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NCAA ‘A’ Cuts Update: 173 Cuts Achieved Through Mid-Season Invites

Now that the invites are over, it’s time for an update on NCAA ‘A’ cuts. To date, there have been 173 ‘A’ cuts achieved, 79 in individual events (51 women’s/28 men’s), and a whopping 93 relays (50 women’s/44 men’s).

30 women from 16 teams have punched their tickets to the NCAAs in individual events so far, 13 of them have done so in multiple events. Katie Ledecky and Mallory Comerford are leading the way with 4 individual cuts apiece, followed by Ella Eastin, Siobhan Haughey, Louise Hansson, and Kathleen Baker with 3 each, then Abbey Weitzeil, Joanna Evans, Asia Seidt, Erika Brown, Bethany GalatCaroline Baldwin and Sydney Pickrem with 2 apiece.

23 men from 13 teams have punched their tickets to the NCAAs, with 5 of them grabbing 2 ‘A’ cuts so far. Those 5 are Blake Pieroni, Caeleb Dressel, Joseph Schooling, Grant Shoults, and Hugo Gonzalez. There has been an ‘A’ cut achieved so far in every single men’s and women’s event, except for both men’s breaststroke events. There have been men under the breaststroke cuts this season, but they’ve all been either post-grads or Reece Whitley.

Here is the current list of ‘A’ cuts by race:

WOMEN:

MEN:

In total, 22 women’s teams and 17 men’s teams have earned NCAA bids so far this season, with 13 of those teams having at least 1 relay cut but no individuals yet. There is also 1 team, the Denver women’s team, that has an individual ‘A’ cut but no relay ‘A’ cuts. That’s important because once a team has 1 relay and 1 individual ‘A’ cut, the team automatically qualifies the rest of their relays with ‘B’ cuts. The full list of cuts by team can be found below, they are listed in order based first by number of relay cuts, then individuals.

WOMEN INDIVIDUAL RELAY MEN INDIVIDUAL RELAY
Cal 7 5 Texas 7 5
Louisville 4 5 Cal 4 5
Stanford 11 4 NC State 2 5
Texas A&M 6 4 Florida 2 4
USC 5 4 Alabama 1 4
Michigan 4 4 Indiana 2 2
Georgia 1 4 Stanford 2 2
Tennessee 2 3 Tennessee 1 2
Texas 2 2 Florida State 0 2
UNC 2 2 Arizona State 0 2
Virginia 1 2 Texas A&M 0 2
Indiana 0 2 Mizzou 0 2
Mizzou 2 1 Auburn 2 1
Kentucky 2 1 USC 2 1
Wisconsin 1 1 Michigan 1 1
Arizona 0 1 Arizona 1 1
Auburn 0 1 Grand Canyon 1 1
Alabama 0 1 Utah 0 1
Florida State 0 1 Denver  0  1
Ohio State 0 1
NC State 0 1
Denver 1 0

This is an interesting alternative way to compare the teams at any given point in the season. Relay cuts were used as the primary criteria because there is a limit of 5, so each team will have a number 0-5, and it splits the teams into a tier system of sorts (the teams with all 5 relay cuts, the teams that still have 1 more to get, etc.).

Remember when looking at the breakdown of cuts by team, context is very important when you’re using this as a way to compare the teams. For example, the Stanford women’s team noticeably only has 4 relay cuts, that’s because they have yet to swim the 800 free relay this season. Caeleb Dressel only swam the 200 IM and 50 free at his mid-season invite, where he would have almost certainly also gotten cuts in the 100 free and 100 fly had he swam them too. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind when looking at this is the current active injuries/absences, and there’s a decent amount of them this season.

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Go Bearcats
6 years ago

100/200 breastroke events are the only two that are without A qualifiers so far. Is this because the cuts are too fast or a testament to how wide open the events are this season?

Spencer Penland
Reply to  Go Bearcats
6 years ago

It’s an interesting question because no men have qualified in breast yet and only 4 have qualified for both women’s breast events combined. It may be that the breaststroke cuts are harder than the other strokes, or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Hard to say.

SUNY Cal
Reply to  Spencer Penland
6 years ago

No Lilly King in either breast strokes???

Big10 Boyz
Reply to  SUNY Cal
6 years ago

I saw her swim at the Purdue Invite in November. She didn’t even suit up for the breaststrokes.

Go Bearcats
Reply to  Big10 Boyz
6 years ago

Do you think she’s afraid of Walsh?

Jay ryan
Reply to  Go Bearcats
6 years ago

Lilly is not really afraid of anything

2 Cents
Reply to  Big10 Boyz
6 years ago

I think we know why she was not included then…If she didn’t put a suit on, she was probably DQd and most likely detained by some level of authorities as a result. I would highly recommend anyone who swims (unless in the privacy of their own back yard) that they suit up or run the risk of being arrested….

Korn
6 years ago

A Relay cuts aren’t the same as individuals IMO.

Packer
6 years ago

NC State has two individual cuts: Andreas in 200 fly and Anton in the 1650

Spencer Penland
Reply to  Packer
6 years ago

It’s been updated, both the NC State cuts were in the individual list but I accidentally counted Vazaios as an Indiana swimmer

Swimmer
6 years ago

If Texas doesn’t win NCAAs, I am pretty sure they will finish top 3 at their conference meet.

science geek
Reply to  Swimmer
6 years ago

??

karen
6 years ago

Just curious how this compares to past years at this point of the season.

Spencer Penland
Reply to  karen
6 years ago

Without doing a full in-depth analysis, I can tell you a few things. If you were to average this point from the last 4 years, it looks like there are more individual cuts achieved this year, but by less swimmers. There has also been a pretty significant increase in really cuts this year. One more interesting thing I can tell you is that the gap we’re seeing right now between the number of men’s and women’s individual cuts achieved has increased drastically in the last few seasons. As recently as 2014, the number of men’s and women’s cuts at this point in the season were virtually the same. Today, women have nearly twice as many cuts as men.

Swimbo Fisher
6 years ago

But we beat Texas in a dual meet so we will beat them at NCAAs. Those A cuts don’t mean anything! Neither do all the B cuts they will be able to swim now.

Distance Swimmer
Reply to  Swimbo Fisher
6 years ago

Your name is ELITE

Go Bearcats
6 years ago

When people were worried about Texas this season…

swammer
6 years ago

Denver men also have an A relay cut in the 200free relay

Spencer Penland
Reply to  swammer
6 years ago

Yes they do, I missed that one. Post has been updated

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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