Shaine Casas Sticks to 200 IM, Backstrokes for 2021 NCAA Champs

2021 NCAA MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, March 24 – Saturday, March 27, 2021
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending champion: Cal (1x) – 2019 results
• Streaming:
• Championship Central
• Live Results

With the pre-selection psych sheets released last night, Texas A&M’s Shaine Casas is sticking with both backstrokes and the 200 IM.

• Full pre-selection NCAA men’s psych sheets
• Projecting the cutline

Casas, known for his absurd versatility, has played around with his event schedule the last two years. In 2019, as a freshman, he swam the 200 IM, 100 fly and 200 fly. He placed 11th in the 200 fly, 13th in the 200 IM and didn’t score in the 100 fly (25th in prelims).

Last year, he was scheduled to swim the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 back at 2020 NCAAs, though those were canceled due to the pandemic.

At the 2021 SEC Championships, Casas swam (and won) the 200 IM (1:39.26) and 200 back (1:36.85), while he placed third in the 100 fly (44.91). Having been under 1:40 in the 200 fly before, including a 1:38.69 at the American Short Course Championships over the weekend that ranks him #2 nationally, there was potential for him to swim that over the 200 back. Casas also put up a 3:38.22 lifetime best in the 400 IM at the Texas First Chance Invite in October 2020, but he won’t duke it out in that event with top seeds Carson Foster (Texas) and Hugo Gonzalez (Cal).

Casas enters the 2021 NCAA Men’s Championships as the #1 seed in the 200 IM, 100 back and 200 back. He’s the fastest 200 IMer on the psych sheets by over two seconds, the fastest 200 backstroker by over a second and the fastest 100 backstroker by almost a second.