2023-24 NCAA DIVISION III SWIMMING AND DIVING QUALIFYING TIMES RELEASED
And neither SwimSwam nor Swimming World noticed?
Here are the A/B Cuts for this season, along with a handy ‘2023 Invited Time’ column.
Men’s qualifying standards, Division III, 2023-24
Women’s qualifying standards, Division III, 2023-24
Why is an utterly random swimming blog the first to do a post on the D3 qualifying times?
Your guess is as good as mine.1
Swimming World ran a feature on the release of the Division I and Division II standards on August 8th.
SwimSwam ran multiple stories on the release of the Division I and Division II standards, on August 8th, August 9th and August 10th.
I stumbled across the Division III standards a week ago (or so) and figured they had been publicized and analyzed, or soon would be. But…crickets.
Both Swimming World and SwimSwam cover D3 swimming. More or less. But championship qualifying standards don’t rate a post?
And this can’t be about the quality of the swimming across the divisions. Just looking at B Cuts in individual events, more than half of Division III qualifying times are faster than Division II qualifying times.2
Just looking at B Cuts in individual events, more than half of Division III qualifying times are faster than Division II qualifying times.
Anyway, here they are.
I will pull this post down in a flash if someone sends me a link to an article on the qualifying standards in either magazine. It is possible I missed it. But I looked, searched, and did not find any mention at all.
There are 26 individual event B Cuts (adding together Men’s and Women’s events). In 2023-24, 14 of those B Cuts are faster in Division III, and 12 are faster in Division II. If you include A Cuts, the advantage swings back to Division II, although in Women’s individual events, half the A Cuts are faster in Division III. However, the Men’s A Cuts in Division II are consistently faster than Division III (except in 100/200 Back and 200 Fly). Including both A and B Cuts, the final tally is 28 individual event qualifying times are faster in Division II, while 24 individual event qualifying times are faster in Division III.
Thanks. I hadn’t seen these yet either, and I’ve also been looking. To your point, I’ve also paid attention to the NCAA D2 results over the last couple of years, and most of the D3 finalists would have also made D2 finals in their events. Except for the very fastest D2 swimmers, there’s not much difference between the 2 divisions at the highest levels. Anyway, it’s unfortunate that neither publication thought to put out an article. They usually do. And this year there were a lot of fairly significant changes, which probably would have warranted some analysis.
I just want to take this opportunity to express appreciation for the work you guy(s) are doing at D3SO. Great research, and great writing. Thank you!