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NCAA Releases Pre-Selection Psych Sheets for 2022 Women’s NCAA Championships

Braden Keith
by Braden Keith 66

March 01st, 2022 News

The pre-selection entry lists for the 2022 Women’s NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships have been published. The meet will run from March 16-20 in Atlanta at the Georgia Tech Mcauley Aquatic Center.

These pre-selection lists don’t show who will qualify, but do give some clues as to what races athletes will swim at the upcoming NCAA Championship meet.

SwimSwam will calculate where the projected cut line should be based on these sheets this morning.

The official list of qualifiers, and an alternates list, will be published on Wednesday.

Throughout the day, SwimSwam will breakdown some of the more interest selection lists, including:

INDIVIDUAL QUALIFIERS

The NCAA invites the same number of overall swimmers every year. 270 men and 322 women make the meet every year. Depending on how many of those 270/322 athletes qualify in multiple events, the numbers can range some as to how many entries in each event get invited. Last year, the first year under this selection system, roughly 29 men and 38 women were invited in each event.

The simple part: “A” qualifiers get in automatically. Hit an “A” cut, and you’re set. Then the NCAA fills in the remaining spots with the next-fastest “B” cuts.

Here’s a step-by-step process for how the NCAA selects the 270 men and 322 women for each year’s invite list:

1. 35 of the men’s spots and 41 of the women’s spots are set aside for divers, who qualify for the meet at zone competitions closer the NCAA Championships. That leaves 235 men’s spots and 281 for the women.

2. Every “A” cut put up this season is added.

3. The next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries. For example, if the 50 free were to have the most “A” cuts of any event with 10, then every other event would get swimmers with the top 10 fastest times in.

4. Finally, one entry is added to each event to keep the entries per event even. This process is repeated until all of the swimming spots (235 for men, 281 for women) are filled. Keep in mind that as more rows are added, swimmers will start to double and triple up. The #1 seed in the 200 back might be the #15 seed in the 100 back – as the 15th row of swimmers is added to each event, she’ll be added to the 100 back list, but won’t take up another one of the 281 invite spots, as she already has her official invite.

5. The final row of swimmers added won’t come out exactly even. In the final row, the swimmers with entry times closest to the NCAA “A” cut will get added first, and when the 235th man or 281st woman is added, the process stops. So the 100 fly could have 38 women and the 200 fly 39 women – that would mean the 39th 200 flyer was closer to the NCAA “A” than the 39th 100 flyer and therefore won the ‘tie-breaker’ for the final spot.

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Swimfan10
2 years ago

Super helpful explanation of the process. Thank you.

Katie87
2 years ago

Can’t wait for cal to exceed expectations! Go bears!

ACC
2 years ago

Scored out top 10 teams

1 Virginia-VA 479
2 Stanford-PC 355.5
3 NC State-NC 304
4 Tennessee-SE 288.5
5 Alabama-SE 256
6 Texas-ST 232.5
7 Ohio St-OH 226.5
8 Michigan-MI 198
9 California-PC 184
10 Southern Cali-CA 137

Doesn’t include diving, but does take ties into account.

Last edited 2 years ago by ACC
ACC
Reply to  ACC
2 years ago

Aaand all that work in excel for them to post an article like 3 minutes later.

RMS
2 years ago

The 200 IM and 400 IM races are going to be epic.

Ol' Longhorn
2 years ago

Sub 2:00 on Desorbo’s watch.

Ninna
2 years ago

My Free Predictions:

50 Free

  1. Kate Douglass
  2. Gretchen Walsh
  3. Maggie MacNeil

100 Free

  1. Gretchen Walsh
  2. Torri Huske
  3. Maggie MacNeil

200 Free

  1. Izzy Ivey
  2. Lia Thomas
  3. Riey Gaines

500 Free

  1. Lia Thomas
  2. Brooke Forde
  3. Emma Weyant

1650 Free

  1. Erica Sullivan
  2. Liberty Williams
  3. Kristen Stege
Relays
2 years ago

How do relay invites work?

Relays
Reply to  Braden Keith
2 years ago

thank you! How do the relay swimmers factor into the total number of swimmers and priority of invite?

Virtus
2 years ago

100 fly 50 free and 400IM are gonna be so nuts

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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