The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has released the cuts for the 2023 NAIA Swimming and Diving Championships, which will take place from March 1 – 4, 2023 at the Columbus Aquatics Center in Columbus, GA.
Looking at the 2023 standards, there is only one consideration time standard that got faster from 2022 to 2023: the men’s 200 backstroke. In 2022, the consideration time stood at 2:01.81, while this year swimmers will have to hit a 1:58.46 in the event. All of the other consideration time standards remained the same, while no record of last year’s automatic qualifying standards could be found.
2023 NAIA Championship Cuts
After facing backlash because the selection procedures for the 2022 Championships left swimmers ranking in the top 10 in the NAIA out of the competition, the NAIA altered its selection procedures for this year’s meet. According to the official document sent to coaches, the meet will once-again be capped at 300 swimmers (140 Men & 160 Women) and maximum of 16 Divers (8 Men & 8 Women).
For selection, all swimmers who have hit the automatic qualifying times will first be added to the meet. Those swimmers will be allowed to contest up to 2 additional events, provided they’ve hit the provisional time standard in them. Then, the next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries. This will be done until either the cap is hit or until there are not enough remaining spots across the events to fill another row of additions. In that case, the swimmers closest NAIA automatic cut will get added first in the final row until the spots are filled.
Here’s where the selection procedures differ greatly from last season. In 2022, relay swimmers for all qualified relays were added to the meet before any swimmers with the provisional cuts were accounted for, resulting in far fewer swimmers with provisional cuts being selected. This year, the meet will feature no relay only swimmers, and instead, any team with 4 swimmers already qualified individually for the meet can enter up to 5 relay events.
All teams will be capped at a total of 18 athletes per gender, including alternates, with divers counting as ½ an entry.
