Wednesday finals
How much detail do you want?
We will provide a highlight section from yesterday, but we will release it later this morning. We know that the schedule is disjointed but we are working through some bugs in our process.
The question we get asked the most
Did anything that just happened change the projections on who will win?
The answer to that is another question: How much detail do you want?
The minimal detail answer is: no real change.
The Denison men are overwhelming favorites to win.
The women’s contest appears close in a way that is unusual, with
Kenyon, NYU, and MIT essentially neck and neck,
Emory with a shot,
Denison with a longer shot, and
Williams with an all but invisibly small chance.
The longer answer goes like this.
A Monte Carlo simulation is a computational technique that uses repeated random sampling to model uncertainty and estimate the probability of different outcomes. In this simulation, each team’s total points were randomly varied by ±30% over 10,000 runs, and the team with the highest score in each run was recorded as the winner to determine their likelihood of victory.
Here are the raw win counts from the 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations we ran this morning:
Kenyon: 3,301 wins
NYU: 2,345 wins
MIT: 2,335 wins
Emory: 1,344 wins
Denison: 661 wins
Williams: 13 wins1
Yeah, it looks like Kenyon is back on top, but view each number in context. Kenyon’s odds remain better than any other team's, yet they still don't win 67% of the time. If Denison were to win, for instance, it would be an unlikely outcome—but it's an outcome that happened 661 times in our simulation.
We understand shifting predictions can be irritating, but we hope you also understand that we update our predictions when new information becomes available. And yesterday, we got a lot of new information.
For instance, we were less optimistic than others about Kenyon’s prospects in the 400 Medley Relay—honestly, we didn't expect them to finish as high as third place. We anticipated the Ladies finishing behind NYU and MIT (they did), but we did not expect them to successfully fend off strong challenges from their Denison rivals and an upstart Chicago team (they did).
As a result, the Kenyon Ladies' point total in our overall calculations increased. Not by a margin that typically makes a big difference in a championship meet—but this isn't a typical championship meet. Also, you might notice that the share of wins attributed to the top three teams (Kenyon, NYU, and MIT) has decreased slightly, as impressive performances from Emory and Denison have improved their odds a bit.
Seriously, if you're a competitor on any of these men's or women's teams, take a breath and look around. The baseline speed and talent at these nationals isn't normal. You are competing in an environment where the median competitor is significantly faster than in previous seasons. Take a moment to appreciate that. Because if you qualified for these nationals, then, dude, you are really fast.
One final note on the women: In the predictions above, the biggest points of uncertainty still revolve around diving. We'll know more about that by the end of the day. Additionally, today is shaping up to be huge for NYU, as well as significant for MIT, Emory, and Denison. Expect a back-and-forth dynamic throughout this meet—it's something we'll all have to get used to.
Self-righteous prediction
Oh, and in the coming years, when SwimSwam publishes articles about how Division III swimming suddenly became faster due to NCAA rule changes pushing Division I transfers into your ranks, you'll already know that Division III swimming had long since crossed that threshold. You'll recall that Kaley McIntyre, Luke Schwenk, Max Cory, Natalie Garre, Justin Finkel, Patrick Daly, Brayden Morford, Avery Clapp, Ella Roberson, Nathaniel Taft, Djordje Dragojlovic, David Bajwa, Sophia Verkleeren, Henri Bonnault, Cooper Costello, Kate Augustyn and that incredible MIT medley relay, Quinn Brown, Gabby Wei, Jennah Fadely—and the rest of this phenomenal group of athletes—were all homegrown Division III talents.
Close readers will notice that William’s chances more than doubled. Way to go, Sophia Verkleeren.