**Update: We accidentally gave Texas’ points to Texas A&M while scoring out the 200 freestyle relay. The projected scores have been corrected.
Yesterday, the NCAA released their pre-cut sheets for the 2015 Men’s NCAA Championships. At the NCAA Championships, only the top 16 swimmers and relays will score points in their respective events.
After scoring out the meet without diving, The USC Trojans are the favorite to win the met by 3 points over the Texas Longhorns. Southern California’s freestyle group led by Cristian Quintero might be one of the best we’ve seen in years. Even with major holes in the individual medleys as well as the 200 backstroke, USC’s 100, 200, and 500 freestyle groups are projected to score big points with at least two swimmers in each A final.
Eddie Reese and the Longhorns will look to find a way to add an 11th NCAA championship to the schools history. Texas is projected to score in every event outside of the 100 breaststroke in Iowa City. Look for Eddie’s Fly group to make some noise as the butterfly quartets are projected to score 52 points in the 200 butterfly as well as an astounding 56 points in the 100 butterfly.
The meet is going to be very tight with the top 7 teams all projected to finish within 75 points of each other. Without diving added in, Florida is expected to finish third with 317.5 points and the 2013 National Champions from Michigan are expected to finish fourth with 310 points.
NC State will need to capitalize on their relays this year if they want to stay in the running for a top 5 finish this year. They looked strong last year as well, but a few unfortunate relay disqualifications really hurt them at the NCAA Championships.
The defending NCAA champions from the University of California are projected on paper to finish sixth in Iowa. Expect Dave Durden to have the Cal Bears ready in two weekends to out-perform their seed times as they have in their previous 3 national championship runs.
This list will change around a little bit once diving scores can be added in. With three diving events at the NCAA Championships, a good diver or two can make a huge impact.
Below is a breakdown of the points awarded for each event at the NCAA Championships:
A Final Points For Individual Events
1. 20 (40 relays)
2. 17 (34 relays)
3. 16 (32 relays)
4. 15 (30 relays)
5. 14 (28 relays)
6. 13 (26 relays)
7. 12 (24 relays)
8. 11 (22 relays)
B Final Points For Individual Events
1. 9 (18 relays)
2. 7 (14 relays)
3. 6 (12 relays)
4. 5 (10 relays)
5. 4 (8 relays)
6. 3 (6 relays)
7. 2 (4 relays)
8. 1 (2 relays)
This list is based off of the NCAA’s Pre-cut sheet published this morning. Click here to view that psych sheet. The 2015 Men’s NCAA Championships will be held from March 26-28, 2015 at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center in Iowa City, Iowa.
| Rank | Team | Points |
| 1 | Southern Cali | 336 |
| 2 | Texas | 333 |
| 3 | Florida | 317.5 |
| 4 | Michigan | 310 |
| 5 | NC State | 290.5 |
| 6 | California | 261.5 |
| 7 | Georgia | 260.5 |
| 8 | Auburn | 225 |
| 9 | Alabama | 209.5 |
| 10 | Stanford | 146 |
| 11 | Tennessee | 126 |
| 12 | Louisville | 76 |
| 13 | Indiana | 74 |
| 14 | Missouri | 72 |
| 15 | Ohio St | 54.5 |
| 16 | Wisconsin | 54 |
| 17 | Arizona | 47 |
| 18 | UNC | 44.5 |
| 19 | Princeton | 33.5 |
| 20 | Georgia Tech | 32 |
| 21 | South Carolina | 30 |
| 22 | UNLV (M) | 27 |
| T23 | Northwestern | 26 |
| T23 | Penn St | 26 |
| 25 | Duke | 22 |
| 26 | Brigham Young | 20 |
| 27 | Univ of Utah | 18 |
| 28 | Florida St | 16.5 |
| 29 | Penn | 13 |
| 30 | Iowa | 11 |
| 31 | Virginia | 10 |
| 32 | Columbia | 9 |
| 33 | Virginia Tech | 8 |
| T34 | Purdue | 6 |
| T34 | Yale | 6 |
| 36 | WKU | 5.5 |
| 37 | Texas A&M | 3.5 |
| 38 | Minnesota | 2.5 |
| 39 | Notre Dame | 1.5 |
| 40 | Arizona St | 0.5 |
| T41 | Air Force (M) | 0 |
| T41 | Buffalo | 0 |
| T41 | Cal Poly | 0 |
| T41 | Cleveland St | 0 |
| T41 | Cornell | 0 |
| T41 | CSUB (M) | 0 |
| T41 | Davidson | 0 |
| T41 | Delaware | 0 |
| T41 | Denver | 0 |
| T41 | East Carolina | 0 |
| T41 | Eastern Mich | 0 |
| T41 | Fla Atlantic (M) | 0 |
| T41 | Harvard | 0 |
| T41 | Hawaii (M) | 0 |
| T41 | Kentucky | 0 |
| T41 | LSU | 0 |
| T41 | Missouri St. (M) | 0 |
| T41 | Oakland | 0 |
| T41 | Pittsburgh | 0 |
| T41 | So. Methodist | 0 |
| T41 | U.S. Navy | 0 |
| T41 | UCSB | 0 |
| T41 | West Virginia | 0 |
| T41 | Wyoming (M) | 0 |
Braden, great job so far to you and your team on the analysis of the meet. Quick question, when does the pick ’em contest start? I’d love to start a thread that just talks about event predictions!
Saeta – hopefully soon. Just working on getting the choices loaded up into SurveyMonkey still.
Yes, the 50m is outdoor.
well, right now it’s actually indoors. They put in a bubble over Christmas training now that they’ve knocked down the indoor pool. I assume the bubble is temporary until the new indoor pool is completed.
Andrew, thanks for the clarification. One question, is SMU’s 50 meter outdoors? I know in the Dallas area there are year round outdoor training possibilities, although it could get brutal in winter. As to your point about being a private school with expensive tuition to attend, yes, I agree that deflates the recruiting plane with 9.9 to spread over potentially 20+ team members when you are recruiting against state schools that cost 1/3rd to 3/4s less for out or in state. I have heard that was a real challenge to USC to return to their glory considering it too is a very expensive private university.
Remember when SMU had a runner-up NCAA finish? Looks like that program sure went down the toilet. Where’s UCLA in the mix?
UCLA cut men’s swimming in the late 1980s. At that time the UCLA program had produced more Olympians and Olympic medalists than any other single gender program in any NCAA sport. Second place was far behind, and it is a good trivia question to ask if UCLA still ranks #1 or has been passed in the 25+ years since. What an atrocity. Bring men’s swimming back at UCLA. They have a great facility. No excuses!!
SMU was a casualty of the football death penalty. Basically the whole athletic department went into the guillotine and few — if any of their sports — have repaired and come back to national status.
SMU was still placing in the top 10 throughout the 90s. I don’t think the death penalty can be used as an excuse…
Fair point, but another direct and long lasting consequence of the football death penalty at SMU was the loss of current revenue, followed by future losses of revenue when the program returned a shell of its former self — and SMU’s swim program was trying to keep on with an eight lane 25 yard pool? They were basically relegated to being a D1 college team with a high school pool in an era where if you didn’t get a 50 meter pool, just forget it (which Clemson decided on as one example).
No doubt the loss of revenue hurt the program. However,I don’t think the pool was a problem (although it is now). They had a 6 lane 25 yard pool AND an 8 lane 50m pool. Unfortunately for the team, they lost the yard pool recently and have been relegated do training in the long course pool. This will undoubtedly hurt their future prospects of recruiting high-quality swimmers. Perhaps when the new pool that they’re planning is built we will see a resurgence of the Mustangs?
I would also argue that expensive tuition at a private school makes it difficult to recruit swimmers who won’t be on near full scholarships, because why pay that kind of money when they could go… Read more »
If SC and Texas tie for first.. I’d love to see an 800 Medley Relay to decide the champion!!!
Or a 4 X 100 fly swim off
My understanding is that a diver is 1/2 a person as far as counting goes for the 18 person max. If a team has 18 swimmers invited and then qualifies 1 diver, would they have to leave a swimmer behind or do they need 2 divers to have to do this? If they qualify 3 divers, would they have to leave 2 swimmers behind? Thanks to anyone that knows
CT Swim Fan – short answer: “round up”. If a team has 18 swimmers, plus 1 diver, that counts as 19 roster spots, so one has to go.
Thanks, I kinda thought that was what the answer was, but I wasn’t sure.
Interesting to see Stanford so far down. Although they did place 9th last year, I assumed they would move up a bit especially with Nolan’s strong performances at Pac12. Definitely would be cool to see USC take home the win though.
I’ll post my full scores tomorrow, similar to how I’ve done on colllegeswimming for years. Texas is going to be the big favorite, with Florida, Cal and USC battling for 2nd.