By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
A season of change. Either an autumn, or in the hopes of those involved in the revamp of the NCAA championships earlier this season, spring. A season of growth and new life, injected into a format which was beset by program cuts and a lack of wider spectator interest.
The main changes came in three areas: schedule, scoring, and qualification. The first is one that brings intrigue more than anything else. Much of what we view in terms of ‘NCAA lineups’ for swimmers was dictated by the previous schedule. Some swimmers will lose out with the reshuffle, notably with the 200 IM, 200 back, and 200 fly now on the same day. Others will see events unlocked. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to pass judgement on this change with any validity after a single season. The best mindset to have is that there is new opportunity; “There be gold in them there hills”
The second change is one that is open to harsher and sooner judgement. This is a change made for TV, for casual fans who are watching to see a national champion crowned. The ‘B’ finals appear as clutter to the TV exec curating a program to appeal to them. A faster pace in the finals session, and diving finals split in two for shorter breaks to the action in the pool, may make the action more appealing to those viewers.
Those viewers may also be what the sport needs to survive in college. “Non-revenue” sports, a slightly callous, abrasive label for a pool of athletes that the U.S. celebrates wildly for one summer every four years and then forgets, are the obvious focus for schools with holes in their budgets. Swimming, with its relatively expensive facility and travel costs, has been on the chopping block for many institutions.
Whether those viewers will be captured and then retained is still a question without an answer. Something did have to change. Whether this was the right one to make remains to be seen.
So onto the third and final aspect. Qualification has remained unchanged for decades at the NCAA level. The top 30 or so male athletes, and 38 or so female athletes, qualified automatically in each event. “A” cuts, set at the average of the 8th-fastest time in the NCAA over the last three years, guaranteed qualification in an event: your ticket was punched there and then. The remaining spots were filled row-by-row across all events, until the maximum number of athletes was hit.
The changes this year do not sound to the uninitiated like an upheaval. “A” cuts are gone, with the new NCAA qualifying time replacing them, with the caveat that this time must be hit in the final of a conference championship and that only the event winner can qualify. The remaining qualification spots are then filled in the same way as before: events topped up so that there are the same number of qualifiers in each, then swimmers added to events row-by-row.
For swimmers in the Power Four conferences, the changes were relatively minimal: most of their conference champions would have qualified anyway under the old system. For those in the mid-majors, these were a huge opportunity.
That was the aim of the policy. Mid-major swimmers make up only a fraction of the 235 male swimmers and 281 female swimmers at NCAAs each year – 18 men and 26 women last year came from outside the Power Four conferences, 7.7% and 9.3% respectively. They are also the programs most at risk in the NIL landscape. While one NCAA qualifier who likely does not score may not make an effect on the overall leaderboard or the title race, it may make a difference for the survival of that qualifier’s college swim program. We can’t speak to how much of a factor that will be in Athletic Department’s decisions, but it’s not nothing.
Visibility and national success are attractive propositions for Athletic departments at schools which are not sporting powerhouses. Making that an opportunity based on their conference rather than purely the national level may entice some to continue with the sport. Recruiting may also shift away from the Power Four, with NCAA qualification now a real possibility in mid-major programs.
It is important to note that an NCAA qualifier, or the chance of one in the near future, may not be a critical factor in a school’s decision-making on the viability of their swim program. The hope is that with a bigger spotlight on, and more opportunity for, the mid-majors, there is a shift that preserves as many programs as possible.
So what change will this have on the qualification itself? A majority of the automatic qualifiers from mid-majors now sit with times that would not have qualified under the old system. With the number of athletes remaining the same, those spots have to be lost somewhere else. What that means, is that this season will almost certainly see the toughest NCAA invite times ever.
Take the men’s 50 free as an example. It took 19.02 to qualify for the meet last season, which itself would have been an “A” final qualifying time less than a decade ago. If the cut line and qualification process this year had been identical to 2024/25, the invite time would still be a tenth faster at 18.91.
Instead, thanks to the conference champions which have qualified, the invite time is a tenth faster than even that time at 18.81.
The drop from 18.92 to 18.81 also sees Ivy League Champion Nick Finch outside the cut, so there are ten automatic conference champion qualifiers outside of the cut time. Line 19, technically a line 18 tie between Adam Chaney and Martine Wrede in 18.81, will be the qualification standard. There are 14 sub-19 second swimmers who will not qualify automatically in the 50 free this year (although three of them are in as conference champions and four qualified in other events).
A scoring time in the event last season, the first year in which a sub-19 second swim didn’t score, does not even guarantee you qualification in the 50 free this year. Compare that to the 200 back – with just four automatic qualifiers outside the Power Four, the top 25 swimmers qualify.
The way that the automatic qualifiers are treated when determining the cut line therefore makes some events far harder than others to qualify for. The 200 back is not an easy proposition this year – the qualifying time is a fair way below 1:40 after being 1:40.13 last year – but the 50 free looks like a bloodbath.
The women’s side looks less affected – the event with the highest-ranked swimmer missing out is the 100 breast, where 35th-place Sarah Bennetts* was the first casualty. That is only two spots below the cutline, which falls one spot into row 37, and the event with the most conference champions qualified slower than the cutline is the 200 free with 5.
*Due to Ashley McMillan’s scratch, Sarah Bennetts is now qualified as the first alternate.
It may be that once the dust has settled from this season, the auto-qualifying time being set at #72 (averaged from the previous three years) is a little too lenient in the era of rampant swimflation; this would have been a quick year for NCAAs regardless of the auto-qualifiers.
The mark being set at the same point for men and women is another point of contention. There are 46 more spots for swimmers at women’s NCAAs than for the men – a reflective update to where the AQ time is set would have the men’s set at the three year average of the 60th-fastest swimmer.
Whether it affects the racing will remain to be seen – for that men’s 50 free, it will almost end up more difficult to qualify as a non-conference champion than it will be to score. One swallow does not a summer make, as the old adage goes, but this year will certainly be the keenest test of the new system.
We will be doing a deeper dive on the data – the cutlines, how they compare to last year, how different AQ times would have affected the qualifiers for the meet, and the differing difficulty of qualifying in each event. For now, you’ll have to be content with the cutlines below.
These are the final qualified non-conference champion time, not the final qualified swimmer. Excepting conference champions, no one slower qualified automatically in any event.
Event Women Men 50 free 21.92 18.81 100 free 47.85 41.81 200 free 1:44.00 1:32.13 500 free 4:41.47 4:13.85 1650 free 16:15.74 14:52.80 100 back 51.70 44.82 200 back 1:53.27 1:39.53 100 breast 59.53* 51.51 200 breast 2:08.77 1:52.29 100 fly 51.99 44.91 200 fly 1:56.22 1:40.77 200 IM 1:57.20 1:42.69 400 IM 4:08.80 3:41.34*Due to Ashley McMillan’s scratch, Sarah Bennetts is now qualified as the first alternate – she was 59.55 in the 100 breast
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Some Thoughts On The NCAA Championship Changes
Hence then, the article about some thoughts on the ncaa championship changes was published today ( ) and is available on swimswam ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Some Thoughts On The NCAA Championship Changes )
Also on site :