Pre-Season Rankings

[Chapel Partner]

Based on the recruits thread, last years points, and swimmers lost, here is the first round of my pre-season rankings...

Note: Sir Carl, did you already do the points lost to graduation? If not, feel free.

(points listed are from the 2010 MIAC meet)

1. UST. 709 pts… Key losses: Mullee, J Stark, Bucholz. Additions: Seem to have some top level sprinters coming in. Losing Mullee will hurt relays and overall points, but if they have solid freshman coming in, they should still dominate the sprints/relays and hope it is enough to hold everyone off without any distance guys.

2. STO. 615.5 pts… Key losses: Edwards, Bentley (was out anyway). Additions: Seem to have gotten a couple top level recruits, and at least one boner heat filler. Over the last few years they've lost a lot of depth with guys making the roster who don't score more than a couple points, if any. I'm assuming they fill those gaps this year.

3. GAC. 701 pts… Key losses: Sky-Dave, Elenkewich, Michelson. Additions: ??? GAC is usually good at reloading, but the last couple recruiting classes haven't been super deep. Unless the rumors of getting a 20-point sprinter are true, or some divers, GAC could go anywhere from 1-4 this year.

4. SJU. 542.5 pts… Key losses: Justin Otis and Champan. Additions: Rumors are that they have a solid set of mid-tier guys coming in. SJU still lacks a guy who can either carry a relay to nats, or get to nats solo. And they also haven't had any surprising late bloomer types who improve a ton in college. I think they have the depth to compete for top 3, but until they get another Zelen type, they won't have a shot at the top 2.

5. Car. 415 pts… Key losses: Sjoberg, Nishi. Additions: Supposedly a few solid freestylers. Carleton could really surprise people this year. They pulled in two top recruits last year in Klontz and Kanazawa not to mention adding a ton of depth with guys like Sagin and Hardt. If any of the recruits coming in are as good as advertised, Carleton could compete for top 3.

6. SMU. 224 pts… Key losses: John Fox. Additions: ??? SMU has done pretty well pulling in 1-2 guys every year (Ross, Tysk). They still have little depth, but more depth than the following teams.

7. Mac. 132 pts… Key losses: None? Additions: ??? Mac in theory has Nathan Young coming back, but also doesn’t have anyone else on the roster other than maybe Yamashita who will score at conference.

8. Ham. 129 pts… Key Losses: WKH, Janezich. Additions: ??? Hamline has never had numbers, but they at least seemed to have 2-3 top 8 swimmers (Stieneman, that Billy Bob dude, WHK, Burgess, Tapia-Rodriguez). I don’t think they have anyone returning individually who scored a point at conference, and I’d put it at 50-50 they field a relay. I really hope Hamline pulls in some guys though.

I’m sure I missed some things above.

[Mac of the MIAC]

Olaf got this year's best recruit and have the overall best program for improving swimmers. I'm going with the Oles for the win. My shocker pick is for GAC to fall out of the top 3. They lost Skylar and this will be 2 years in a row where they haven't signed a recruiting class.

STO
UST
SJU
CAR
GAC
MAC
SMU
HAM

[Nashland]

1. UST. 709 pts… Key losses: Mullee, J Stark, Bucholz. Additions: Seem to have some top level sprinters coming in. Losing Mullee will hurt relays and overall points, but if they have solid freshman coming in, they should still dominate the sprints/relays and hope it is enough to hold everyone off without any distance guys.

Like you said for Nathan Young, you can add Andrew Spratt as an "addition" and a key addition because of his distance swimming ability. It will be interesting to see how the Tommie medley relays do without Mullee. It should be a good race between UST, STO and GAC. I'm going to go with STO in the 2 med and and UST in the 4 Med.

UST:
Hoelterhoff
Frost
Huls
Hubbard/Whalen/Henrickson/Rauchwarter

STO:
Murrell
Kubat
Money
Biesecker

GAC
Kirihara
Schultze
Van Fossen
DeFranco (Wii Dave for the 4 Med)

[Chapel Partner]

I guess I thought Spratt was a senior.

You could probably put Bateman in the 400 med as well... either his 57 breast (which Kubat might beat), or he could probably bust off a 51 back... then again, he has the worst back stroke start I have ever seen.

Look for Carleton to have some decent sprint relays (were 2nd this past year). I think they could hit a B cut at least with Klontz, Kanazawa, Mering, and a solid newb.

As for GAC, I really hope they are just holding things close to the denim vest and have some decent recruits coming in. Otherwise, I think it could be two meets. UST vs Olaf... GAC vs SJU vs Car for 3rd.

[risingstar12]

Olaf was hurt a lot this year at conference by the boner heats getting way faster for some of the generally weaker events. Their recruiting class adds a lot of depth in that there are for sure two recruits that are going to be competing for top 3 points and so the 2-3 people at the bottom of the roster get knocked out. Kubat has the ability to step in and be almost a Bentley replacement. Thats around 50 points. Plus Tostrud had vertigo and he placed 1st and 3rd the previous year, thats another good chunk of points as well. Fill in Scarth for some finals points to replace Edward's points and suddenly Olaf has just as many points as GAC and UST did. Then on top of that they have a lot more recruits. This class could possibly be more talented than the 2013 class and that includes Bateman and other standouts. Olaf is the clear favorite.

[Chapel Partner]

If the recruiting classes are as deep as advertised for teams like SJU and Carleton, it should level the total points even more than we saw last year. USTs 709 point total was the lowest total for a men’s winner ever maybe... I didn't bother to look past the last 3 years since most of those meets were all 2-team races.

(Feel free to correct my math)
Conference meet:
Individual Swimming- 13 events, 155 pts per event, 2,015 total pts
Relays- 8 teams, 5 relays, 236 pts per relay, 1,180 total pts
Diving- 2 events, 155 pts per event (do 16 divers score? or only top 8? I seriously don't know), 310 pts
Total pts to be had- 3,505

Last year’s total was 3,468 (might have been some DQs or I screwed up diving).

So if we look at this as teams taking a cut of that 3,505 pie. And teams like Carleton and SJU improve significantly, those points will need to come from somewhere.

Estimated 2011 points (working in reverse since it is easier to predict the lower scoring teams at this point)…
Ham- 110… attend the meet with enough guys to not DQ all the relays.

Mac- 182… assumes Nathan Young comes back and gets them 50 points.

SMU- 198… assume the loss of Fox’s 26 individual points is not replaced

This means the top 5 teams are competing for 3,015 points…

Car- 465… assume they add 50 points in recruiting over losses.

SJU- 592.5… assume they add 50 points in recruiting over losses.

GAC- 613… assume Sky-Dave and Elenkewich’s 88 points are not replaced (make up Michelson’s 22 in recruiting)

That would leave only 1,344.5 points between Olaf and UST…

STO- 665.5… assume they add 50 points in recruiting over losses.

UST- 679… No more points left. Don’t fully make up 90 points lost from Stark and Mullee.


The point here is that there are only so many points to go around. And if the playing field is flattened, the boner heat scorers will be that much more important.

As defending champ, UST still has the most top-end returning talent… Huls, Rauchwater, Hoelterhoff, and E. Nimens. But can those guys move up much more? If their recruits are primarily sprinters, they probably lose even more points in the distance and stroke events next year (even with Spratt coming back). UST had 5 swimmers on their roster last year score less than 10 points. Do those swimmers get replaced this year, or do they stay in the single digits (or not score at all based on other teams adding depth)?

Olaf is in a great position to win if their recruiting class is as good as advertised. They had a really bad 2010 season (losing swimmers/divers), they have the most room to improve.

GAC still has a shot if they can get that one top level guy, and a handful of boner heaters.

[Nashland]

If the recruiting classes are as deep as advertised for teams like SJU and Carleton

Hasn't Benito Ramirez been the only Carleton recruit mentioned on here?

[swim4more]

UST
Max Hubbard

[Nashland]

You could probably put Bateman in the 400 med as well... either his 57 breast (which Kubat might beat), or he could probably bust off a 51 back... then again, he has the worst back stroke start I have ever seen.

What they will probably have to do in the 4 Med is have Bateman do the breast and Kubat do the free (47.0). Unless Olaf has 1 or 2 fast sprinters (none have been mentioned yet) there is no one to anchor (because I think Biesecker will be on the 2 med and the free relays and Murrell will be doing backstroke on the meds) which leads me to my next point...

Olaf is the clear favorite

Wrong. Again, unless they brought in some top end 50/100 freestylers they will be hurting. One guy (Murrell) isn't enough to stop Huls, Rauchwarter, Hubbard, Henrickson, Hoelterhoff, Whalen. Not only are those guys all capable of making the top 8 , but UST has so many options for relays and will be able to move guys around and will again be the favs in the 2 and 4 free relay. I understand Chapel's point about them not gaining points by adding sprinters because they are already strong there but they are getting 200 pts between the 50,100,200.

Yes Olaf is strong elsewhere but they are going to be duking it out with GAC, CAR, and SJU in those events. UST has to duke it out with themselves in the 50 and the 100. To say Olaf is the clear favorite is dumb. UST and STO will be the two frontrunners and GAC will not be far behind at all. If SJU did get that flyer from the Bahamas they would be right there too but without him it could be a repeat of 2010.

[Schiller]

What they will probably have to do in the 4 Med is have Bateman do the breast and Kubat do the free (47.0). Unless Olaf has 1 or 2 fast sprinters (none have been mentioned yet) there is no one to anchor (because I think Biesecker will be on the 2 med and the free relays and Murrell will be doing backstroke on the meds) which leads me to my next point...

I think they pull biesecker off the 400 Free. They need him if they want a shot at winning the medleys and the 800. They can't win the 200 and 400 free, so they should throw the relay that they have the least chance of getting bumped down in, the 400 free. If they pull Biesecker off this relay, they can replace him and Edwards with Kubat and Bateman (who drops of a medley replaced by Kubat) and hold onto second (of course if Carleton replaces Cormier with their fast freshman, they could get close to Olaf's relay).