UrsusArctosCalifornicus;842806637 said:

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[COLOR="#006699"]Looks like Ivan Grigorishin made his debut for Bears at the dual against the Trojans last Friday. Not a spectacular showing with a 53.23 showing in the 100 fly, but look forward to seeing how he'll (hopefully) progress at the dual next Sat v. the Furd as he gets more acclimatised to his new training environment... and then onto Pac-12s...[/COLOR]

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UAC,

Actually, Ivan swam at the Stanford triple distance meet in the free sprint competion (where he recorded times of 22.62/50.69/2:00.00 in the 50/100/200 free - last in each heat). It looks somewhat doubtful he will be a factor at Pac 12s this year, but I will watching with interest his adjustment to college swimming.

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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]BEARS HOST STANFORD ON SENIOR DAY[/SIZE][/COLOR]


Cal hosts Stanford to wrap up the 2016-17 dual meet schedule (ISIPhotos.com)


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/2/16/mens-swimming-diving-bears-host-stanford-on-senior-day.aspx


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[video=youtube;JQCEfCURkv0][/video]


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It appears that the weather gods are looking out for the Cal men's swim team as we have a window of non-rainy weather @ noon on Saturday to celebrate the outgoing seniors as we take on Stanford. The Cards are an improved group and feature a very strong mid/distance group, depth and talent in IM a top sprinter in Sam Perry. Should be a fun meet and a last chance to see the great Ryan Murphy swim at home in a college meet.

While we are wrapping up our dual meet schedule, the rest of the college swimming world are beginning conference meets. I estimate that @ 50% of NCAA qualifying times will be swum from this point until NCAAs. It would be nice to see if Gutierrez, Lileikis and Kao can move off the qualifying bubble before Pac 12s. And Josa doesn't appear to have a qualifying time yet in yards, although his converted short meter 100 fly time from Dec. would put him at # 6 in the event.

I plan on getting to Spieker early to cheer on the Bears and hope to see some of you there as well.

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[video=youtube;XlIjX1rpi7k][/video]


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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]SENIORS CLOSE HOME CAREERS, BEAT STANFORD[/SIZE][/COLOR]


[IMG]http://www.calbears.com/images/2017/2/18/Ryan_Murphy_Long_Gutierrez_Hunter_Cobleigh_Jonathan_Fiepke_D illon_Williams_DZ_021817_12.JPG" />[/IMG]
Cal's five seniors swam their final collegiate dual meet Saturday at Spieker Aquatics Complex (ISIPhotos.com)


[INDENT][SIZE=3][U][COLOR="#DAA520"]RESULTS[/COLOR][/U]:[/SIZE] http://www.calbears.com/documents/2017/2/18//Cal_Stanford_Dual.pdf [/INDENT]


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/2/18/mens-swimming-diving-seniors-close-home-careers-beat-stanford.aspx


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[COLOR="#000080"][SIZE=5]RYAN MURPHY SETS PAIR OF POOL RECORDS IN FINAL DUAL MEET VS. STANFORD[/SIZE][/COLOR]



Ryan Murphy set two pool records to lead Cal to victory in the final dual of his college career. [COLOR="#696969"]Current Photo via Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com[/COLOR]


https://swimswam.com/ryan-murphy-sets-pair-of-pool-records-in-final-dual-meet-vs-stanford/


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We lucked out with no rain at Spieker Aquatic Center and sun coming out half way during the meet. When I got into the complex 30 minutes before the meet over half of the lower stands along the competition pool was filled with about 50 or so young people all in red jackets with the name of "Buchanan" on the back of their jackets. At first glance I thought it was Stanford fans, but it was the Buchanan High School (located in Clovis, CA 200 miles south of Berkeley) S&D team members.

Also present were several Cal men swim alums Josh Prenot, Jacob Pebley and others. Understandably, Cal's team was in a good mood for the meet in lieu of recognizing the graduating Seniors. Ryan Murphy must have had 20 or more pix taken with numerous Buchanan swimmers DURING the meet right before the last two events. One teen asked Murphy to sign the kid's hat. The kid gave Ryan a pen but Ryan started writing on the hat not realizing the cap was still on the pen. Ryan looked up at us in the upper deck like it was a "duh" moment LOL! Some members of the Cal women's team were also present. Don't know if I can wait for next season, but after the PAC12s and NCAAs, of course.

Don't know why Norman did nor swim today and Lileikis apparently was not present also.

A near capacity crowd at Spieker was on hand to see Cal outswim Stanford and say farewell to 5 Bear seniors including the great Ryan Murphy. As noted by Longseeker, a large contingent of high school swimmers from Buchanan High in Clovis filled half of one bleacher. Although they wore their red school colors they seemed to be neutral fans as there was little Stanford cheering during the meet. On the other hand, the Cal fans were very vocal in their support of the home team.

The swimming competition played out more or less according to script. Stanford swept the 500 and 1000 (esp with Nick Norman held out due to illness), and won most of the diving points. I also was happy to see Aukai Lileikis announced with the team, but disappointed he did not suit up. I later learned from a bearent that Lileikis is dealing with a shoulder injury. Cal's depth in sprints, and high end stroke talent led to victories in both relays and the remaining seven individual events. One oddity was the fact that only 13 events were contested compared to the 16 normally held in a dual meet. The 100 yard fly, back and breast were missing from the schedule, events in which Cal would have swept most of the top slots. The last time 16 events were contested versus Stanford was in 2015. I would be interested if anybody had insight into this fact.

Andrew Seliskar had a great meet sweeping the 200 free, 200 fly and 200 breast. Murphy cruised tio a pool record in the 200 IM and won his signature race, the 200 back for the final time at Spieker as a Bear.

dgong;842809999 said:

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The swimming competition played out more or less according to script. Stanford swept the 500 and 1000 (esp with Nick Norman held out due to illness), and won most of the diving points. I also was happy to see Aukai Lileikis announced with the team, but disappointed he did not suit up. I later learned from a bearent that Lileikis is dealing with a shoulder injury. Cal's depth in sprints, and high end stroke talent led to victories in both relays and the remaining seven individual events. One oddity was the fact that only 13 events were contested compared to the 16 normally held in a dual meet. The 100 yard fly, back and breast were missing from the schedule, events in which Cal would have swept most of the top slots. The last time 16 events were contested versus Stanford was in 2015. I would be interested if anybody had insight into this fact.

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Dual score was closer than expected, but still don't get the make up of LSJU's roster. Way too lopsided in distance and middle distance at the expense of sprint and stroke depth. Will be extremely strong in the 500/1650 and 800 Free Relay @ NCAAs, but can't compete for a title without A scoring relays and stroke depth everywhere else.

Remember being bummed when sprinter Cogswell decided on the farm, but he hasn't developed and Bears have multiple better sprint options who are also stroke studs (Murphy, Lynch, Seliskar).

Meet format (200 stroke events) seemed really odd to me too. Durden's built his team around sprints and relay stroke depth, but suspect the LSJU meet is a much lower priority than NCAAs or even PACs.

There are both 13 and 16 event formats for dual meets and the visiting school requests which is swum. With 13 events a swimmer can only enter 3 events. Stanford coaches probably thought they would have a better chance to win with this format. Freestyle depth pays off more.

Husmo;842810042 said:

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There are both 13 and 16 event formats for dual meets and the visiting school requests which is swum. With 13 events a swimmer can only enter 3 events. Stanford coaches probably thought they would have a better chance to win with this format. Freestyle depth pays off more.

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Thanks Husmo for your input. I suspected it was a decision coming from the Card camp. Expanding to 16 events would have undoubtedly widened Cal's winning margin. Including both diving events and both distance races played directly into Stanford's strength's. Stanford thrashed USC but will struggle at NCAAs without competitive sprint and medley relays. I wonder if they are more focused on getting one of their distance guys in the next Olympics versus competing with Cal, Texas and Florida for NCAAs.

Justin Lynch was apparently disappointed that they didn't swim the 100 fly; he has reportedly been working out with Quah Zheng Wen and has fine-tuned his butterfly turn. Stay tuned.

Surprised that Maxwell Williamson, Curtis Ogren, Justin Buck and a returning Tom Kremer---all High School "hot shots" along with Cole Cogswell--- are not bigger contributors for the Cards. But we have had one or two of our own who have not progressed as much as we all wish. However, love seeing the exuberant performances of lesser highlighted Cal swimmers like Matt Whittle, Dillon Williams, Andy Song and Jack Xie when he swims in his best events.

Yes, Stanford is so overloaded in the distance events and most likely will be adding Simon Lamar next year in those events. Seems the only major loss of Seniors for Stanford next year are Jimmy Yoder (distances), Bradley Christensen (diving) and the aforementioned Williamson.

BTW, has Cal ever consider something like the "Director's Chair" Stanford has for some of its top coaches?

dgong;842810055 said:

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Thanks Husmo for your input. I suspected it was a decision coming from the Card camp. Expanding to 16 events would have undoubtedly widened Cal's winning margin. Including both diving events and both distance races played directly into Stanford's strength's. Stanford thrashed USC but will struggle at NCAAs without competitive sprint and medley relays. I wonder if they are more focused on getting one of their distance guys in the next Olympics versus competing with Cal, Texas and Florida for NCAAs.

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I think I mentioned the Olympic angle a few months ago. It can't hurt, and can only help them if they can finally get a U.S. Olympian. Think about Indiana (and USC) and breaststroke, or even Cal (women) and backstroke.

Distance free/IM swimmers are neurotransmitter GABA-dominant, and the same personality type (comparable to MBTI SJ) is prevalent in engineering programs where students have to slog through 30-40+ hours of problem sets per week. Stanford touts that their athletes can major in engineering or hard sciences while playing D1 sports. (I know I have complained that some of these Stanford engineering majors are not ABET accredited, but maybe no one cares if they're going to join a startup after graduation.) Same goes for Stanford football recruiting lots of OL and TE players with high GPAs (see Jon Wilner's recent article on football team identities in the San Jose Mercury News). Obviously, the Cal model has been more successful year after year, but it would be good for the sport of swimming to see how far a distance-centric team can go at NCs. Swimswam's Swimulator predicts a decently close race.

Also, last year, when Cal was the visiting team, they had the exact same 13 event lineup. The two teams already raced each other in the sprints during the Triple Distance Meet, and I personally think it's more of an exciting challenge for Cal swimmers in the mid-distance strokes when the outcome is not pre-determined.

Season's not over, but the top ranked 2016 recruit Pleasanton's Maxime Rooney has somewhat underperformed at Florida.

Poised to be an A scorer in the 200 Free and will swim on three A scoring free relays, but won't score in any other individual events. Shame because Maxime's a really great guy but froskie Mike Jensen is a much more valuable college swimmer. Jensen projects as a three event individual scorer and potentially could swim on four A scoring relays.

Eddie Reese and Durden have separated themselves from everyone else in men's swimming. Can recruit high end talent, develop them, and their teams win at every level (NCAAs, conference, dual meets).

Florida's Gregg Troy is a very good coach (Lochte, Dressel, Beisel), but has way too much turnover. Recruits well, but old school approach doesn't work for everyone.

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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]Callahan Heads To Pac-12 Championships[/SIZE][/COLOR]


Connor Callahan will compete at the Pac-12 Diving Championships this week in Washington (Skip Stubbs)


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/2/21/mens-swimming-diving-callahan-heads-to-pac-12-championships.aspx


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[COLOR="#006699"][SIZE=3]Pac-12 Men 1-metre Springboard - [U]Connor[/U] => Finals![/SIZE][/COLOR]




https://secure.meetcontrol.com/divemeets/system/livestats.php?event=stats-4619-7180-1-Finished


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I love that Connor Callahan has twice made conference finals in 1m and 3m. It's valuable for him to dive under pressure and he's improving between prelims and finals. He'll be great at Zones and hopefully he will make NCs.

As a scoring update (assuming that we're scoring up to 16 divers, with 1st place = 20 points):

• Cal = 24 points
  
• Stanford = 110 points
  
• USC = 82 points
  
• ASU = 58 points
  
• Utah = 24 points
  

With 13 divers competing, everyone scores, so teams that bring multiple divers automatically rack up points. Stanford and USC have 4 divers each, ASU has 2 divers. Utah has not yet finaled and they are still tied with Cal. This won't be the case at NCs.

Callahan's DD for 1m and 3m are middle of the pack (which is much better than Finn Scribbick's DD during his freshman season). He's averaging low 6's on his dives, which is pretty good, but somehow these other divers are averaging high 6's and low 7's. There might be a slight reputation bias in the judging, given that most of those competing are juniors and seniors. So, I believe the best way to combat that is to increase DD, and dare the judges to lowball.

Callahan's best dives seem to be forwards and inwards, and he doesn't seem to score as well on the twisting ones (which is where the others are piling on the difficulty and execution). Given his body type and obvious strengths, I think he could increase his DD in future seasons by doing the inward 3 1/2 somersault tuck (both in springboard and platform) and possibly pick up the front 4 1/2 somersault tuck in platform (it's very hard and scary, but I think he can pull it off).

Connor Callahan did a great job this week --- making finals in all three boards. Here are the final diving points totals, which will be combined with the swimming points next week:

• Cal = 37 points
  
• Stanford = 154 points
  
• USC = 123 points
  
• ASU = 88 points
  
• Utah = 41 points
  

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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]Pac-12 men's swimming and diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year named[/SIZE][/COLOR]



SAN FRANCISCO - CALIFORNIA's Ryan Murphy was named the Pac-12 Men's Swimming and Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the 2016-17 season, the Conference office announced on Tuesday. The award, which is presented in each of the 23 sports the Pac-12 sponsors, was established to honor collegiate student-athletes that are standouts both academically and in their sports discipline.

Murphy, a business administration major who boasts a 3.54 GPA, has been a mark of consistency for the Golden Bears over the course of his career. He is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and is the current world record holder in the 100-meter backstroke after emerging as one of the stars of Team USA at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He is a six-time NCAA individual champion, having won the 100 and 200-yard backstroke each year he has competed, and also owns four NCAA relay titles. He is the two-time defending Pac-12 Swimmer of the Year, he is a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic selection and, in 2016, was named a first team at-large Academic All-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Murphy and the Golden Bears will compete on March 1-4 at the Pac-12 Men's Swimming Championships in Federal Way, Wash.


http://pac-12.com/article/2017/02/27/pac-12-mens-swimming-and-diving-scholar-athlete-year-named


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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]LEAVING A GOLDEN LEGACY[/SIZE][/COLOR]


Ryan Murphy closes out his undergraduate career at the 2017 NCAA Championships (Pac-12 Photo)


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/3/22/mens-swimming-diving-murphy-ncaas.aspx


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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]STILL KICKING[/SIZE][/COLOR]


Matthew Josa won the 100-yard butterfly at the 2017 Pac-12 Championships (Pac-12 Photo)


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/3/14/inside-the-lair-still-kicking.aspx


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[COLOR="#000080"][SIZE=4][U][COLOR="#DAA520"]2017 NCAAs[/COLOR][/U] live discussion[/SIZE][/COLOR] => http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?106540-2017-Men’s-NCAA-Championships-(Swimming-amp-Diving) :gobears:


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[COLOR="#0099cc"][SIZE=5]Cal men’s swimming and diving seeks to uphold its No.1 rank going into NCAA Championships[/SIZE][/COLOR]




http://www.dailycal.org/2017/03/20/cal-mens-swimming-diving-seeks-uphold-no-1-rank-going-ncaa-championships/


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[COLOR="#000080"][SIZE=5]REVISITING NCAA RECRUIT RANKINGS: MEN'S HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2013[/SIZE][/COLOR]




RANK | NAME | COLLEGE TEAM | TOTAL NCAA POINTS | 2014 NCAA POINTS | 2015 NCAA POINTS | 2016 NCAA POINTS | 2017 NCAA POINTS
1 | Jack Conger | Texas | 160 | 38 | 46 | 33 | 43
[COLOR="#DAA520"]2 | Ryan Murphy | Cal | 217 | 51 | 54 | 56 | 56[/COLOR]
3 | Steven Stumph | USC | 14 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 3
4 | Renny Richmond | Arizona | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
5 | Reed Malone | USC | 79 | 3 | 16 | 30 | 0
HM | Kyle Darmody | Auburn | 23 | 13 | 9 | 1 | 0
[COLOR="#DAA520"]HM | Matthew Josa | Queens/Cal | 120 (DII) / 0 (DI) | 60 (DII Queens) | 60 (DII Queens) | Redshirt | 0 (Cal)[/COLOR]
HM | Erik Risolvato | Arizona | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
HM | Clark Smith | Texas | 71 | 0 | 26 | 5 | 40
HM | Evan Pinion | Tennessee | 11 | Redshirt | 11 | 0 (pre-meet scratch)


A few big takeaways:

[COLOR="#DAA520"]Ryan Murphy[/COLOR] was the undisputed individual star of the class. He scored 217 of a possible 240 NCAA points individually, plus 12 total NCAA titles between relays and individuals.

[COLOR="#DAA520"]Matthew Josa[/COLOR] started his career in the NCAA's Division II, where he won 10 NCAA titles and scored a perfect 120 NCAA points. He took two DQs in scoring races this year for Cal in Division I, which drags down his numbers some, but he's got one year of eligibility remaining and should add to his numbers next year.


NCAA TITLES (RELAY & INDIVIDUAL) AMONG TOP CLASS OF 2013 RECRUITS:

[U]SWIMMER | NCAA TITLES[/U] (IND OR REL)

Jack Conger | 9
[COLOR="#DAA520"]Ryan Murphy | 12[/COLOR]
Steven Stumph | 0
Renny Richmond | 0
Reed Malone | 2
Kyle Darmody | 1
[COLOR="#DAA520"]Matt Josa | 0[/COLOR]
Erik Risolvato | 0
Clark Smith | 4
Evan Pinion | 0


https://swimswam.com/revisiting-ncaa-recruit-rankings-mens-high-school-class-2013/


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[COLOR="#000080"][SIZE=5]REVISITING NCAA RECRUITING CLASS RANKINGS: MEN'S CLASS OF 2014-2017[/SIZE][/COLOR]


[COLOR="#DAA520"][SIZE=4]3. CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEARS[/SIZE][/COLOR]

Top Names: Ryan Murphy, Sven Campbell, Long Gutierrez, Janardan Burns
Rest of the Class: Jonathan Fiepke, Dillon Williams, Harrison Thai, Hunter Cobleigh, Henry Chung (JuCo transfer)

[INDENT] [U]NCAA Finishes Over 4 Years[/U]: #1, #2, #2, #2
[U]Number of NCAA Scorers In Class[/U]: 3/9 (Murphy, Gutierrez, Cobleigh)[/INDENT]

As we noted in our rankdown of individual swimmers, Ryan Murphy was the most valuable swimmer in the class, sweeping NCAA backstroke titles in the 100 and 200 over his four years. Long Gutierrez and Hunter Cobleigh were productive, and Janardan Burns made NCAAs, though he didn't score individually.


https://swimswam.com/revisiting-ncaa-recruiting-class-rankings-mens-class-2014-2017/


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[COLOR="#000066"][SIZE=5]RYAN MURPHY NAMED PAC-12 SWIMMER OF THE YEAR[/SIZE][/COLOR]


Ryan Murphy is a three-time Pac-12 Swimmer of the Year (Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com)


http://www.calbears.com/news/2017/4/3/mens-swimming-diving-ryan-murphy-named-pac-12-swimmer-of-the-year.aspx


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