Significant changes to the NCAA qualification system will be discussed at the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America’s (CSCAA) upcoming convention in May.
Conference allocations and automatic qualifiers (AQs) are the two things the CSCAA will consider implementing for the NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships, a qualifying system used in several other NCAA sports, including basketball.
However, it should be noted that the CSCAA told SwimSwam conference allocations is the far more likely scenario with AQs too difficult to put into effect due to the number of conferences.
If implemented, AQs would see conference champions automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships, while conference allocations would see a designated number of spots set aside for each conference at NCAAs.
This is something that would dramatically shift the way teams prepare for conference championship meets and could also have a lasting effect on the recruiting process.
CONFERENCE CHAMPS GAIN IMPORTANCE
If conference champions earned an automatic berth to NCAAs, winning a race at the conference championships would become a bigger priority for the athletes.
Currently, swimmers in the running for a title in one of the Power Five conferences are generally shoo-ins to qualify for NCAAs anyway, but if AQs came into effect, the spots available for at-large qualifiers diminishes and the importance of locking up a spot by winning a conference title becomes all the more imperative.
But beyond the Power Five, AQs would have a far greater impact in the mid-major conferences.
MID-MAJORS GET MORE EYEBALLS
Mid-major swimmers typically only take up a small percentage of NCAA qualifiers. This past season, 26 women and 17 men made the Division I Championships. If AQs came into effect, mid-major conference championship meets would become more exciting and gain more eyeballs with an NCAA spot solidified by simply getting your hand on the wall first.
With numerous swimming & diving programs getting cut in recent years, teams being able to garner some hype and marketability with NCAA qualifiers and conference champions would go a long way in keeping programs sustainable.
With AQs being a common thing for other sports, making the qualifying process more clear-cut for Athletic Directors and other non-swimming people would be beneficial for all.
It could also have a lasting impact on recruiting.
SMALLER CONFERENCES BECOME MORE APPEALING
If a swimmer sees a direct path to the NCAA Championships by going to a mid-major program and winning a title, it may pull them in that direction rather than going to one of the bigger Power Five schools where they may not have a scholarship and would be hard-pressed to get on the NCAA roster (even if they were to get under the cutline, in a case like Texas).
WHAT THE DATA SAYS
Of course, there are cons to AQs, most notably how it would deny some top-tier athletes from competing in favor of slower swimmers.
However, CSCAA data tells us that currently, less than half (47%) of individual NCAA qualifiers score, and that it’s very rare that a swimmer scores outside of the circle-seeded heats. 92% of all ‘A’ and ‘B’ finalists come from the 24th seed or higher, the data says.
The CSCAA report says that if events at NCAAs are going to have three or four heats of non-scorers, the sport would be better off if these heats include swimmers from teams that come from outside of the Power Five.
Other ideas to be discussed by the CSCAA include reducing the NCAA scoring roster size down from the 18 where it is now and setting aside a specific percentage of allocated spots for non-Power 5 conferences.
Using an allocation format is one implemented by every sport in the NCAA other than track and field.
CONFERENCE ALLOCATIONS
If conference allocations were to be implemented, the current idea proposes that 25 percent of the field be set aside for Non-Autonomy (non-Power Five) conferences. Conferences would need to have at least six teams, and swimmers would still need to achieve qualifying times in order to make NCAAs.
Each conference would get a specified number of spots based on “strength,” most likely using recent history (past NCAA qualifiers and swimmers with ‘B’ cuts) as a benchmark.
The CSCAA shows an example in its presentation, based on data from 2016 to 2020, where the Ivy League men would get 12 allocated spots, the MPSF, Summit League and WAC would get seven, and so on. In this example, the added spots for mid-major conferences would see 36 swimmers from Power Five conferences bumped from the championships in favor of the others.
MORE INFO
According to numbers presented by the CSCAA, swimming & diving has the largest disparity between NCAA qualifiers coming from the Power Five conferences (90%) and the percentage of teams in the Power Five (28%).
The average for all sports is 54% of qualifiers coming from the Power Five while 57% of teams are in the Power Five. This tells us that the vast majority of qualifiers are coming from just over a quarter of the teams, leaving the rest with not much opportunity for national championship success.
The CSCAA also shares data showing that the number of teams qualifying and scoring for the NCAA Championships is at an all-time low. On the women’s side, 65 teams qualified for NCAAs in 2016 and in 2021, that number dropped to 52. The men had 52 teams in 2016 and only 39 in 2021.
Ultimately these issues being discussed by the CSCAA have the goal of keeping swimming & diving programs sustainable.
For more info, check out the CSCAA’s presentation here.
An exhibition swimmer makes A final if it were to count. But still makes NCAA. This scenario would be completely eliminated.
Why are people so opposed to expanding the overall size of the NCAA meet? If it’s a showcase of the top collegiate athletes in the country, let it be that. Allowing more schools to go would be more local PR for those schools. They could hype swimming like basketball and football and possibly find some new fans or at the very least harness a USA swimming enrollment bump every March, much like the every 4 year Olympic bump. The Olympic Trials are a huge meet, and I think that has been good for the sport.
As some have suggested I like this idea— with the caveat that the conference champion also needs a B cut to be an automatic qualifier to keep from admitting any outliers. Division 1 ADs are by and large stupid and see these things only in terms of other sports. This wont ensure the long term viability of Division 1 mid major programs but it will give them a fighting chance to stay alive in these times.
Don’t often reply, but feel a need to do so here. As some posters have pointed out, there are some inaccuracies in this article. I’ve asked for a correction but to no avail.
1) There is no “Proposal” and certainly none made by the CSCAA. The NCAA regularly asks us to survey our coaches, pressure-test ideas and solicit feedback. This, along with several other ideas, are among those. A similar instance was the expansion of relay-only swimmers in 2013 or 2014. There was a desire to make our championship more relevant. The CSCAA, (with a lot of credit to Matt Tallman), evaluated alternatives and worked with the NCAA develop something I think we can mostly agree has been good… Read more »
Confirmed I am not Greg Earhart. Most who know me know by my posts who I am. Those who don’t know me…….. I-AM-SPARTACUS!
Look at the presentation document; I DON’T think having conference champions automatically qualify is the real proposal. It was one of a couple ideas mentioned, with pros and cons, before the presentation narrowed in on a much more limited idea.
That idea is to allocate small numbers of spots to mid-major conferences based on past competitiveness. It has a MUCH smaller impact on the overall numbers than allowing all conference champs would. It’s fair to support the actual proposal or not, but I don’t think the “all conference champs” idea was meant to be a serious proposal.
Edit: see the post above by I believe the head of the CSCAA
I was told about 10 years ago that for Basketball, if a conference had less than 8 teams, the conference would not be eligible to earn an AQ. I don’t think that swimming should head in this direction, but if they are it needs to have a minimum of a similar format, that only conferences with a minimum number of teams competing would be eligible to send the conference winner on, if that minimum should be 8 schools I cannot answer.
Maybe it should be it should be 8 schools plus the winning time has to be at least a B-cut (if they are doing something like this)?
I’m not sure how many people in the comments were in the meeting but this is quite misleading at least by what I was listening to. Conferences would be given spots based on how successful they have been historically for example if a conference has had a few qualifiers in the past few years then they would be given a few spots (like 2 to 5 per conference). Champions would not immediately be able to go to NCAAs it would be up to the conference to decide who gets to essentially represent the conference (as long as they have a B cut minimum) The number would go down insignificantly for people that naturally qualify for the meet, and the people… Read more »
No!!!!! Leave it as it is. The NCAA swimming championships should be the best college swimmers in the country; period!
More than 50% of qualifiers to the NCAA championships do not score. We are getting the fastest at the meet.
and i wonder how many even swim their best times in meet as they spend some much effort to get there….
Yes we are getting the fastest at the meet and there shouldn’t be any thing that changes that.