By the Numbers: Cal, Georgia Best-Represented NCAA Schools on 2014-2015 US National Team

Headlined by California Berkeley and the University of Georgia, twenty different NCAA teams will be have at least one representative that will compete on their squad for the upcoming college season on the 2014-2015 U.S. National Team.  The Bears (10 swimmers) and the Bulldogs (8) each have at least double the number of swimmers of every other team on the list.

Looking deeper at the list:

  • Overall, there are 43 athletes competing in the 2014-2015 NCAA season who made the team (19 men, 24 women)
  • Cal (6 men), Georgia (4) and Texas (3) are the only three teams with more than one male athlete
  • Cal (4 women) and Georgia (4), are the only two teams with more than two female athletes
  • The four “power conferences” in swimming (Big Ten, Pac 12, ACC, and SEC) all have at least three teams represented
  • Interestingly, the #3 (Florida), #4 (Michigan), and #6 (Auburn) teams from men’s NCAA’s a year ago don’t have a representative
  • Cal leads the way in total individual events qualified, with 18 different individual swims
  • The SEC, Pac 12, and Big Ten lead the way with five teams represented from each conference

To again clarify the National Team selection process: the top 6 athletes are selected in all Olympic events from the 2014 U.S. National Championships and 2014 Pan Pac Championships results combined.  Times from prelims and finals (A, B, or C) were all considered, but relay lead-offs, time trials, and swim-offs were not.

Full U.S. National Team roster here.

Men From NCAA Teams

Swimmer Event(s) College Team
Kevin Cordes 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke Arizona
Connor Green 200 backstroke Cal
Jacob Pebley 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke Cal
Janardan Burns 1500 freestyle Cal
Josh Prenot 200 breaststroke, 200 IM, 400 IM Cal
Ryan Murphy 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke Cal
Seth Stubblefield 50 freestyle Cal
Chase Kalisz 200 butterfly, 200 IM, 400 IM Georgia
Gunnar Bentz 400 IM Georgia
Jay Litherland 400 IM Georgia
Nic Fink 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke Georgia
Ben Colley 200 butterfly North Carolina
Jordan Wilimovsky 1500 freestyle, Open Water 10k Northwestern
DJ Macdonald 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke Ohio State
David Heron Open Water 10k Tennessee
Clay Youngquist 200 freestyle Texas
Jonathan Roberts 200 backstroke Texas
Matt Ellis 100 butterfly Texas
Reed Malone 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle USC

 Women From NCAA Teams

Swimmer Event(s) College Team
Kaylin Burchell 200 breaststroke Alabama
Cierra Runge 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle Cal
Elizabeth Pelton 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke Cal
Missy Franklin 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke Cal
Rachel Bootsma 100 backstroke Cal
Courtney Weaver 200 butterfly Georgia
Hali Flickinger 200 butterfly, 400 IM Georgia
Maddie Locus 50 freestyle Georgia
Olivia Smoliga 100 backstroke Georgia
Gia Dalesandro 100 butterfly Indiana
Tina Bechtel 100 butterfly, 200 butterfly Kentucky
Clara Smiddy 100 backstroke Michigan
Emma Reaney 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke Notre Dame
Lia Neal 100 freestyle Stanford
Simone Manuel 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle Stanford
Molly Hannis 200 breaststroke Tennessee
Lisa Bratton 200 backstroke Texas A&M
Katy Campbell 800 freestyle UCLA
Chelsea Chenault 200 freestyle USC
Kendyl Stewart 100 butterfly USC
Courtney Bartholomew 200 backstroke Virginia
Leah Smith 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle Virginia
Ivy Martin 50 freestyle Wisconsin
Eva Fabian Open Water 10k Yale

Breakdown By Team

Count
Team Men’s Women’s Total
Cal 6 4 10
Georgia 4 4 8
Texas 3 0 3
USC 1 2 3
Tennessee 1 1 2
Stanford 0 2 2
Virginia 0 2 2
Northwestern 1 0 1
Ohio State 1 0 1
North Carolina 1 0 1
Arizona 1 0 1
Wisconsin 0 1 1
UCLA 0 1 1
Michigan 0 1 1
Texas A&M 0 1 1
Notre Dame 0 1 1
Alabama 0 1 1
Indiana 0 1 1
Kentucky 0 1 1
Yale 0 1 1
Total 19 24 43

 

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coach
9 years ago

Braden, don’t slam club coaches for trying to protect their clubs. While there are some whose egos need their names on the list, there are others who are battling parent boards trying to justify money spent on cross country travel for college kids to go to Grand Prix meets and Nationals in the summer. Having those college kids home makes a huge impact on the age group swimmers, and for some colleges, it creates a powerful pipeline (i.e. NBAC and St Pete Aquatics with Georgia). And for some college programs, the kids come back in better shape for the NCAA season than they would had they stayed with their college team during the summer (not a slam against college coaches,… Read more »

Danjohnrob
9 years ago

I understand that the purpose of this list is just to inform your readers about what college athletes have also qualified for the US National Team; but, it is not a list of athletes that these universities helped to get ON the US National Team, because you’ve uncluded freshmen who owe their success to club teams, but not first year grads. As a result, it doesn’t really show the success of the various colleges in furthering the careers of their swimmers. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

Do these athletes get any financial support from USS, or just swag and the privilege of representing their country?

weirdo
Reply to  Danjohnrob
9 years ago

I agree with DanJohnRob. Too much attention to the college program coach. One should not be listed under a University that they haven’t even trained with yet.

Admin
Reply to  weirdo
9 years ago

weirdo & DanJohnRob – you’re looking at this as a matter of “giving credit,” which is not our mission here at SwimSwam. Lots of coaches are very concerned about “which coach gets credit” and “which coach gets love”. The average sports fan doesn’t really care. Coaches patting themselves on the back doesn’t help the sport grow. The average swim fan would rather know where to look this coming season for the U.S. National Team swimmers than know what college or club team that they swam for in the past. If that’s all anybody focuses on, you’ll wind up with a bunch of fans who only care when their coach is getting that back patting, and won’t be paying attention to… Read more »

weirdo
Reply to  Braden Keith
9 years ago

I agree with you in part but the coach they list isn’t really necessarily their coach at all…I know that for a fact!

Admin
Reply to  weirdo
9 years ago

weirdo – that’s absolutely correct, and is one of my biggest concerns about the administrative side of swimming. Swimmers should be forced to represent the team and the coaches that they train with. Then we don’t have to deal with these sorts of confusions. It’s one of the major road blocks to the growth of professional swimming.

Danjohnrob
Reply to  Braden Keith
9 years ago

Braden, I did understand the purpose of the list, and stated that in my comment. My point in commenting was simply to clarify that the list doesn’t necessarily represent how well/poorly these colleges train their athletes. Michigan, Florida, etc DID get swimmers/more swimmers on the Nat Team, but they may have been graduating seniors. And I REPEAT, I was NOT criticizing your work; I am extremely grateful for it! I just like to try to contribute with my comments.

Admin
Reply to  Danjohnrob
9 years ago

Danjohnrob – no worries. Just wanted to interject our thought processes into the discussion, especially for those who read the site but don’t comment as frequently or thoughtfully to the comments as you do and who might not have a full grasp of what we were trying to accomplish with this list.

weirdo
9 years ago

The Dawgs did pretty well without Coach Bauerle on deck…..present swimmers and post grads. They were definitely hot this summer….way to keep it going.

Jersey fan
9 years ago

What about jaeger?

Admin
Reply to  Jersey fan
9 years ago

Jersey fan – Jaeger is graduated.

Reply to  Jersey fan
9 years ago

So is Emma Reany, no?

Admin
Reply to  Hulk Swim
9 years ago

Emma Reaney still has one year of eligibility remaining. Her trip to SwimMAC was for the summer, and she’s still listed on Notre Dame’s roster for 2014-2015.

Needlenards
9 years ago

Janardan Burns from Cal also made the national team, placing 6th in the 1500m free. That gives Cal 6 undergrads

About Morgan Priestley

Morgan Priestley

A Stanford University and Birmingham, Michigan native, Morgan Priestley started writing for SwimSwam in February 2013 on a whim, and is loving that his tendency to follow and over-analyze swim results can finally be put to good use. Morgan swam competitively for 15+ years, primarily excelling in the mid-distance freestyles. While …

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