A few notes on SwimCloud's D3 Most Improved

Salisbury, Luther and Nebraska Wesleyan, plus the most improved Women's team in Division III, and the irritating possibility that one of the most improved teams in D3 may soon be no more.

Franklin is having a remarkable season…

Franklin is clearly an improving team. We think Kat Lundy has a shot at a nationals invite in 100 Back and that Women’s 400 Medley Relay might get there as well (but these margins are going to be tight). The athletes on that team are getting some really good results. We do need to adjust what’s on the graphic above. Franklin is in 37th place in SwimCloud dual meet rankings (not 24th), SwimCloud just doesn’t know it.¹

Franklin does not have 613.8 SwimCloud points in the dual meet format, they have (a still impressive) 591.7 dual meet points, good enough for 37th place. That is still a +50 improvement in rank, just ahead of Rochester’s +46 improvement.

That also means that RIT (27th) and Roanoke (35th) improved by one more slot than they are credited for.

Other ways we could do this

Any approach to ranking these sorts of improvements will have arbitrary elements. SwimCloud only counts improvement if it lands the team in the top 50. Why?² The CSCAA votes on the top 25, and that is an arbitrary number too. There are so many arbitrary ways to shape a ranking.

If we are going to dive into a pool of arbitrary demarcations, let’s dive deep. Here are the rules. Our data set is every team that:

• Competes in Women’s events

• Finished last season in the top 50% (ranked 130 or better) in SwimCloud’s dual meet ranking

• And improved by 20 or more places.

We also took a look at every team’s SwimCloud dual meet rank since the end of the 2021-22 season. We will sprinkle those observations in as we go.

The Up-and-Comers

1. Franklin

2. Rochester

Conveniently, we start out with the two teams atop the SwimCloud list.

Luther Senior Bronwyn Harvey

3. Luther (+39, 122 » 83)

Whoa, that’s cool. The Norse Women were ranked 122 in dual meets last season and are now 83rd, and improvement of 39 places for that upstart team.³ And you have to read that footnote. Luther and conference rival Nebraska Wesleyan are in a really cool battle that will play out in two big meets over the coming months.

4. Whitworth (+32, 124 » 92)

5. Bridgewater (+29, 113 » 84)

We don’t know anything about these teams and that is on us. We will get to work on that.⁴

6. Salisbury (+28, 94 » 66)

   

   Photo: Ella Ewing, EE photography

No list of ascending teams is complete without Salisbury. Salisbury’s Women are having a great season, and this is year two of their climb up the rankings. The first season after COVID, this team was ranked 151 in dual meets. Now they are 66th. That means that in two seasons they climbed 85 spots. That is the second-best improvement of any team in Division III over the past two seasons.

7. Stevens Institute (+27, 102 » 75)

8. Scranton (+26, 95 » 69)

That scans. If you’ve seen any of their meet results, those teams are clearly trending up. Stevens has moved up a total of 34 spots in the last two seasons, while all of Scranton’s improvement has come this season.

Stevens also has stunning photos on their website.

Junior Sophie Patz

Sophomore Natalia Brunetti

There’s more, but you have to dig around through the roster. This is just a notch above what we are used to seeing. Photo credit is for Mike McLaughlin who, apparently, is really good at his job.

9. Roanoke

10. California Lutheran

Three and four on SwimCloud’s list. CalLu is the 6th most improved team in D3 since the end of the 2021-22 season, and Roanoke is tied for 12th most improved. Both teams have 400 Free Relays within shouting distance of a nationals invite.

11. Caltech (+22, 99 » 77)

A perennially well-coached team that performs impressively given that, for all intents and purposes, Caltech no longer accepts students.⁵

12. Alfred State (+21, 123 » 102)

Near-heroic showing from the women of Alfred State in perhaps the team’s penultimate season.

Beyond this year’s improvement, they are also the fourth most improved dual meet team in Division III since the end of 2021-22 season, having moved up a whopping 68 spots.

That makes them, hands-down-by-far, the most improved swim program in Division III that is also threatened with elimination. Not to oversimplify, but what other signs of improvement does the athletics department and school leadership need to see to decide this team is worth continuing?

Anyway, the future is uncertain for the Pioneers, but that is (literally) not slowing them down.

A note on Kean University - the most improved women’s team in Division III

Kean did not make the SwimCloud list because they are not currently top 50 in dual meets (they are 58th). So Kean missed representation on the SwimCloud chart by eight spots. If they were on the chart, their improvement would have been more than double that of the team credited as “D3 Most Improved.”⁶ Because Kean University Swimming⁷ finished 2021-22 ranked 159th in dual meets.

Their current rank of 58th represents a +101 improvement.

They are in many ways a typical NJAC women’s squad. They are small, with a fairly even distribution of talent throughout the team. They have Naomee Miller, who finaled in 200 Breast at Division III nationals last season, but this is not a team overflowing with nationals qualifiers.

They are simply a really good team that beats other good teams, including Stevens Institute (mentioned above) and several Division II programs. Of their remaining dual meets, three are fascinating - TCNJ, Swarthmore (ouch) and Rowan - and should be closely contested, maybe more closely than those other teams expect. ⁸

They are hands-down the most improved Women’s team in Division III since the end of the 2021-22 season. Yes, Salisbury is close, and there are a bunch of other programs with cool stories to tell about multi-year improvement. But Kean stands alone.

1. There was a timing problem at the 2023 Dan Ross Indiana Intercollegiates. A Franklin swimmer was assigned a time that was in error. That erroneous time added about 300 points to her SwimCloud score, creating a measurable skew in overall team ranking.

2. Is it possibly driven by their website design that automatically ranks only the top 50 teams?

3. Their rivals at Nebraska Wesleyan are also improving rapidly (up 22 spots) but fared worse in the SwimCloud dual meet rankings from last year, so the deserving Prairie Wolves do not make our list. Which basically means our methodology sucks.

Here’s what we mean. At the end of the 2021-22 season, Nebraska Wesleyan’s Women’s team was ranked 183rd in dual meets, per SwimCloud. Right now they are 118. That’s a +65 improvement. Among teams that are now in the top half of Division III, the Prairie Wolves are the 5th most improved team.

Among all Women’s teams in the division, regardless of where they started or finished, NWU is the 7th most improved.

Good news for the rest of us: NWU and Luther, two of the fastest improving teams in all of Division III, will square off twice in the next 50 days, first at the 2024 Grinnell Invitational (January 19-20) and then again on Feb. 22 at the American Rivers Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, at Luther’s home pool in Decorah.

4. If you follow the blog and are familiar with either of these teams, send a note to d3so@substack.com.

5. That’s an exaggeration. But not by much.

6. And they did not make our list because they improved again this year, but not (yet) by 20 spots.

7. Kean only competes in Women’s events.

8. And if you can stand the eye-searing chlorine content of the barely-circulating air in the stands of the Eppley Center, Kean will be one more solid attraction at the NJAC championships on Feb 15. Bring Visine and a pad to sit on, but it should be a great show.