What if invite-times weren't?
What if invite-times weren't?
UW-Oshkosh Junior Francesca Schiro's exceptional week evokes memories of an unusual incident from last season, leading us to ask, 'What really constitutes an invite-time?'
UW-Oshkosh junior Francesca Schiro has been honored as the WIAC Women's Swimmer of the Week. While it's surprising to find an award in the State of Wisconsin not sponsored by Culver's, it's entirely expected to see Francesca Schiro earning such recognition. She's not just fast—she's invite-time fast.
And that’s where the story gets a little confusing. Because…
What Is An Invite-Time?
My assumption had always been: you post an invite-time (or faster) and that gets you invited to Nationals. I was open to the possibility that the invite-time was the time you had to beat to get invited to Nationals. But that is clearly not the case - just look at any of the invite-times for relay teams. The invite-time is the time posted by the last team invited.1
This might sound banal and obvious. But invite-times are not randomly generated. They reflect actual times posted by actual athletes. The invite-time for 200 Free Relay at 2023 Nationals was 1:34.86 because that is the fastest time swum by the 20th invited relay team (Trinity, TX).
Invite times are not randomly generated. They reflect actual times posted by actual athletes.
So what? Well, that means we can pinpoint the athlete who set the invite-time for each event. Why is that interesting? Well…
Back to Ms. Schiro
At 2023 Nationals, the invite time for Women’s 100 Free was 51.312 and only three swimmers posted that time all of last season. They were:
Francesca Schiro, UW-Oshkosh, who swam 51.31 at the WIAC Championships.3
Ellen Hofstede, of Gustavus Adolphus, who swam 51.31 as a relay leadoff at Nationals.
Greta Gidley, of mighty Hope College, who not only swam her 51.31 at Nationals, but who also had multiple 100 Free swims faster than 51.31 before Nationals.
Barring some undocumented tear in the space-time continuum, Francesca Schiro is the only athlete who could possibly have established that invite time (51.31). That is her time. She is the only one. Francesca Schiro is Ms. 100 Free Invite-Time (2023).
But she did not get invited to Nationals.
Here’s what we know:
There is the ‘Women Invited Swimmers By Team - Updated 2.27.23’ document that lists every invited swimmer by team. Ms. Schiro is not listed.
Ms. Schiro was on the first ‘Alternates’ list released by the NCAA, but not on the second ‘Alternates’ list released closer to the start of Nationals.4
On this latter point, let’s be clear that a notice of alternate status is not an invite. Ask 80% of the alternates over the past 10 seasons. Saying ‘she was an alternate and that is why her time was listed as the invite-time’ is nonsense, and wildly misleading.
Should Ms. Schiro have been invited? I mean, yeh…she established the time that the NCAA published as the invite-time in that event. It doesn’t feel like a hard question (though the circularity of the logic is dizzying). And not that it matters, but if she had swum a 51.31 in 100 Free at Nationals, she would have B-finaled.
Did the NCAA say that the invite time for Women’s 100 Free was the time posted by an athlete who they did not get around to inviting?
Now, there is reason to believe that Ms. Schiro removed her name from the second list of alternates. We hear she had an opportunity to engage in service work in keeping with her values and her faith, and she chose that over sitting around waiting to see if, against the odds, she got moved up the list.
That doesn’t make the NCAA’s role any less odd. It’s not even about the NCAA being cheap. Which they are. But the point is more like - if they were too cheap to just invite Ms. Schiro, why list her time as the invite-time? Just list the time of the last swimmer you actually invited for that event. It’s not that complicated.
Anyway, Francesca Schiro is swimming great this season, and is a good bet to get an invite to Nationals in her Junior year. It will be fun, and easy, to cheer for her when she gets there.
An example: last season’s invite-time for Women’s 200 Free Relay was 1:34.86. Why? Because the NCAA was going to take 20 Women’s Relay teams and the 20th fastest relay team was Trinity (TX) with a time of…1:34.86. Belated congratulations, ladies!
You can see for yourself.
Probably should have reviewed this earlier, but the rule is: for Women’s events, the NCAA selects the top 20 individuals in each individual event (the numbers are different for Men - 16 per individual event, last I checked). Then they pick the top 20 relays. Then they count heads. It is a counting procedure, not a math problem, because there is so much overlap between individual event participants and relay event participants, and because many individual event participants will be in the top 20 of more than one individual event.
If after filling in the top 20 for every event - individual events and relay events - the NCAA’s total count of invited athletes is fewer than 290 total invited women athletes, then they go back and start adding individual participants to individual events - ‘additional individuals whose time is greatest in percentage to the Division III established “B” cut will be selected by 1 individual entry until the participant cap is reached.’
So, what was the actual invite time?
51.16: By rule, you can count on the fastest time by the 20th fastest athlete in the event as a reliable invite time. That was set by Catholic University 1st-Year Kathryn Herman at 51.16.
51.19: By the initial psych sheet, it looks like the NCAA intends to invite the 21 fastest athletes to participate in Women’s 100 Free. On Feb. 23, that time is 51.19 (Emory’s Samantha Kass). By March 9, that time has not changed - still 51.19.
51.35: But by the time they line up to swim the event in Greensboro on March 18, the 20th fastest seed time belonged to Tatum Zupnik, Junior from Bowdoin - 51.35.
51.41: If the NCAA intended for there to be 21 invited athletes in the event, then the 21st fastest athlete (by seed time) was Carnegie Mellon First-Year Eliana Szabo - 51.41.
Stop me when we get to 51.31.
Sponsored by Culver’s!
As anyone who has been an alternate knows, it is definitely not an invite. It can turn into an invite. But lots of things can turn into other things. And ‘alternates’ don’t turn into ‘invites’ often enough that we should conflate the two.