Swimming

USC’s Minna Abraham Enters Only 2 Individual Events for NCAAs, Leaving Room for 5 Relays

March 5, 2024

2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 20-23, 2024
Gabrielsen Natatorium, Athens, Georgia
Short Course Yards (25 yards)
Pre-Scratch Psych Sheets

USC freshman Minna Abraham is only entered in two individual events at the 2024 NCAA Championships, implying that she will swim five relays for the Trojans.

The USC women are on an upswing and have their best national championship outlook in years thanks to the addition of Abraham to returning stars like Kaitlyn Dobler and Nike Agunbiade.

Abraham came in on fire in the fall, swimming a program record of 1:41.38 in the 200 free at the Texas Invite in November. That has made her a pivotal piece of the USC relays, where the Trojans arguably have the second-best back-half medleys in the country this season behind the defending champions Virginia.

At the NCAA Championships, athletes are allowed to swim up to three individual events and up to seven total events. This means that to swim five relays, an athlete can only swim two individual events.

While having top swimmers on five relays used to be more common, as the best teams have become and swimmers have become more versatile, the points usually push away from this strategy.

And in Abraham’s case, it’s not a clear-cut decision. At Pac-12s, she swam the 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 800 free relay, and anchored the 400 medley relay. While it makes sense, on paper, for her to swim on all of the team’s free relays, she is the team’s 5th-best 50 freestyler and 2nd-best 100 freestyler this season.

USC Rankings This Season, 50/100/200 Frees

	50 free	100 free	200 free
1st	Vasilissa Buinaia – 21.95	Vasilissa Buinaia – 47.40	Minna Abraham – 1:41.38
2nd	Anicka Delgado – 22.05	Minna Abraham – 47.90	Vasilissa Buinaia – 1:44.18
3rd	Caroline Famous – 22.16	Anicka Delgado – 48.44	Claire Tuggle – 1:44.54
4th	Kaitlyn Dobler – 22.29	Hannah Kuechler – 48.78	Macky Hodges – 1:45.06
5th	Minna Abraham – 22.44	Claire Tuggle – 48.94	Hannah Kuechler – 1:45.13

While her splits at Pac-12s were much better than her flat-start bests (46.82 in the 100 free, 21.50 in the 50 free), Buinaia’s 200 medley relay anchor of 21.93 at Pac-12s probably made this decision work. But Caroline Famous also split 21.52 on the 200 free relay at Pac-12s.

Individually, Abraham is the 2nd seed in the 200 free and 14th seed in the 100 free, and would have been a relatively-low seed in the 50 free – though her relay split indicates she had a chance at scoring a couple of points at NCAAs.

Ultimately, this is a gamble for USC head coach Lea Maurer (if Abraham does, in fact, swim all five relays – which is not a given). The downside is pretty small (maybe a couple of individual points), but if the expectation is that Abraham’s best is yet to come, the upside is maybe a dozen-or-so relay points.

Abraham, a native of Hungary, joked mid-season that in yards “there’s literally no swimming in this, it’s literally walls walls,” so it will be interesting to see if those walls will translate into a good tertiary event for her next season for USC.

SwimSwam: USC’s Minna Abraham Enters Only 2 Individual Events for NCAAs, Leaving Room for 5 Relays