Sprintermike- I think what you said about the divers might be true on some teams, but not in a situation like our team where a few teams dominate the conference. Jordan King, for example, had she been on the scoring team, would've likely scored more points than all of our divers except Haley (highest scoring) combined.

Highschool is a little different because the natinal championship is based on dual meet scoring and power points and season best times, whereas State champs are based on that one race on that one weekend. It's not uncommon for what you described to happen, as TWHS did it last year I believe.

But yes, it's true that we should beat Missouri at NC's, but don't worry, that wasn't lost upon anybody on this board. Our divers alone will have our guys over Missouri, as it doesn't appear right now that Missouri will have anybody at NC's other than that one breaststroker. Hopefully we can sneak a few relays in so we can have some more individual swims and move up the rankings a little bit.

[This message has been edited by gobluwolverine (edited 3/4/2009 9:21a).]

I think you're missing Mike's point Blu. If Jordan is on the scoring team, we lose TWO divers worth of points. So if Jordan would get 8th in all 3 events (don't know what she really wouldve gotten, this is hypothetical), that is 11pts (I think) times 3 swims, totalling 33pts from jordan. Or, we put up 2 divers who get 11th & 12th on 3 boards, which is 7&6pts respectively, totalling 13pts, times 3 boards, is 39 points courtesy of the 2 divers. 39 points from 2 divers is more than 33pts from jordan. So even though neither diver finished as high as jordan did, because of the 2for1 ratio, we score more points from bringing 2 divers instead of one swimmer.

So the only way it behooves a team to bring one swimmer instead of 2 divers, is if their divers are terrible (not capable of scoring top 16), or your swimmer is going to be very high in the top 8 to score more total than the 2 divers combined.

His point wasn't lost on me. I fully understood. What I said still holds true. Jordan would've outscored our 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th and etc. divers combined. If you add in our top scoring diver, the divers would've had the advantage, because Haley finished 4th in the sparsely-competed in 3m platform. The rest of our divers didn't compete in all 3 events (no idea why) and so Jordan would've possibly outscored them (hard to say what her times would've been if she had swam in the A and B finals). Assuming you take it as "ok, if you're going to enter one diver, then you might as well enter two, because you can't enter half a swimmer," then from a points standpoint, we should've only entered two divers in the meet(Haley and Lorena). The coaches, for whatever reason, seemed to be not interested at all in winning the meet, even if it wasn't going to hurt their training, so we entered all of our divers instead.

It is what it is, but yes, I understood what he was saying. If we get better divers, what he said may be true, but for now, it is not.

[This message has been edited by gobluwolverine (edited 3/4/2009 10:54a).]

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then from a points standpoint, we shouldve only entered two divers

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False. You can get the 3for1 ratio if each diver only dives 2 boards. So we got all 3 divers at the price of only 1 swimmer. That's why Emily & Lorena didn't dive platform. Texas men did the same thing, and Drew Livingston sat out 3M.

And looking at results, the 3 girls got 9, 10, 11 on one board, Lorena was top 8 in one, Haley top 8 in one, and Emily just missed top 8 in her other board. So they weren't as bad as you think. And next year with Janie & Jaele, it will be even better

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False. You can get the 3for1 ratio if each diver only dives 2 boards.

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Didn't know about this caveat. I stand corrected then.

The divers vs. swimmers scoring impact is new to me. It is way too complicated! All I really want to care about is whose hand gets to the wall first.

Is there or has there been a last chance meet for the Aggie men to qualify for NCAAs?

I believe times swum at the Austin Grand Prix can be used to qualify for NCAAs. The Pac10 men's championship is this weekend and men's NCAA qualifiers aren't named until next week.

Several Ags are racing (or are at least entered) in Austin starting tomorrow: Welch, Lavery, Amini, Bergstrom, Makany, Strange, Clark, Raiford, Loncaric, and Snowden.

Thanks

On a side rant ... What is the future of men's swimming at A&M? Looking at it from the outside and honestly not knowing anything I don't understand why there are only 18 swimmers on the team. Missouri's has 28 swimmers and 7 of those are from Texas!

It is obvious that A&M has great coaches. I understand what they have in Austin. What is the difference between A&M and Missouri? What about other state schools like Kentucky, Florida State?

From scanning through the Big XII results, I it is glaring that we are lacking depth in some areas. I can only speculate about why our roster size is what it is. I believe that A&M was consistently at "capacity" (24ish swimmers) over the past ~10 years. Maybe it's still the lag effect of Jay's interim contract year recruiting class, or lack there of?

Bogustrumper - you are asking a can of worms question. And it can get ugly here in a hurry trying to answer that.

I believe we have fine, perhaps great coaches. We have all seen our swimmers develop and get much faster as they train in our program. For some reason we cannot get the very best swimmers, even in Texas, to come to A&M. It would be something to see - if we had freshmen who can go 45-46 in 100 free, 1:40-1:42 in 200 free, etc. turn into the 43 sec and 1:33 guys that score at NCAAs.

Look at the juniors and seniors at the 2009 Texas 4A and 5A championships.

4A Results
5A Results

AFAIK - the last individual male state champion to come to A&M was Casey Strange. He's a fine swimmer and I wish we had TEN more like him.

Texas is the home of a growing number of national high school record (girls and boys) holders. Fiegen, Beck, Tucker, Cragin, Thompson, etc. These kids from Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas are magnificent swimmers and and we should get a few of them occasionally.

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 3/4/2009 5:34p).]

Again, just speculation, but I know a few years ago there were rumors that the AD was going to cut Men's swimming. I've heard of a few guys that considered coming here and didn't because of concern over this.

Our coaches don't always offer a whole lot of money to state champions either. Don't want to get into it too much, as I know the swimmers are lurking around waiting to jump on everything I say, but I've heard that there have been home-state swimmers that have been interested in coming here that weren't given decent offers for whatever reason.

[This message has been edited by gobluwolverine (edited 3/4/2009 6:39p).]

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What is the difference between A&M and Missouri?

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Missouri has a new facility that is very nice. Their version of the "time-out" looks like a country club. The state of Missouri has had a lot of good swimmers, but they don't always end up at Missouri (SEMO st. probably has a better program, historically at least).

Hard to explain why so many Texas guys end up at Missouri, other than what I put in my previous post. I think it's more of an issue that Missouri has gotten better, to where it's no longer a gimme about the finish order at Big XII's.

I think we still clearly are a better team, but the trick at Big XII's for guys is that just about everyone finals in every event, so depth is a big issue. They also have a pretty decent diving program, so we don't make much ground on them there.

Just my .02 on the matter. I'm sure I will shortly be told everything I said was wrong.

Goblu - at the risk of beating a dead horse - MU has the same 9.9 scholarships to give as A&M.

I do not know how we choose to allocate those 9.9. I was told 2.0 go to diving most years. But in state tuition at A&M is probably cheaper than a kid going to MU with 1/4 of a scholarship. So if a Texas kid chooses MU @ 1/4 over A&M for zero - why would they do that? Same question for a Texas kid choosing ANY other school offering a partial. If they go out of state - they (and their parents) are not saving any money at all doing so compared to a small partial or walking on at A&M.

But apparently they are often choosing that exact path.


[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 3/4/2009 7:41p).]

Well spice and ag09, I have heard from numerous people that Coach Holmes is not the best recruiter....this could explain the money/tuition discrepancy that you two were discussing in earlier posts, in the sense that top tier Texas recruits are going to Mizzou other than aTm.

Wow my name got thrown in to the convo and I haven't said a word...

This horse has long since been abused, beaten, & burried, everyone who reads this board know exactly what everyone else thinks about the subject. Nothing has changed

Psych sheets are out for girls.

http://www.ncaaswim.com/pdf/w09_off_ps.pdf

Casey and Rita both made it.

I think NCAA's is going to be nuts. Looking through that phych sheet the Aggies squeaked a few in including Latone and Rita. There are some insanely fast times in there too. It's amazing to see how much faster the entire country is compared to 4 or 5 years ago. The best are definitely coming to College Station. Everyone get on the Rec Center staff to make sure those bulkheads are battened down TIGHT!

[This message has been edited by WAaggie07 (edited 3/5/2009 9:49a).]

[This message has been edited by WAaggie07 (edited 3/5/2009 9:38a).]

Speaking of the bulkhead....

I sat next to the Floswimming guys during the Texas HS state meet. I asked them if they were gonna be at NCAAs and of course they were.

I asked if they were going to video the pool measurement and they laughed - said that might be fun to do. But I'm sure they won't because the Rec Center would find no humour in it all!

I hope Floswimming attends...that would be great for A&M and good press for Holmes.

I wasn't trying to put down the men's program at all or stir the pot over issues that have been discussed many times before. Reading the Missouri articles just ticked me off. I want to win and I want this program to grow to the point that it truly competes with the sips.

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I wasn't trying to put down the men's program at all

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I know you weren't. And neither is anyone else here. But it seems we have to walk on eggshells if we raise a question about how we will get better nationally.

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Reading the Missouri articles just ticked me off. I want to win and I want this program to grow to the point that it truly competes with the sips.

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Me too! How do we do that?

Great question. I guess the knee jerk answer would be to do exactly what Bultman is doing but I bet it is more complicated than that!

If they haven't done it already maybe they need to find a way to truly reach out to the club programs across the state.