more than his projected total of 57 (Swimulator’s 3 event cap hurts him). The 16-20 rankings, just out of the projected points are littered with Queens swimmers. If they have a great meet, the depth is there and there is room to move up in plenty of places. Queens are no longer as dominant, but they can’t be dismissed.

The next contender is Simon Fraser. They more than doubled their mid season projected point total at nationals last year (39->100), but with 301.5 points this year, they’re playing in a different league. The history of gaining points is a good sign, but how they achieved their huge projection jump isn’t. Simon Fraser project to 47 freshman individual points and 127.5 senior individual points. Those seniors at nationals last year scored only 40 points. They may be better this year, but 87.5 more points is way better and may not be sustainable. It’s always better to have more projected points at this time of year than less, but while scoring more than the 100 they had last year seems very possible, 300 points might be a bit much for this team.

The next two teams in the standings Delta State (288.5) and Grand Valley (249) were highly ranked at this point last season and dropped off substantially.

Fresno Pacific is seemingly still allergic to mid season rests. Last year they had 4 points in the Swimulator at this point and ended up 8th. This year they have 0 points. All of their individual points last year were from freshmen and sophomores (and, no they weren’t divers), so a return to the top 10 remains possible.

Drury are a bit of a wild card with only 102 projected points, well behind their mid season projection of 378.5 last year or nationals score of 250. They returned 108 individual points and have 12 projected freshman points (I’m assuming Federico Brumana is gone. He’s off the roster and hasn’t competed this year). That means a jump up the standings seems almost inevitable, but it’s not clear exactly how far they will rise. Their lack of elite sprint freestylers hurts their relay potential.

If the Drury drop off is real, it will make the already substantial top 10 shakeup even bigger. Last year’s #2 team Cal Baptist moved to Division 1, so they’re out. #5 from last year Oklahoma Baptist projects to only 26, well behind the 161.5 they had last year at this time. I expect a lot of movement from these rankings at the end of the year. Should be a lot of fun.