WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Printable Version

WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Printable Version

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WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - fullmetal - 02-14-2025

Interesting approach to team goals: pull the NCAA-qualified swimmers early from the ACC champs and send them home to rest up and train. The travel burden is rough: 10 hrs each way, and the focus is on NCAAs...so Coach Meehan is going to do what he thinks will maximize the time that his top swimmers have between ACCs and NCAAs. As a result, Stanford won't contend for the ACC champs, where they were expected to finish second behind UVA.

https://swimswam.com/stanford-women-to-send-ncaa-qualifiers-home-midway-through-acc-championships/

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - M T - 02-14-2025

Interesting in so many ways!

Perhaps a passive-aggressive comment on Stanford’s choice to go to the ACC? Will he opt-out of cross-country dual meets?

Quote:“At Stanford, It’s always about the Director’s Cup and trying to score as many points for Stanford as we can in the Directors Cup, and that’s based on NCAA performance.”

So for the top swimmers, prelims become unshaved time trials, and targets for those that participate in the finals.

Ouch, 10 hours each way, Stanford to Greensboro. I wish he’d have pointed out the impact on academics of the travel as well as the 4-day meet.

Interesting move. I wonder how it will sit with the A.D.?

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Hulk01 - 02-14-2025

(02-14-2025, 11:15 AM)M T Wrote: Interesting in so many ways!

Perhaps a passive-aggressive comment on Stanford’s choice to go to the ACC? Will he opt-out of cross-country dual meets?

Quote:“At Stanford, It’s always about the Director’s Cup and trying to score as many points for Stanford as we can in the Directors Cup, and that’s based on NCAA performance.”

So for the top swimmers, prelims become unshaved time trials, and targets for those that participate in the finals.

Ouch, 10 hours each way, Stanford to Greensboro. I wish he’d have pointed out the impact on academics of the travel as well as the 4-day meet.

Interesting move. I wonder how it will sit with the A.D.?

Returned recently from this trip, West Coast to Greensboro. No direct flights.

I was jet lagged for days, on both ends.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - fullmetal - 02-15-2025

I'm really starting to understand the up and down performance of the football and women's volleyball teams last fall :(

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Jamesy - 02-15-2025

I don't think it makes sense from a jet lag standpoint. There are four weeks between conference and ncaa championships. Leaving acc two days earlier isn't going to make a big difference. More justifiable to have those already qualified to skip it entirely.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Canalejas - 02-15-2025

(02-14-2025, 11:15 AM)M T Wrote: Perhaps a passive-aggressive comment on Stanford’s choice to go to the ACC?

I never really understand this line of thinking, given the alternatives. Did anyone really want to join the MWC that badly?

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - fullmetal - 02-15-2025

Because the ACC sponsors women's swimming, Stanford women's swimming/diving was contractually obliged to affiliate with the ACC. No chance of MWC.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - M T - 02-15-2025

(02-15-2025, 03:47 PM)Canalejas Wrote:
(02-14-2025, 11:15 AM)M T Wrote: Perhaps a passive-aggressive comment on Stanford’s choice to go to the ACC?

I never really understand this line of thinking, given the alternatives. Did anyone really want to join the MWC that badly?

If I'd had my druthers, being independent would be far preferable to taking 8 or 10 days out of the training season to sit on a plane with essentially no chance to train and little chance to even loosen up. I don't know about others, but I find it hard to do mental work (ie, for a student, homework) on a plane (and certainly not during transport to the airport, waiting in a terminal, etc). There is very little difference, IMO, for evaluating mid-season progress between time trials among a single good team versus a dual meet. Not to mention the increased chance of being exposed to some illness that seriously impacts your training. Then there's the financial cost to the program, and disruption to studies and social life to the athletes and the coaches.

For most team sports, the whole season is defined by league play. But for swimming, the goal is totally different. Even the conference championships are basically time trails. Winning dual meets means zero for your final goal; winning a conference championship or not doesn't affect your ability to win the national championship. And, in my opinion, almost each individual is optimizing for their own highest finishes (there are team factors that do influence this, such as limits on how many a team can send to NCAAs,, etc.).

And, it takes a different mix of swimmers to win the conference championships (with a number of good swimmers) than the NCAA championships (with a handful of elite swimmers). (This will probably be a big factor in how pay-to-play money is allocated within the swim team's official and unofficial budgets.)

I just ran across an interesting set of articles at Swim-Swam looking back at the PAC-12.
Stanford WSwim's average place at the PAC-12 championships: 1.51 (Cal 3.05).
Stanford WSwim's average place at the NCAA championships 1983-2024: 2.85

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - TonyLima - 02-15-2025

(02-15-2025, 06:54 PM)M T Wrote:
(02-15-2025, 03:47 PM)Canalejas Wrote:
(02-14-2025, 11:15 AM)M T Wrote: Perhaps a passive-aggressive comment on Stanford’s choice to go to the ACC?

I never really understand this line of thinking, given the alternatives. Did anyone really want to join the MWC that badly?

If I'd had my druthers, being independent would be far preferable to taking 8 or 10 days out of the training season to sit on a plane with essentially no chance to train and little chance to even loosen up. I don't know about others, but I find it hard to do mental work (ie, for a student, homework) on a plane (and certainly not during transport to the airport, waiting in a terminal, etc). There is very little difference, IMO, for evaluating mid-season progress between time trials among a single good team versus a dual meet. Not to mention the increased chance of being exposed to some illness that seriously impacts your training. Then there's the financial cost to the program, and disruption to studies and social life to the athletes and the coaches.

For most team sports, the whole season is defined by league play. But for swimming, the goal is totally different. Even the conference championships are basically time trails. Winning dual meets means zero for your final goal; winning a conference championship or not doesn't affect your ability to win the national championship. And, in my opinion, almost each individual is optimizing for their own highest finishes (there are team factors that do influence this, such as limits on how many a team can send to NCAAs,, etc.).

And, it takes a different mix of swimmers to win the conference championships (with a number of good swimmers) than the NCAA championships (with a handful of elite swimmers). (This will probably be a big factor in how pay-to-play money is allocated within the swim team's official and unofficial budgets.)

I just ran across an interesting set of articles at Swim-Swam looking back at the PAC-12.
Stanford WSwim's average place at the PAC-12 championships: 1.51 (Cal 3.05).
Stanford WSwim's average place at the NCAA championships 1983-2024: 2.85

Some of us — who have a lot of experience with jetlag — predicted this. But Stanford insisted on joining the ACC.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - martyup - 02-16-2025

(02-15-2025, 11:08 PM)TonyLima Wrote: Some of us — who have a lot of experience with jetlag — predicted this. But Stanford insisted on joining the ACC.

We got the East Coast without the bias.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - BostonCard - 02-16-2025

I don’t even understand why some sports (eg track & field, cross country, swimming & diving, golf) even need conferences. If the sport is structured such that there is a large field and the team results are based on how the individuals score, wouldn’t it be better to set up with a regional tournament that is independent of the conference (golf kind of is), and then to the extent you have dual meets or small tournaments, make it so that they are regional in nature.

I get the importance of conference in team sports where you are playing other teams in your conference (football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and even tennis) but making swimming based on a conference structure is trying to put in a square peg into a round hole. Just use the structure that makes the most sense for the sport.

BC

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - CompSci87 - 02-16-2025

Or we could have conferences that are regional...

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - fullmetal - 02-16-2025

(02-16-2025, 12:16 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I don’t even understand why some sports (eg track & field, cross country, swimming & diving, golf) even need conferences. If the sport is structured such that there is a large field and the team results are based on how the individuals score, wouldn’t it be better to set up with a regional tournament that is independent of the conference (golf kind of is), and then to the extent you have dual meets or small tournaments, make it so that they are regional in nature.

I get the importance of conference in team sports where you are playing other teams in your conference (football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and even tennis) but making swimming based on a conference structure is trying to put in a square peg into a round hole. Just use the structure that makes the most sense for the sport.

Sure does simplify tv broadcast rights negotiations though /s

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Sakibomb25 - 02-18-2025

(02-15-2025, 02:13 PM)Jamesy Wrote: I don't think it makes sense from a jet lag standpoint. There are four weeks between conference and ncaa championships. Leaving acc two days earlier isn't going to make a big difference. More justifiable to have those already qualified to skip it entirely.

It actually does make sense. Let's say you are jetlagged and it lasts a few days to a week. That means you aren't training at your optimal best and you are behind on where your training needs to be as you head into NCAAs. It means trying to hit your taper at NCAAs that much more difficult because you don't know how your body is going to react and when it will return to normal, therefore making it harder to predict.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - fullmetal - 02-18-2025

Yeah, when it comes to races being won or lost by hundredths of a second, why wouldn't you optimize your peak/taper training plan by two days? Also, the ACC championships travel gives people a chance to update their assumptions about how their bodies react to jetlag/travel and how their compensatory treatments are working.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - Jamesy - 02-19-2025

If you're that worried about two days out of four weeks, why go at all? The athletes already qualified for ncaas. They aren't tapering for conference championships. The races themselves don't seem that important since they are skipping the finals. Ncaas are happening in pacific time zone so don't need to see the effect on jet lag.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - M T - 02-19-2025

(02-19-2025, 12:52 AM)Jamesy Wrote: If you're that worried about two days out of four weeks, why go at all? The athletes already qualified for ncaas. They aren't tapering for conference championships. The races themselves don't seem that important since they are skipping the finals. Ncaas are happening in pacific time zone so don't need to see the effect on jet lag.

It seems a fair question. In swimming, there are plenty of precedents for bypassing on some finals, virtually always because there is another final event that would be impacted. Maybe having the top swimmers skipping the meet entirely was not allowed by the Stanford A.D. who made the commitment to join the ACC.

It makes one think about how the East Coast teams would feel about a conference tournament for swimming or basketball, etc, on the West Coast. Or are Stanford & Cal expected to suffer the consequences of the travel forever?

(Oh, by the way, the Stanford Artistic Swimming team just won their Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation conference tournament ...

in Massachusetts!)

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - GK3 - 02-19-2025

(02-19-2025, 01:58 AM)M T Wrote:
(02-19-2025, 12:52 AM)Jamesy Wrote: If you're that worried about two days out of four weeks, why go at all? The athletes already qualified for ncaas. They aren't tapering for conference championships. The races themselves don't seem that important since they are skipping the finals. Ncaas are happening in pacific time zone so don't need to see the effect on jet lag.

It seems a fair question. In swimming, there are plenty of precedents for bypassing on some finals, virtually always because there is another final event that would be impacted. Maybe having the top swimmers skipping the meet entirely was not allowed by the Stanford A.D. who made the commitment to join the ACC.

It makes one think about how the East Coast teams would feel about a conference tournament for swimming or basketball, etc, on the West Coast. Or are Stanford & Cal expected to suffer the consequences of the travel forever?

(Oh, by the way, the Stanford Artistic Swimming team just won their Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation conference tournament ...

in Massachusetts!)

That is sort of a fitting end to all this!

From my perspective, long flights are a young persons game, particularly if you have to do something fairly significant within a day or two of departing. Three hours time difference isn't that bad, what is bad is being stuffed into a very uncomfortable seat and no opportunities to stretch and stay active. For me real jet lag was making East Coast to SE Asia flights, or to Japan, Australia or Singapore. If the flight was on a military aircraft it was generally even worse, best described by the title of Bernard Fall's book on the battle of Dien Bien Phu, "Hell in a Very Small Place"'.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - martyup - 02-19-2025

I once flew on a horse transporting flight from LAX to Lexington KY when I was 10 years old. I slept on a bale of alfalfa hay. There were no seatbelts. I was asleep on the descent and burst an eardrum from the change in cabin pressure.

RE: WSWIM: Sandbag the ACC champs - BobK - 02-22-2025

Stanford finished 2nd to Virginia in the ACC championship. Was that swim swam story fake news?