The NCAA has announced its contingency plan for NCAA Division I Winter & Spring Championships.
The plans indicate that the NCAA plans to host all Division I winter & spring championships, including swimming and diving and women’s water polo, regardless of how many institutions are participating. This comes in wake of the Division III committee canceling all winter sport championships, including swimming and diving, because of low participation numbers.
In individual sports, like swimming & diving, if at least 50% of Division I sponsoring institutions are competing, the field size will remain at normal levels and the standard number of student-athletes will be invited. In Division I swimming & diving, that means 270 men and 322 women.
According to the latest NCAA data, 132 Division I institutions sponsor men’s swimming & diving, while 193 sponsor women’s swimming & diving. This means that at least 66 men’s institutions and at least 97 women’s institutions must be participating for the field to remain in-tact.
At present, 104 men’s swimming teams and 143 women’s swimming teams have results marked as eligible for NCAA Championship selection in the official NCAA results database. While we don’t know for certain that all of these teams will be competing 30 days prior to the deadline, this appears to put Division I swimming & diving well clear of the threshold for full NCAA Championship participation, with room to spare.
In team sports, like women’s water polo, if at least 50% of the automatic-qualifying conferences are competing, the field size remains at 100%.
In women’s water polo, 6 teams receive automatic bids to the NCAA Championships: the winners of the Big West Conference, CWPA, Golden Coast Conference, MAAC, MPSF, SCIAC, and Western Water Polo Association.
Then 3 at-large teams are selected without geographical restrictions.
- Contingency Plan for Winter (Other Than Basketball) and Spring Championships. The Coordination Committee approved a contingency plan recommended by the NCAA Division I Competition Oversight Committee for winter (other than basketball) and spring NCAA championships if participation rates dictate that the championships cannot be conducted at full capacity. The following information provides the details of the plan:
- For team and individual/team sports, the field size will be determined by the number of eligible conferences competing (conferences qualifying for an automatic qualification) in the regular season at the designated determination date (30 days prior to selections).
- If more than 50% of the automatic-qualifying conferences are competing, the field size remains at 100%, the format accommodates all eligible automatic qualifiers and the balance of the field allocations will be at-large selections.
- If 50% or fewer of the automatic-qualifying conferences are competing, the field size will be reduced to 75% of the normal size, the number of competing teams will be adjusted to accommodate all eligible automatic qualifiers and the remaining field allocations shall be populated with at-large selections.
- For individual sports, the field sizes will be determined by the percentage of institutions competing in the regular season at the designated determination date (30 days prior to selections).
- If more than 50% of sponsoring institutions are competing, the field size remains at 100%, and the standard number of student-athletes are selected to the championships.
- If 50% or fewer of sponsoring institutions are competing, the field size is reduced to 75%, and 75% of the standard number of student-athletes are selected to the championships.
- The field sizes shall remain at the designated percentage verified on the determination date until championship participants are selected. The number of automatic qualifiers and at-large selections will be adjusted to account for any changes occurring during the 30-day period.
- For team and individual/team sports, the field size will be determined by the number of eligible conferences competing (conferences qualifying for an automatic qualification) in the regular season at the designated determination date (30 days prior to selections).
Division III of the NCAA and the NAIA are the only divisions of college swimming to have canceled a national championship event so far. Division I and Division II of the NCAA have not announced any cancelations yet, nor has the NJCAA.
Since the super bowl is allowing fully vaccinated healthcare workers,and I’m sure the NCAA wants revenue sport spectators in the fall. It sure would be nice to allow fully vaccinated senior parents into the venue. What’s that possibility? Braden can you get comment from NCAA? Not all that hopeful but hope is a powerful emotion.
My suspicion is that these are battles with parents that the NCAA doesn’t want to have. There are a lot of emotions around, still, and I don’t think they’ll have any interest in telling some parents they can attend and others that they can’t.
The Super Bowl is also focused on inviting people who, specifically, were in the 1a classification of vaccines: healthcare workers. The NCAA hasn’t said this, but a lot of organizations are concerned about the “vaccine Hunger Games” and creating battles and races for lower-risk individuals to try and cut the line to get the vaccine.
Sorry didn’t mean to imply parents should be given preference to vaccine to watch.the meet but I am aware of multiple parents who are 1a healthcare workers. As someone giving vaccines I don’t want to get too caught up in the vaccination discussion, but being able to attend events will hopefully motivate people to get the vaccine when supply issues are improved. But agree that NCAA doesn’t want to allow some, but not all parents to spectate.
Good news for the athletes!
I am curious on how things will play out if someone’s times from a mid-season meet or a dual meet qualify them for NCAA’s if they’re part of the mid-major conference that has a championship in April. You got to think that is a possibility for a few, do they do a double taper – Nationals & then again for Conference? I guess it is not much different than a traditional double taper for conferences and then again Nationals for a normal season.
I’d almost think that it’s a better situation, if you’ve already got the cut – the more important meet (nationals) comes first, then the pressure is off a little for conference (though I know conference championships are still a big deal at many programs).
It’s still way too early to be able to predict yet where the cut lines are going to fall because it’s been such a wonky season, but there are a handful of swimmers who could, plausibly, wind up in this situation. Akron’s Sarah Watson is currently tied for 19th nationally in the 100 free in 48.84, for example. That wouldn’t have been invited in any of the last 3 years (48.5 all three times), but…in… Read more »
WAC will be at UNLV for men and Dixie State for women. Diving will be at Northern Arizona. Mens is scheduled for Feb.24-27. Women’s is Feb. 17-20. All diving is Feb. 24-27
Any rationale given for why DI will go full steam ahead, but not DIII? To lazy to read NCAA meeting minutes.
Swimswam, know anyone who’d be able to go off the record with you folks?
cuz d3 being lazy… it’s a non contact sport and everyone can get tested many times leading up to and at the meet and where masks… there is no reason we can’t make this happen.. Pro series went down successfully now let’s roll wit ncaa
wear***** already know the comment section gonna come for me
Some Conference Championships are in April
Any news on D2?
Good to go: DII affirms plans to host winter championships | NCAA.org – The Official Site of the NCAA
I am not one of those “men’s rights” people at all, but just curious why more women qualify than men? Is it a title IX issue?
Because there are more women’s teams and total participants.
I’ve been told that there’s a bit of a sense of “nobody wants to ask for more participants” among college coaches because they fear the reality that, with men’s teams dropping at a rate faster than women’s teams, the result would actually be to reduce the number of men’s participants.
Great news!!