CAL men take their turn at NCAAs starting tomorrow. Expecting another tight race vs Texas. Guys will have to out-swim their seeds to make up enough diving points (although less so than in the past) to challenge the Horns.

Tomorrow 200 medley relay, seeded 12th. And 800 FR Relay seeded 8th.

Live Result: https://swimmeetresults.tech/NCAA-Division-I-Men-2022/

GO BEARS!! Swim fast!!

Fired up! 🤟

The NCAA Championships get underway in Atlanta tomorrow. Roll on you Bears! pic.twitter.com/IuDD8ZchEl

— Cal Men's Swim & Dive (@calmenswim) March 22, 2022

Which teams are ranked in the top five for NCAAs? Where did Louisville come from? I don't remember them being a national power. GO BEARS!

Cal has diving facilities now. Is there still a reason we can't get any divers who can at least get some points? How many more championships would Cal have won if they had scoring divers?

Here's swimswam's predicted finish for NCAAs

https://swimswam.com/2021-22-ncaa-mens-power-rankings-final-edition/

Texas' diver Windle was a returning 5th year athlete that scored 52 points last year. He placed 1st in 1M, 2nd in 3M and 4th in platform in 2021 making him the 4th highest individual scorer last year. He was temporarily suspended by SafeSport in December and will thus miss NCAAs. This significantly reduces the diving deficit this year but it'll still be a dog fight.


https://swimswam.com/baca-champion-diver-jordan-windle-suspended-by-us-center-for-safesport/

My goodness, seems like almost every time we came in second we outswam Texas but they had the diving points to win it. A diver counts only half a head count towards the max you can bring to NCAAs.

As for Cal diving, someone who knows diving and especially Cal diving should comment. I was guardedly optimistic when we hired the Stanford Club coach but he quit shortly after.

Thank you, PalyBear. I was thinking Texas & Cal battling it out but the initial psych sheets have the Bears farther down the list than I expected. The one worry that I have is that Cal's strategy to win the Pac 12 by using its depth to add points, probably won't work with some many good teams competing on a national basis. GO BEARS!

Bjorn with the fastest leadoff in history (20.08), followed by Bell (22.77), Julian (20.12), and Carr (18.78) for a 1:21.69 to tie with NC State for 3rd. Florida wins with Texas 2nd.

Thanks for the splits S19.

Nice jump from seed (12) to swim (3T); crazy that a school record and P12 record only gets you 3T

Great start! Go Bears!

School record & Pac-12 record to kick off #NCAASwimDive! Cal goes 1:21.69 in the 200 medley relay. #GoBears pic.twitter.com/yPj6VBxFL3

— Cal Men's Swim & Dive (@calmenswim) March 23, 2022

Julian leads off with a 1:31.57. Hanson (1:31.96), Jett (1:31.54), and Lasco (1:31.83) combine for a 6:06.90 to finish 4th overall. Texas wins, with Georgia and Stanford taking 2nd and 3rd.

Good move up from our 8th seed. Great day to start, Go Bears!!

Good results for the Bears on Day 1. Cal picked up 29 points versus the psych sheet compared to Texas' gain of 16 points. SwimSwam has previously scored the swimming events including relays and had the Bears edging the Texas swimmers by a narrow 7.5 points, before considering diving. Based on tonight's results, the Bears have a 20.5 swimming cushion going into Day 2 events. Assuming Texas is likely to score 30+ diving points, the Bears need to continue to outperform Texas relative to the psych sheet. I will be tracking the up/downs tomorrow morning.
Freshman Gabriel Jett had a strong 200 split and it looks like his midseason times were for real. I will be watching for him in the 500 Free tomorrow.
Seeliger's 50 back was very impressive; he may be the guy to beat in the 100 back.

It's amazing to me that it took until the end of Bjorn's sophomore season for the coaching staff to realize that he was the best back stroke swimmer on the team. In the medley relay, Bjorn switched from the free style anchor to the back lead-off. Senior Daniel Carr swapped positions with him and anchored the free style leg of the relay. Cal's improvement might end up being a good deal from the Seeliger switch to competing in the back stroke.

I guess that Bjorn could have improved a ton since he has been at Cal but still to not use his back stroke skills until halfway through his career in Berkeley seems strange. I'm a novice swim fan so I possess zero insight on the inner workings of the swim program. Perhaps someone that is familiar can contribute his/her thoughts on how this might have happened. GO BEARS!

Nice to read informed Posts. I hope we beat Texas even with the Diving deficit...

Day 2 Prelims
All important Up (top 8)/Downs (bottom8):
Cal 4/1
Tex 6/3
From my perspective, I was disappointed by Cal's missing out on any finalists in the 500 Free, but neither Grieshop or Jett entered the race with top 16 psych times. Unfortunately Texas added an A finalist in addition to the psych sheet and will score huge points with 2/1 swimmers in the 500 tonight.

The 200 IM was expected to be a strong event for the Bears and they did not disappoint with Lasco, Hugo and Julian making the final 8, and Louser earning a second swim in the consols. Texas also swam well placing 2 swimmers each in the top 8 and consols.

The 50 prelims were highlighted by Bjorn's scorching 18.45, but Texas placed two guys in the top 8.

Based on the prelim results, Cal should outperform versus the psych sheet projections, but I expect Texas who placed 3 additional top 8 finalist versus projections will do so as well.

Thanks Swan...

Texas didn't place any divers in consolations or finals, so no advantage towards scoring for today.

Odd choice by Cal for 200 med relay. Coaches went with Trenton & Carr instead Gonzalez & Alexy for the fly & free legs. It seems like the latter pair could have gone half a second faster.

Grieshop used to drop almost 5 seconds for 500 free at NCAA, but he didn't this time. I hope it's just one unexpected bad swims.

Solid night for the Bears.

Louser kicks us off with a 14th place finish in the 200 IM (1:41.91). In the next heat, Lasco swims the 4th fastest time in history for runner-up (1:38.21), with Hugo (5th, 1:39.82) and Julian (7th, 1:40.47) joining him on the podium.

Bjorn repeats his runner-up effort from last year with a 18.59 to finish second again. Of note, Texas' Auchinachie is disqualified in the A-final.

Bears cap off the night with a second place finish in the 200 FR with Seeliger (18.27), Alexy (18.780, Carr (18.62), and Lasco (18.69).

Apart from the relay, Texas dropped from seed in all their swims tonight. With the DQ, this opens the door for the Bears to take that title back. Roll on.

BJORN SEELIGER SWIMS 18.27 50 FREE LEADING OFF RELAY, NOW #2 PERFORMER ALL-TIME

Go Bears (go Bjorns).

Quote:

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To close off day one of the 2022 D1 Men's NCAA Championships, Bjorn Seeliger became the fastest man not named Caeleb Dressel in the 50 free. Seeliger, who came in this morning as the top seed in the individual free with an 18.45, lost in finals by three-hundredths to LSU's Brooks Curry and added from his prelims time to go 18.59. Then, just 45 minutes later, he redeemed himself by swimming a 18.27 leading off of Cal's 200 free relay to overtake his former teammate Ryan Hoffer as the #2 performer of all time.

Seeliger's prelims swim had him as the fourth-fastest of all time before he moved up the rankings tonight.
Top Performers Of All-Time, Men's 50 Yard Freestyle:
[ol]

Caeleb Dressel, Florida 17.63 (2018)

Bjorn Seeliger, Cal 18.27 (2022)

Ryan Hoffer, Cal 18.33 (2021)

Cesar Cielo, Auburn 18.47 (2008)

Matt Targett, Auburn 18.52 (2009)

[/ol]
Although Seeliger became the second fastest performer of all time in the 50 free, his time is only the eighth-fastest performance ever, behind seven of Dressel's swims. Because of Seeliger, Dressel now holds seven instead of eleven of the fastest 50 freestyle times ever.

---

Is there a link to watch each event after the fact? I would like to see the races! I missed today's finals while at the dentist. Thanks in advance. GO BEARS!

After Texas placed 6 A and 3 B finalist on Day 2, I feared Texas with help from their divers would give the Horns needed breathing room in their quest to retain the NCAA title. But with the false start disqualification by Texas transfer Cam Auchinachie in the 50 free finals and a goose egg from the Horns divers, Cal comes out of Day two having dodged a bullet.

Although Texas outscored Cal 106 to 97 for the day, both teams outperformed their psych sheet projections by 25 points. At the end of the session Texas leads Cal 180 points to 158 (with Florida sitting 2nd with 159 points), while the projected gap based on psych sheets was projected to be 42.5 points in favor of the Horns. The Bears extremely strong backstroke group is poised to lead Cal to a narrow victory over Texas , especially if the Horns divers are kept out of the championship finals in the two remaining diving events.

I love these reports...Wish we had similar news for MBB.

Cal appears to have the potential for a big Friday performance. Liam Bell jumped way up to 2nd in the 100 breast stroke prelim to give the Bears two swimmers in the top four. Bears qualified four swimmers in the 100 back (two each in A & B heats). In the 400 IM Cal has qualified two in the A and one in the B heat. In the 200 free style Cal landed one swimmer each in A& B heats but Gabriel Jett ended up as an alternate. The weakest event tonight appears to be the 100 butterfly with only Dare Rose qualifying in the last spot in the B heat. Finally, I hope Cal can shock the world in the 400 medley relay tonight as we did to open the meet on Wednesday night. The psych sheet projects the Bears in 10th. Coach Durden may have to re-shuffle the deck and come up with a surprise!
GO BEARS!

Texas 1 down in diving (Noah Duperre 9th in prelims).

That brings the total to Bears 7/5, Horns 5/7.

S71... You are BI's most versatile Poster...

Ten minutes until the start of the evening finals of day three. Cal has the clear advantage over Texas in this session, placing 7 Up and 5 Down, versus 5 Up and 5 Down (including a tactical scratch for a B finalist in the 100 back) for Texas. By the end of tonight's session, Cal is now projected to trail Texas by single digits/ low teens including diving, going into Saturday's final events, where Cal is expected to dominate the swimming points.

It will take massive Texas platform diving points, and relay dominance for Texas to hold on to their crown, but that is certainly not out of the question.

swan said:

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Ten minutes until the start of the evening finals of day three. Cal has the clear advantage over Texas in this session, placing 7 Up and 5 Down, versus 5 Up and 5 Down (including a tactical scratch for a B finalist in the 100 back) for Texas. By the end of tonight's session, Cal is now projected to trail Texas by single digits/ low teens including diving, going into Saturday's final events, where Cal is expected to dominate the swimming points.

It will take massive Texas platform diving points, and relay dominance for Texas to hold on to their crown, but that is certainly not out of the question.

---

Thank you for your analysis! It will be an exciting last day. Thought we would had done better especially with the 5th yr swimmers returning but maybe it difficult yr to motivate for them.

Tough to discount the contributions of our 5th year crew so far -- while Grieshop didn't score in the 500, he did place 8th in tonight's 400 IM. Likewise, Julian put up big points in the 2 IM yesterday (alongside the rest of the Cal cadre), and Mefford / Carr are B-finalists in the 100 back. None of them are clear-cut title contenders with such a fast meet this year, but points are points

Go Bears!!!

Tonight so far:

400 IM: Hugo clinches the win with a new US Open + NCAA record in placing first, with Grieshop 8th and Louser 9th in the event.

100 fly: LSJU's Minakov wins in one of three sub-44 swims. Rose takes 13th place overall, with Texas 12th and 16th.

200 free: Kibler wins from Texas, Julian takes 7th, and Hanson also takes 7th in the B-final (15th overall).

100 breast: Corbeau edges Bell for second place by 0.01, but Cal packs a 3-4 punch in the heat. Bell also lowers his school record from this morning with his new PB (50.50).

Cal racked up 37.5 points in the 100 back to vault into 1st place by a couple points (4.5) over Texas. The final medley relay will be huge. Texas & Cal are projected 6th and 10th. Needless to say, I don't believe the Bears will finish tenth. Let's Go Bears!

Today the bears swam great. On paper, after tapering Bears should outscore UT on tomorrow swims.

Bears are your 400 Medley Relay national champions!!

Lasco (44.64), Whitley (50.64), Julian (44.44) and Seeliger (40.64) throw down a 3:00.36 from the 3rd heat of 4. Indiana, Florida, Texas and NCSU round out the top 5.

Bears on top of the team standings heading into day 4. Roll on.

I don't see the 400 medley relay as finished. If so, what are the final points for tonight?