While it’s been one of the strangest college swimming seasons ever (ok, almost certainly the strangest ever), we are less than two days away before two of the Power 5 conferences get their meets underway, with the SEC and ACC women both starting their respective championships on Wednesday.
Before we show you the results, a few reminders and caveats:
- Most importantly — these are projections, and not predictions. The Swimulator simply calculates what would happen if each swimmer or team replicated their season-best times, so far, in the finals of the NCAA Championship meet. Our latest SwimSwam Power Rankings (women/men coming tomorrow), are weighed more toward NCAA predictions.
- The Swimulator pulls in data from USA Swimming’s NCAA results database. So, if meet results aren’t updated there, they won’t be included in the Swimulator rankings, either. Conversely, sometimes swims are included that shouldn’t be: Nyls Korstanje and Andrei Minakov aren’t competing this season, but converted times from long course meets in their homes countries, give NC State and Stanford about a 30-point bounce each. Arizona State as a whole isn’t competing this year, but Emma Nordin currently accounts for 4 for the Sun Devils due to the inclusion of some results from a December club meet.
- You can tweak the settings to the Swimulator uses to determine rankings. For instance, in the rankings below, we’re using season top times, instead of average times.
- Finally, the projected scores only take into account swimming events, not diving, so keep that in mind when looking at teams who regularly score a good chunk of points in the diving events.
Men
| Team | Points | |
| 1 | Texas | 605 |
| 2 | Georgia | 438.5 |
| 3 | California | 349 |
| 4 | Texas A&M | 316 |
| 5 | NC State | 209 |
| 6 | Florida | 197.5 |
| 7 | Georgia Tech | 188 |
| 9 | Missouri | 166 |
| 10 | Alabama | 148.5 |
| 11 | Virginia | 146.5 |
| 12 | Louisville | 132.5 |
| 13 | Tennessee | 102.5 |
| 14 | Virginia Tech | 96 |
| 15 | UNC | 76 |
| 16 | Stanford | 68.5 |
| 17 | Arizona | 42 |
| 18 | Florida State | 38 |
| 19 | Notre Dame | 36 |
| 20 | LSU | 33 |
| 21 | Northwestern | 32.5 |
| 22 | Minnesota | 32 |
| 23 | Michigan | 21.5 |
| 24 | SMU | 16.5 |
| 25 | USC | 12 |
| 26 | Wisconsin | 10 |
| 27 | Pitt | 9 |
| 27 | Auburn | 9 |
| 29 | Ohio State | 8 |
| 30 | Indiana | 7 |
| 31 | Navy | 6 |
| 31 | Kentucky | 6 |
| 33 | UNLV | 3 |
| 34 | TCU | 2 |
| 34 | Purdue | 2 |
The Cal Bears are now projected to score over 100 points more than they were last month, thanks largely to a few suited relay swims at the Cal v. USC meets last weekend. That point bump is enough move them past Texas A&M in the Swimulator projections. The Virginia Tech Hokies jumped up 4 spots, from 18th to 14th, after some strong relay swims and a 45.68 in the 100 fly by freshman Youssef Ramadan, which moves him up to the 9th in the nation in that event.
We’ve seen a little more racing by Big Ten teams over the last few weeks, but outside of a couple of 50-point 100 breaststrokes from Minnesota’s Max McHugh, there wasn’t much for them to collectively move the need, Stimulator-wise. Watch for a fast Big Ten Championships as teams finally show what they can do with some rest and fast suits this season.
Women
| Women | ||
| 1 | Virginia | 465 |
| 2 | Texas | 384 |
| 3 | California | 366.5 |
| 4 | NC State | 350 |
| 5 | Georgia | 310 |
| 6 | Tennessee | 205.5 |
| 7 | Kentucky | 173 |
| 9 | Alabama | 169 |
| 10 | Florida | 142 |
| 11 | Missouri | 132 |
| 12 | Stanford | 115 |
| 13 | Texas A&M | 87 |
| 14 | Virginia Tech | 79 |
| 15 | Arkansas | 77 |
| 16 | USC | 74 |
| 17 | Louisville | 67 |
| 17 | Michigan | 67 |
| 19 | Northwestern | 65 |
| 20 | UNC | 50 |
| 21 | UCLA | 42 |
| 22 | Wisconsin | 29 |
| 23 | Auburn | 26 |
| 24 | Florida State | 18 |
| 25 | Notre Dame | 16 |
| 25 | Ohio State | 16 |
| 27 | Akron | 12 |
| 28 | Buffalo | 10 |
| 29 | SMU | 6 |
| 30 | Houston | 4 |
| 30 | Arizona State | 4 |
| 30 | Miami (Ohio) | 4 |
Just as on the men’s side, the top two women’s teams are the same as when we last looked at the Swimulator, and once again, Cal has surged, this time by an even larger margin. With some additional racing over the last few weeks, the Golden Bears have gone from a projected 168 points and a 9th-place finish to 366.5 points and a 3rd-place finish. The USC women jumped from unranked to 16th, thanks again to some great races against Cal, highlighted by an epic duel between USC’s Kaitlyn Dobler and Cal’s Ema Rajic two weeks ago.