Cal places 4th to open 2017 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving

Golden Bears will have to settle for a 4th place to open the 2017 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships. More importantly, the Bears finished two spots behind Texas (but just a 4 point deficit since they didn’t get the win bonus) at the end of day 1. Three more days and 20 more events to go in this one.

Golden Bears used a lineup of Long Gutierrez, Andrew Seliskar, Michael Jensen, and Ryan Murphy in this race. Seliskar almost caught up to leader NC State but that was as close as the Bears got. Here is the Cal split:

1) Gutierrez, Long SR

2) r:0.32 Seliskar, Andrew SO

3) r:0.27 Jensen, Michael FR

4) r:0.21 Murphy, Ryan SR

r:+0.64 21.23 44.12 (44.12) 1:08.27 (1:08.27) 1:33.31 (1:33.31)

1:53.68 (20.37) 2:16.78 (43.47) 2:40.33 (1:07.02) 3:04.89 (1:31.58)

3:25.72 (20.83) 3:49.16 (44.27) 4:12.92 (1:08.03) 4:37.48 (1:32.59)

4:58.16 (20.68) 5:21.23 (43.75) 5:44.76 (1:07.28) 6:09.56 (1:32.08)

NC State Wolfpacks won this event with a brand new NCAA record. Texas took 2nd (and an American record) and Florida took 3rd just ahead of the Golden Bears.

The real work toward a 6th NCAA team championship starts tomorrow morning at 7 AM PT with the prelim.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

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INDIANAPOLIS — The path to the 2017 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving team championship begins tonight with the 800 Free relay (at 3 PM PT, see link below).

Golden Bears set a new Pac-12 championships record when they won the 800 Free relay three weeks ago. That Golden Bears relay win was swam by Ryan Murphy, Long Gutierrez, Andrew Seliskar, and Michael Jensen.

This NCAA championships mark the end of the splendid collegiate career of Ryan Murphy - who will be going for a 4th double in winning the NCAA championships in both the 100 Back and 200 Back. Understandably, Murphy is highlighted in a couple of Cal Bears videos.

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Here are your links to view this meet online:

Since I am at the meet this year, I am not sure if the links are correct. Please let me know if they are not working and I will attempt to fix them.

My preview of the entire meet: CGB

Prelims starts at 7 AM PT, Finals starts at 3 PM PT

Wednesday Finals: IUPUI

Thursday Prelims/Finals: IUPUI

Friday Prelims: IUPUI

Friday Finals: ESPN3

Saturday Prelims: IUPUI

Saturday Finals: ESPN3

Live swimming results: Swimming Results

Live diving results: Diving Results

Schedule: Indiana Sports Corp

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Continuing my breakdown of Cal vs. Texas, here are the look at the last few events.

1650 Free: Texas’ Clark Smith is one of the favorite for this event while the Golden Bears are in position to get a huge lift from Nick Norman if he can outperform expectation on Saturday afternoon in one of 1650 free earlier heat.

Cal - Nick Norman (20th), Ryan Kao (37th)

Texas - Clark Smith (2nd)

+15 to Texas (even in the case of Norman scoring some points)

200 Back: Ryan Murphy will defend his title in this event, you can pencil in a 20 points for him here. Unfortunately, without Jacob Pebley, the Bears have no other backstroker in this event.

Cal - Ryan Murphy (1st)

Texas - John Shebat (7th), Jonathan Roberts (8th)

Even (assuming only one of the Longhorn makes the A-Final, and the other to B, they can earn enough points to cancel out Murphy’s 20 points)

100 Free: Expect quite a few of these guys to outperform their seed times.

Cal - Justin Lynch (15th), Michael Jensen (24th), Pawel Sendyk (39th), Long Gutierrez (45th)

Texas - Brett Ringgold (16th), Tate Jackson (17th), Francis Haas (23rd), Jeremy Nichols (25th), Patrick Dunne (58th), Jeffrey Newkirk (59th)

???? (one of the bigger unknown going into the race, the number of scorers here may determine this meet)

200 Breast: Reverse of the 200 Back? Licon is the favorite to win, but the Bears have enough depth to compensate for those 20 points.

Cal - Hunter Cobleigh (13th), Matthew Whittle (18th), Carson Sand (33rd), Connor Hoppe (37th)

Texas - Will Licon (1st), Samuel Stewart (43rd)

Even (if the Bears can outperform the seed time)

200 Fly: Huge event for the Golden Bears. Qualifying a bunch of guys for this event in the morning will put a lot of pressure on Texas.

Cal - Zheng Quah (2nd), Andrew Seliskar (4th), Michael Thomas (12th), Matthew Josa (17th), Jack Xie (25th)

Texas - Jack Conger (1st), Joseph Schooling (11th), Maxwell Holter (19th), William Glass (31st)

++++ for Cal (How big time of swimmers are Andrew Seliskar, Zheng Quah, etc.? Bears have enough guys here to really pull themselves ahead of the Longhorns in the next to last event.)

It should be a fun week of racing!

GO BEARS!