It seems reasonable to assume that the NCAA Division 3 Championship should offer the highest level of competition in the division – serving as the ideal destination for all Division 3 swimmers . However, with such strict selection guidelines in place this is difficult to achieve.
Although each NCAA Championship meet tends to have swimmers that go slower than their qualifying time, it becomes a problem in Division 3 due to the fact that so few swimmers are selected in each event.
In a number of events at this year’s NCAA Division 3 Championships there are swimmers who did not qualify for the meet but whose best time would have made the B final. For example, in the men’s 400 IM it took 3:58.6 to qualify for the meet– but it took only 4:01.8 to make the B final and score points. Below is a table of other events where the same circumstance occurred.
| Event | Meet Qualify | B Final Qualify |
| Women’s 400 IM | 4:28.50 | 4:29.91 |
| Men’s 100 Butterfly | 48.95 | 49.20 |
It is also worth noting that in every other event the time to make B final was relatively close to the meet, and the times dropped off pretty quickly thereafter. Results in comparison to the meet qualifying times are displayed below.
| Event | Meet Qualify | B Final Qualify | Place where the time was slower than the time it took to qualify | Place |
| Women’s 500 free | 4:59.02 | 4:58.27 | 4:59.08 | 20th |
| Men’s 500 Free | 4:31.03 | 4:30.94 | 4:31.45 | 17th |
| Women’s 200 IM | 2:05.78 | 2:05.45 | 2:05.83 | 19th |
| Men’s 200 IM | 1:50.28 | 1:50.20 | 1:50.39 | 17th |
| Women’s 50 Free | 23.59 | 23.53 | 23.62 | 19th |
| Women’s 100 Fly | 56.25 | 56.16 | 56.28 | 19th |
| Women’s 200 Free | 1:51.62 | 1:51.12 | 1:51.71 | 20th |
| Men’s 200 Free | 1:39.64 | 1:39.26 | 1:39.43 | 17th |
The times tended to drop off pretty quickly after around 20th place, leaving a margin of swimmers that did not qualify for the meet but may have been able to get a second swim at NCAAs.
This is likely a result of how tight the selection process is, which you can read more about here. The majority of Division 3 swimmers have to fully taper at their conference meet to make nationals, leading to a slower championship meet.
All NCAA Championship meets should foster the highest level of competition that the division has to offer, and with the selection standards in place for Division 3 this is nearly impossible.
In most other championship meets of similar fashion the top swimmers are usually able to easily qualify for the meet without tapering. In addition, swimmers who have a shot at a second swim typically have no trouble making the meet.
There were 61 swimmers who were relay only. That is, their relay qualified, but they couldn’t swim any individual events because they didn’t even have a b cut. One quarter of the swimmers entered into the meet couldn’t swim any individual events. And the NCAA didn’t even take the top 16 individuals, on the men’s side. Something has to change, because this is not fair. At all.
Just wait until the mile results come out tomorrow. It could very easily be the highlight of the tables you have provided.
I swam in the last NCAA D3 meet to have 1 set of cuts, and the first one to have A and B cuts (91 and 92).
My coach was on the NCAA rules committee when they were directed by NCAA to find a way to cap the meet. They came up with the A and B cuts to meet the cap. He said that all the coaches walked out of that meeting like it was a funeral.
Since I made a cut in December of my freshman year, I got to swim through he conference meet because I knew I was in the meet. But after that, bc I i wasn’t an A cut swimmer, I had… Read more »
In short, yes.
But we have to remember back when the selection process was the same as it is for division 1 swimming. There were a few problems with that on this level. The first was that A cut standards were often years behind the rapid improvement in D3 times, so you would have years where there would be 15 swimmers under the A cut. The second problem was that because of this, the really invite line was often 10 or 11 deep. This would mean that there were years where it took slower than the NCAA be cut to make it back for an evening swim in off relays. This all changed after 23 (?) A cuts were made… Read more »
The other consideration to keep in mind is the maximum number of swimmers a school is allowed to bring to the championships. Schools like Kenyon and Denison bring the maximum number (16?) meaning they could leave qualifying swimmers at home – especially when they have divers qualifying too.
The other thing to keep in mind is the difference in depth on the men’s side compared to the women’s side in DIII. This is a result of the large disparity in the number of DI programs for women compared to men – the unintended impact of Title IX.
Lastly, it is sad that the NCAA invites so many fewer swimmers to the DIII meet than DI.
It would be great to have DIII have similar qualifications DI where more emphasis is on the individual vs the relays as changed in recent years. And if more swimmers could be invited to the meet. does any one know how much money the NCAA gives for the meet vs the individual colleges? It seems it is always the same teams at the top. Know in DI but a little more opportunity there is seems for other schools.
So it’s either the cap (260 less 24 divers on the men’s side) or the fact that the relays are selected first. It’s not fair that the top 16 times don’t get to compete for the top 16 places.
Its the prioritization of relays. D3 had to choose between having slower individual events or relays. They chose the former after years of having a team that qualifies only one relay (for example the 4 x 100 medley) swim the other relays with pretty horrendous times (i mean 1:10 100 br split bad) and end up scoring because the did not have enough relay entries. The argument is that the lesser of two evils is to have a b cut score but not necessarily invite b cuts that would be potentially score.
If someone wanys to endow D3 swimming in order to increase the cap, we could end the trade off altogether.
My example should have been a 4 x 200 free relay swimming all the other relays.