NCAA Men’s Diving Preview: How Zones Scores Project To Impact The Team Race

2023 NCAA DIVISION I MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 22-25, 2023
• Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center | Minneapolis, MN
• SCY (25 yards)
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• SwimSwam Pick ’em Contest
• Live Results

Just as we score out the psych sheets every year prior to the NCAA Championships, we’ve decided to do a similar exercise with the diving events to give us an idea of where the points might come from this week at Men’s NCAAs in Minneapolis.

When we score out the psych sheets, we know things aren’t going to go exactly as projected for a myriad of factors, with things such as taper, nerves, event schedules and everything else playing into how swimmers perform on the big stage.

• See the scored psych sheets here.

In diving, there’s a different set of variables at play, as the NCAA qualifiers competed at five different Zone meets last week, meaning there were five different sets of judges. Therefore, comparing scores across multiple meets is far from being an exact, definitive ranking, but it does give us some indication of who the favorites are heading into NCAAs.

We did this exercise with the women’s meet last week as well, though we’ve yet to go back to see how these projections stacked up against the meet results.

Below, find the top 16 scores in each of the three men’s diving events across the five Zone meets (using finals results only), and how they would stack up against one another in an NCAA scoring format (with their hypothetical point total included).

MEN’S 1-METER

Indiana’s Andrew Capobianco, the NCAA runner-up last year on 1-meter, posted the highest Zones score at 790-flat, followed closely by Tennessee’s Bryden Hattie.

The Hoosiers project to score 34 points in this event alone, while Stanford and USC come in with 25 and 24, respectively.

MEN’S 3-METER

Capobianco was second on 3-meter last year at NCAAs but sits sixth based on Zone score, so he may have room to climb relative to this ranking. Tennessee’s Hattie, 26th last year, leads the pack, while Indiana leads all teams with 28 projected points in the event. Miami (FL) is close behind with 26 with three divers inside the top 12.

Columbia’s Jonathan Suckow and UNC’s Anton Down Jenkins both figure to be prominent players in this event at NCAAs, having placed fourth and sixth respectively last season.

MEN’S PLATFORM

Hattie leads the field on platform, and he’d have to be penciled in as the favorite as he was third last year and both divers who finished ahead of him aren’t competing thia season.

With three divers in the projected top 11, Indiana once again scores big here with 31 points.

SCORING THE ZONE RESULTS – TEAM STANDINGS

1. Indiana, 93
2. Tennessee, 57
3. Miami (FL), 54
4. Stanford, 36
5. Texas, 34
6. LSU, 33
7. Columbia, 29
8. USC, 24
9. UNC, 16
10. Purdue, 15
11. South Carolina, 14
12. Missouri, 12
13. Minnesota / Auburn, 11
14. –
15. Florida, 10
16. Texas A&M, 8
17. TCU, 4
18. Ohio State, 3
19. FSU, 1

Indiana projects to put up a whopping 93 diving points while Hattie is in position to give Tennessee a 57-point bump. However, funnily enough, the Volunteers project to drop from fifth on the scored swimming psych sheets down into sixth once diving is included as the Hoosiers are slated to overtake them.

In addition to Indiana leapfrogging Tennessee, Florida also inches past Arizona State for second due to their 10 diving points, while Stanford sees a big jump up into eighth after sitting 12th in the psych sheet scores.

• See the scored psych sheets here.

Meanwhile, Texas, known for its diving prowess, still ranks seventh with 34 points projected to come their way on the boards.

Miami (FL), Columbia and USC all project to move into the top 25 on diving scores alone.

PROJECTED SCORES – PSYCH SHEETS + ZONE RESULTS