NC State Men Qualify A Diver On Final Day of Zone B Champs

2017 NCAA ZONE DIVING

• Zones A, B, D & E: Monday, March 6 – Wednesday, March 8
• Zone C: Thursday, March 9 – Saturday, March 11
• Host schools:
  • Zone A: Virginia Tech
  • Zone B: Auburn
  • Zone C: Indiana
  • Zone D: Missouri
  • Zone E: Northern Arizona
• NCAA selection primer

Seeded first on the early NCAA psych sheets, the NC State Wolfpack will add one diver to their roster after the last day of the Zone B Diving Championships.

Zone B results

Freshman James Brady took 6th on platform to earn an NCAA bid, though he won’t get NCAA reimbursement. It’s difficult to project how diving fields stack up across the nation, but Zone B is one of the nation’s better diving zones, and the top 5 in this event featured 2 returning All-Americans who placed in the top 8 at NCAAs in platform last year, plus

Miami’s men completed a sweep of the diving titles in Zone B with freshman David Dinsmore taking gold on platform. It was a tough event for freshmen, with rookie Aidan Faminoff and Brady combining to make half of the top 6 brand new divers to the NCAA.

Florida State did well as a team, with Faminoff joining Dylan Grisell and Tyler Roberge in the top 5.

For the women, South Carolina’s Allyson Nied booked her NCAA ticket with a platform win, followed by Florida International’s Rebecca Quesnel. Neither of those two were qualified prior to today, but came through in the clutch to earn last-day NCAA bids.

Duke also got a pair of divers in on the women’s side. Interestingly, though there was lots of doubling up for the top men, the top 3 was entirely different in all three women’s events. That means only the top 3 finishers in each event earned NCAA reimbursement. Compare that to the men’s side, where all three 4th-place finishers earned NCAA bids because so many of the top finishers finished highly in two or more events.

(Athletes in bold are locked in for NCAA reimbursement. Athletes who have doubled up on qualifying spots are noted with a line through their lower priority slot.)

NCAA ZONE QUALIFYING PROCEDURES

From our refresher post, which you can find here.

Divers qualify for the NCAA Championships through Zone Meets spread across the country. Each zone earns a set number of NCAA qualifying spots based on the performances of that Zone at NCAAs in the past.

Here are the qualifying spots for each event in each zone:

WOMEN

MEN

According to the rules set in 2015 that allowed more divers into the meet, any diver who lands in the qualifying spots for their zone earns a spot to compete in the NCAA Championships. If the diver earns eligibility in one event, they can automatically compete in any of the other two events at NCAAs as long as they finished in the top 12 in their zone in that event.

The NCAA made a distinction between “eligible” and “reimbursed” athletes. Divers qualifying outside of the reimbursement spots will not have their travel, lodging, or meet expenses covered by the NCAA.  Instead the individual school must decide if they’re willing to pay the bill themselves to give that diver an opportunity to participate in the NCAA Championships.

A priority chart determines who gets the reimbursement spots. The first priority spot is taken by the winner of each event beginning with the 3-meter champ, followed by the 1-meter champ and then the platform champ. If an athlete wins two events, they will still only take up one slot which means the NCAA will keep adding rows to this chart until the zone meet reimbursement quota is met.