2012 Div 1 NCAAs

What accounts for the gender discrepancy in invitees? Is it a reflection of there being more women's swimming programs? Or did fewer women make the cut? Or something else? The figure of 270 men and 322 Women has been around since 2006. But in the past 6 years, the NCAA never invites this amount. This year its 235 Men from 42 teams and 281 women from 64 teams. I believe you are right on the first point about the greater number for the Women being that there are more Women College Swimming programs. This year more Women made the cut than Men but you could figure it out by each event by taking the 30 Women invitees divided by the total amount of Women making the B cut. In some events its up to 72 swimmers and it can be as low as 33 swimmers as is the case of the 1650 Free. All relays for Women are restricted to 15 this year according to the psych sheets. It appears that in the Men's events, 17 swimmers will be invited per event and again its different by event. For example, the 50 Free has 17 invited swimmers divided by 82 swimmers that ended the B cut for a % lower than 25%. I have a feeling a lot more swimmers will swim this event because if they are part of the relay invitation, then they will swim this event. You will see larger numbers in the 100 Free, 200 Free, and the 100 Back if a swimmer is committed to a relay in the entry. An event like the 400 IM that has 17 invited swimmers out of 28 that made the B cut has one of the largest % of men invited by event. All relays for Men are restricted to 12 except the 200 Medley Relay at 13 because of a tie between Tennessee and Louisville for the 12 place seed time. The bottom line in all this is that the NCAA Division 1 meet does not want to have more than 5 to 6 heats of swimmers. Now Rich had mentioned that there is kind of a discrimination if you are not part of a relay but have say the 20th time and you are not invited to the meet. This statement is true to a certain extent but in some cases would not be true if a swimmer had a significantly slower time than others on the team, you would be committed to swimming this person in a relay and you might not make top 8 because of this. The times are so close in both the 100 Free and 200 Free that a person would have to be in the running in the event otherwise you could become a casualty of not qualifying top 8 or not even top 16 in the relay event. For both NCAA meets, if you qualify as a relay swimmer, you can swim any event that you make a B time standard cutoff time. But you must swim that relay that the team committed you to or you will not be permitted to swim the other events. You are only committed to swim the prelims of that event. For most of the big schools, I think they want to maximize the talent they bring and with the cap of 18 swimmers, I don't think there is more than 4 to 5 swimmers per team because you do not want to get in a situation where you have to use these swimmers when you have swimmers on your roster that made either an A or B cut and with relays being double the points, a coach is not going to risk that. I would have to honestly say that the NCAA rules do favor the big, successful, college programs and this is probably one of the reasons why swimmers choose to be with these programs. Since 1985, on the Men side, if you take Michigan, Cal, and Arizona out of the NCAA picture, you have 3 schools that have won the championship and those are Texas with 9, Auburn with 8, and Stanford with 7. On the Women's side you have 4 schools in 28 years that have won the majority of the championships with Stanford at 8, Texas at 7, Auburn at 5, Georgia at 4, Florida at 2, and Southern Cal and California at one each. Of course type of school, coach, facilities, and swimming history are the other reasons.

What accounts for the gender discrepancy in invitees? Is it a reflection of there being more women's swimming programs? Or did fewer women make the cut? Or something else? The figure of 270 men and 322 Women has been around since 2006. But in the past 6 years, the NCAA never invites this amount. This year its 235 Men from 42 teams and 281 women from 64 teams. I believe you are right on the first point about the greater number for the Women being that there are more Women College Swimming programs. This year more Women made the cut than Men but you could figure it out by each event by taking the 30 Women invitees divided by the total amount of Women making the B cut. In some events its up to 72 swimmers and it can be as low as 33 swimmers as is the case of the 1650 Free. All relays for Women are restricted to 15 this year according to the psych sheets. It appears that in the Men's events, 17 swimmers will be invited per event and again its different by event. For example, the 50 Free has 17 invited swimmers divided by 82 swimmers that ended the B cut for a % lower than 25%. I have a feeling a lot more swimmers will swim this event because if they are part of the relay invitation, then they will swim this event. You will see larger numbers in the 100 Free, 200 Free, and the 100 Back if a swimmer is committed to a relay in the entry. An event like the 400 IM that has 17 invited swimmers out of 28 that made the B cut has one of the largest % of men invited by event. All relays for Men are restricted to 12 except the 200 Medley Relay at 13 because of a tie between Tennessee and Louisville for the 12 place seed time. The bottom line in all this is that the NCAA Division 1 meet does not want to have more than 5 to 6 heats of swimmers. Now Rich had mentioned that there is kind of a discrimination if you are not part of a relay but have say the 20th time and you are not invited to the meet. This statement is true to a certain extent but in some cases would not be true if a swimmer had a significantly slower time than others on the team, you would be committed to swimming this person in a relay and you might not make top 8 because of this. The times are so close in both the 100 Free and 200 Free that a person would have to be in the running in the event otherwise you could become a casualty of not qualifying top 8 or not even top 16 in the relay event. For both NCAA meets, if you qualify as a relay swimmer, you can swim any event that you make a B time standard cutoff time. But you must swim that relay that the team committed you to or you will not be permitted to swim the other events. You are only committed to swim the prelims of that event. For most of the big schools, I think they want to maximize the talent they bring and with the cap of 18 swimmers, I don't think there is more than 4 to 5 swimmers per team because you do not want to get in a situation where you have to use these swimmers when you have swimmers on your roster that made either an A or B cut and with relays being double the points, a coach is not going to risk that. I would have to honestly say that the NCAA rules do favor the big, successful, college programs and this is probably one of the reasons why swimmers choose to be with these programs. Since 1985, on the Men side, if you take Michigan, Cal, and Arizona out of the NCAA picture, you have 3 schools that have won the championship and those are Texas with 9, Auburn with 8, and Stanford with 7. On the Women's side you have 4 schools in 28 years that have won the majority of the championships with Stanford at 8, Texas at 7, Auburn at 5, Georgia at 4, Florida at 2, and Southern Cal and California at one each. Of course type of school, coach, facilities, and swimming history are the other reasons.