Michigan rowing advances to National Semifinals
Or you could actually follow them yourself a bit more
There are 9 teams to advance all 3 of their boats to the A/B semifinals: Brown, California, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Princeton, Southern Cal, Stanford and Virginia.
Michigan's semifinal races are tomorrow morning at 9:00 am (I Eights), 9:40 am (II Eights) and 10:20 am (Fours).
Of those 9 teams with 3 boats in the A/B semis, the national rankings are #1 Ohio State, #2 Stanford, #3 Brown, #4 Virginia, #5 Princeton, #7 California, #8 Michigan, #10 Notre Dame and #11 USC.
#6 Washington and #9 UCLA were a little over-rated apparently. Not knowing a lot about how accurate these rankings are (but judging by the results of the first round, they are pretty good even if they do seem to have a western bias), I'm guessing that any top-5 finish for Michigan would be a very pleasant surprise.
I will take your word for it, but I would think that a team national championship would be pretty important as well.
Either way, though, the First Varsity 8 is 51% of your team score in the NCAA meet, so unless they really don't compete in the other 2 races, the team that wins the V8 likely wins the national championship.
How are we competing with Varsity teams without a varsity program? that's pretty impressive
They're ranked 8th right now so they likely won't win the title barring huge upsets.
womens is varsity which is what this is
Great to hear. Fun to see the less well-known sports getting some love.
Row Blue!!
Michigan advanced their #1 Varsity Eight boat to the "A" finals (1st-6th place), but had to settle for their #2 Varsity Eight and their Varsity Four boats in the "B" finals (7th-12th place). The final races will be Sunday morning. All 3 semifinal races were close calls, as Michigan finished third in their #1 Varsity Eight semifinal and fourth in their other two semifinals (the top 3 advance to the finals).
Brown, California and Stanford advanced all 3 of their boats to the "A" finals.
Unofficial standings through Saturday's semifinals, with minimum point totals:
1t. Brown-102
1t. California-102
1t. Stanford-102
4. Ohio State-96
5. Washington-88
6. Virginia-84
7. Michigan-82
8. Princeton-78
9. Southern Cal-70
10. Notre Dame-64
The top 7 teams still have a mathematical shot at the national championship, although a lot of very specific and unlikely things would have to happen for anybody outside of the top 4 to get it.
I was going to ask if this was a varsity sport or a club team.
They got a great draw in their semi final (Stanford, Brown, Princeton, Notre Dame and Harvard), which was an easier way to advance compared to the other semi: OSU, Cal, Washington, Virginia, USC and Indiana. OSU is #1, Cal and Washington are both fast (probably faster than UM), and Virginia and Michigan are very close, though UM won by about 1.5 seconds. To get into the A final, Michigan they had to beat three of the teams in their semi.
It was very close between the top four crews, and going into the last 500m, Michigan was in fourth but came from behind and took Princeton by about .2 of second, and barely half a second separated Stanford, Brown, Michigan and Princeton. So they'll be racing in the A final tomorrow.
Looking at the results for the two A/B semis (one two), Ohio State looks to have a clear edge since they were almost seven seconds up on the fourth place crew in their heat, meaning they likely shut it down. Cal led the first 1500m of the race, and Washington was also pretty far up on the field and their splits also seem to suggest shutting it down, so their times are likely not indicative of their full speed. In Michigan's semi, with all of the three crews being pushed to make the final the whole way down the course, no one shut it down, so these crews are close.
My guess is Cal and Ohio State will be slugging it out for gold and silver, but it will likely be a very good race for bronze, assuming all of the crews in the second semi can get back up after fighting such a hard race to get into the final. Just being in the Grand Final is a great accomplishment, though. Should be a fun race to watch tomorrow.
edit to add, here's the finish line from the semi...wow:
