2018 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 21 – Saturday, March 24
- Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center – Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (Central Time)
- Defending champion: Texas (3x) (results)
- Psych Sheet
- Championship Central
- Event-by-Event Previews
- Team Power Rankings: Final Edition
- Live Stream
- Live Results
We’ve taken a pretty deep dive back into years-old recruiting ranks over the past two days, and we have one more piece of that puzzle to reanalyze. Luckily, the ranking we’ll revisit today is much more recent: how did our top 20 recruits in the class of 2017 perform as freshmen?
Further reading:
- Men’s Top 20 recruits from 2014 after four NCAA seasons
- Men’s Top 12 recruiting classes from 2014 after four NCAA seasons
- Women’s Top 20 recruits from 2014 after four NCAA seasons
- Women’s Top 12 recruiting classes from 2014 after four NCAA seasons
- Women’s Top 20 Recruits from class of 2017 as freshmen
Naturally, this analysis has a far smaller sample size than our reports from the past two days, so it’s much more difficult to read too much into these numbers. Still, it’s useful to look at which first-year NCAA swimmers had the best performances relative to their recruiting ranks.
The ranks are from our top 20 story from July of 2016. Bear that in mind – a lot of these ranks would have changed if we had ranked them in July of 2017, after their senior years. Our recruiting ranks also only include domestic athletes, as international students are often hard to group into a specific recruiting class, and are generally shrouded in mystery as to when they’ll join an NCAA team, if they do at all.
| Rank | Name | College Team | 2018 NCAA Points |
| 1 | Ryan Hoffer | Cal | 26.5 |
| 2 | Sean Grieshop | Cal | 10 |
| 3 | Matthew Hirschberger | Stanford | no invite |
| 4 | Camden Murphy | Georgia | 0 |
| 5 | Michael Taylor | Florida | 0 |
| 6 | Austin Katz | Texas | 35 |
| 7 | Grant House | Arizona State | 3 |
| 8 | Jake Sannem | USC | no invite |
| 9 | Paul DeLakis | Ohio State | 6 |
| 10 | Christopher Yeager | Texas | 0 |
| 11 | Bryce Mefford | Cal | 26 |
| 12 | Sam Pomajevich | Texas | 24 |
| 13 | Brennan Pastorek | Stanford | 4 |
| 14 | Alex Liang | Stanford | 0 |
| 15 | Trenton Julian | Cal | 12 |
| 16 | Daniel Carr | Cal | 13 |
| 17 | Michael Zarian | Harvard | no invite |
| 18 | Nicolas Albiero | Louisville | 22 |
| 19 | Spencer Rowe | Auburn | no invite |
| 20 | Corban Rawls | Harvard | no invite |
- Austin Katz was the first of this group to win a national title (though two internationals did as relay members), taking advantage of a wide-open 200 back field. Those 20 points surge him to the top of the list for early scoring returns. This class made a tough choice between Katz and Michael Taylor who came into recruiting season with almost identical backstroke times. Taylor had a better senior year of high school (dropping from 47.1 to 45.5 in the 100), but Katz clearly had the better freshman year in the NCAA. That’s somewhat to be expected, given freshman seem to be more plug-and-play in Texas’s system, while Florida’s program usually has a pretty steep adjustment period.
- Louisville’s Nicolas Albiero is proving to be a great value, scoring among the best in the class from the 18th rank. Behind Katz was a logjam of 20-point scorers, including Ryan Hoffer, Bryce Mefford, Sam Pomajevich and Albiero, along with unranked Zach Yeadon of Notre Dame.
- Ryan Hoffer wasn’t going to win any NCAA titles swimming in Caeleb Dressel‘s event, but he quietly had a very solid meet, even if he didn’t improve his sprint free times.
- While Cal took one on the chin in our look at Class of 2014 recruits earlier this week, their class of 2017 freshmen were outstanding. All 5 of their ranked recruits not only made NCAAs but scored in double digits. That includes Hoffer (26.5), Sean Grieshop (10), Bryce Mefford (26), Trenton Julian (12) and Daniel Carr (13).
- Only five of these guys missed NCAA invites individually. Stanford’s Matthew Hirschberger was the big one, not dropping from the times that got him a #3 rank – but that was just following the trend of his senior year, where he also failed to drop time. And he improved from 2017 to 2018 and was within a second of an NCAA invite in the 500.
- USC’s Jake Sannem went to NCAAs as a relay-only swimmer and scored points on the 800 free relay for the Trojans. He had moderate drops in his 100 and 200 frees as a freshman and ultimately split 1:34.6 at NCAAs.
- Neither Harvard recruit got an individual invite – Corban Rawls or Michael Zarian. Rawls had a bad senior year, but went lifetime-bests in the 50 and 200 free as a freshman. Zarian dropped time in his 400 IM, but making NCAAs in those events is pretty brutal.
- Spencer Rowe had two good drops in his breaststrokes for Auburn at SECs, and was brought to NCAAs as a relay-only swimmer, though he didn’t compete.
And of course, we’ll include everyone’s favorite part: which unranked recruits scored NCAA points as freshmen.
Domestic:
| Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points |
| Zach Yeadon | Notre Dame | 27 |
| Robby Giller | Virginia | 2 |
- Check out the time progression on Yeadon, who scored more NCAA points than all but one ranked recruit:
- July 2016 (when we ranked recruits): 15:09/4:23/1:40
- July 2017 (end of his senior year): 14:49/4:19/1:37
- Current (after freshman season): 14:34/4:12/1:36
International:
| Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points |
| Ricardo Vargas | Michigan | 23 |
| Brandonn Almeida | South Carolina | 15 |
| Robert Glinta | USC | 14 |
| Evgenii Somov | Louisville | 12 |
| Hugo Gonzalez | Auburn | 7 |
| Bruno Blaskovic | Indiana | 1 |
Diving:
| Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points |
| Jordan Windle | Texas | 45 |
| Andrew Capobianco | Indiana | 33 |
| Zach Cooper | Miami (FL) | 12 |
| Gregory Duncan | UNC | 6 |
| Kurtis Matthews | Texas A&M | 5 |
These don’t include relay contributions.
wpDiscuz
Wow!
Incredible showing overall by freshman swimming and diving… bodes well for coming championships!!
Really? I kind of thought it was lackluster. There were definitely some bright spots, but overall I feel like this might have been down from years past. Maybe it is was better, but just lacked the big star power like it has in the past, or maybe that the star power from the upper class guys, Dressel, Finnerty, etc. just overshadowed the freshman.
I’ll chalk it up to upper class star power
I love this analysis
Clearly Cal has a recruiting problem, right?
Nah not recruiting problem, sometimes it faces some talent development issues
Agreed SwimFan. Let’s see how thing pan out over the next 3 years. I believe Hoffer swam slower than in HS right? Cal biggest issue isn’t attracting talent, they have great swimmers handed to them. They just struggle to turn the majority of them into key players.
This is being overblown. So they had a couple high level recruits who never panned out. So what? This class is already doing great. Bryce Mefford, Ryan Hoffer, Trenton Julian, Sean Grieshop, and Daniel Carr all had solid freshman seasons. This “cal can’t develop talent” narrative is a stupid post NCAAs knee-jerk.
I don’t think people are outright saying that but Texas is certainly better preparing their freshman than Cal is.
How so? Pretty sure the Cal freshman outscored every other freshman class.
When you have the 1, 2, 11, and 16th ranked recruits they should.
Nope. Three Texas freshmen outscored the entire
Cal group. Windle 45, Katz 35, and Pomajevich
24. 104 points total.
Worth noting that Windle is a diver, and Swim/Swam top 20 list did not include divers. Without diving, its about even.
And once again they gave one of their freshman scholarships to a diver because it is a swimming/diving competition. Smart and talented program!
Way to bring diving into comment section of an article only about swimming recruits. Must be a Texas fan
If it was only an article about swimming recruits, why does it list all the diving points by Freshman??
Yes, there was not ranking of divers, but that doesn’t make this a swimming ONLY article.
Only two of their freshman swimmers scored. Cal had 5 freshmen score but okay.
Not everyone wants to stick with it. That’s fair. But Look at Trenton Julian. 1:45 2fly out of high school and a finaled and dropped to 1:40 his first year. That is incredibly developed talent. I was surprised he signed with Cal rather than USC, where both his swim-famous parents went, but you can’t argue with that progress. Both Carr and Mefford improved – Mefford A finaling his 2Free – Carr leading off both medley relays. Sean had best times in events he had plateued in since high school. I’m not worried about Hoffer either. 18.2 as a frosh is a ‘problem” I think any college coach would gladly have. This class definitely shows that Cal can develop talent. ????
Speaking of sticking with it, if Gornay had swum to senior year that 8FR woulda been 3rd or 4th and he’d be a 30-40 point scorer at least. Was 1:34.9 at 16 before it was cool.
He was slower his freshman year before he left the team than he was in HS. No guarantee that 1:34 would have gotten better.
Now, if they had had Mefford in that relay instead of Jensen, that’s a different story…
Cal had 6 male olympians in 2016. They dont have development issues.
If 6 guys making it means they don’t have developmental issues do 6 guys not making it (never dropping time/ falling off the roster) mean they do? No one is blaming Durden or the program but maybe it’s hard to develop at Cal for a wealth of reasons?
not hard to develop at cal. Are we basing this off hoffer adding a tenth in the 50 and some guy named gornay?
Yeah, it seems like this whole “Cal can’t develop” is based on Hoffer’s freshman year and Gornay/Silverthorn. Overreaction seems to be a specialty of some SwimSwam commenters…
Name the 6. For this class 4 out of 5 dropped on everything, hoffer dropped in fly and relays swims. If you look at there whole roster you won’t find 6 that didn’t drop. Maybe 3. I count just as many on Texas. Maybe more.
They must have a major issue developing swimmers. They only beat Texas by 70 without diving. I say they fire the entire staff
A diving recruiting problem
Finally, a common sense answer
I’m curious, who would have been your new #1 had you ranked after their senior years? I have a hard time figuring who that would be – even considering someone like Michael Taylor’s drop to 45.5, Hoffer had already been a 45.5 100 back and that was probably his 4th best event.
That’s a good question. Hard for me to pick anyone but Hoffer, given how valuable an elite sprinter is in the NCAA format. (Look at how Caeleb Dressel consistently drug a small, thin team into the top 5). He was 18.7/41.2/1:35.2 and 45.5/45.4 Back/Fly out of high school, with lifetime-bests in the 50 and 200 coming in his senior year.
Grieshop, Hirschberger and Murphy all didn’t improve much over their senior years, so you might have seen Taylor and Katz rise a little in a re-rank.
That’s what I was thinking – there’d be quite a bit of shuffling 2-10, but impact sprinters are they key to NCAA champs runs and Hoffer was really the only one of those in the class.
Since you bring it up, we’re actually making tentative plans to re-rank this current year’s crop of seniors from our original ranks during their junior year. That’ll bring up some interesting philosophical issues – for example, how much we weigh personal-best times with whether a swimmer improved or not over their senior year. A good trajectory means a lot… but it’s hard to pass up NCAA scoring times, whether they’re a few years old or not! I think you’re right, though, that 2-10 would probably shuffle quite a bit, and we might see a lot of new names make their way into the 11-20 range… say someone like Zach Yeadon.
The other question is, how do you separate individual performance/potential from team? For most other teams somebody like Bryce Mefford swims a full slate of relays. Instead, because Cal was so deep, he didn’t even make the relay in the event he ended up being the second fastest on the team, and DFSd his 200 IM. On any other team you’d be looking back on this season with him as a top-4 freshman, behind only Hoffer and Albeiro and Katz. Maybe you still do look at him that way.
In terms of relay value, absolutely – that’s why we aren’t re-ranking this class, but rather just tracking their scoring output. If we re-rank a class, it’ll be the current high school seniors we first ranked during their junior seasons.
Ahhhh… I misread. This upcoming class is rather ridiculous. But I guess that’s getting to be the norm at this point.
I would consider coaching changes with this as well… like if there is a change from a traditional mid distance/distance coach or program to a sprint oriented one. I understand this would be hard since assistants usually have to deal with this and quantifying coaching changes or coming up with stats based on this is very difficult if not impossible. Just a thought though.
If it’s hard for you to pick anyone other than Hoffer then why have the line “there almost certainly would have been a different #1” regarding a ranking after their senior year?
Good catch – that line was a holdover from our corresponding women’s post, which had much of the same setup & disclaimer text. I updated to take it out of this version.
Heh, now my original question looks like a non sequitur 😛
Ryan Hoffer scored lots of points, and that is great, but sadly he didn’t improve as far as I know. I wonder if his age group coaches truncated his development by directing him towards shorter power/speed training at too young an age, thereby losing out on the neural adaptations of longer, slower swimming as well as aerobic development. Not sure but I hope he reaches his full potential, he is a gargantuan talent and the US needs him at the international level. He has time and hopefully his Cal coaches will rethink their approach.
Not sure how much long/aerobic training would have helped him – the kid takes 6-7 strokes a length for a 100 free, that’s less than 30 strokes total. At that point, you’re much, much better served trying to maximize the impulse of every stroke (plus the underwaters that drive his speed) than trying to improve a metabolic pathway he isn’t even going to use in his events.
Best time in fly
Yes I agree. As a club coach, I steer my swimmers away from being fast at a young age because it robs them of time drops that can make them solidly mediocre by the end of collage.
i don’t think a gifted athlete who waits until full adulthood to pursue maximum speed and power will be slower for it.
Caeleb Dressel was no where near a 41.2 in high school. Obviously he didn’t suffer a bit.
So you don’t think he was “pursuing maximum speed and power” in high school?
He was 18.9/42.8/1:34 with a 45.8 fly. Pretty sure he was pursuing “maximum speed and power.”
I don’t think you’re making your swimmers mediocre by taking one step at a time
And to be clear Ryan Hoffer is extraordinary, nothing about his swimming is mediocre. Hopefully the Cal staff can figure it out.
Besides the actual swimming. On top of water
Of course not! I put a lot of time and effort into making sure my swimmers are slower right now so they can be faster later. It’s led to great success stories like Tim Finnigin
When you already go 18.7 as a freshman there isn’t a whole lot of room to improve. He split 18.2 on their relay and even if he never went faster than that during his college career I think any school would be happy to have a lock down 18.2 split on their 200 free or 200 Medley relay
Also, he’s listed on Cal’s roster as 6’3″ 195#, which means that’s what in came in as as a freshman. There’s not a whole lot of college freshmen that come into the season already that grown-man-ish. Not much more muscle to put on that frame and maintain efficiency.
Worth pointing out, though, that nearly every male swimmer I’ve seen go on to swim in college has had about 2 inches added to their roster info, even if they didn’t grow. Had a kid go to school this past year at 5’9″ and they had him listed at 5’11″… Saw him this winter and spring and there was no growth spurt. The only exception I can think of is a kid who was already 6’5″… they only added one inch for him.
So I’ve never met Ryan Hoffer or seen him in person but by that formula my guess is he’s 6’1″ at best. If he really is 195, though, that’s decently beefy for a swimmer.
For comparison, what was Adrian? His freshman year and sr year and then now? Just curious. Same with Grevers. I think they are the 2 biggest bodies that have been on the national team the last few years correct?
Adrian’s freshman year roster lists him a 6’6″ 200. Senior year 225 (that’s after 5 years since he took an Olympic redshirt). I would guess he’s about the same weight now?
Northwestern’s roster doesn’t list weights for Grevers.
That’s why Dressel was so remarkable. He was REALLY fast in HS. And then . . . just kept getting faster.
What’s his full potential? And what would it have been if he did less power/speed training?
For that matter, what WAS his training in high school? Do you even know? Or are you just wildly speculating based on the fact that he was fast in the sprint events at a young age and the conventional knowledge (you know… from back in the day when 19.5/42.0/1:33 made you an absolute world beater) says you need to do lots of yardage?
Yes, MIKEH, Kevin and Bob totally screwed this kid over by giving him the opportunity to swim on what I am sure is a hefty scholarship at one of the best universities in the world. Shame on them. They should have done a better job and making him slow so he could go to a nice D2 school (no offense) and get better there instead of at Cal.
Under no circumstance was Ryan Hoffer going anywhere other than a high level D1 school. He is too talented to do otherwise. I am suggesting however that he could have got there, on full scholarship, without introducing the sort of speed/power training necessary to go that fast at 16, and that might have been better for his development.
I’m not saying it’s easy. There are certain circumstances when an age group coach needs to squeeze every last drop of speed from a young swimmer, just to get a subsidized education. But that is not always the right move and that’s why we have swim coaches.
The good news: Mr. Hoffer has all the time in the world, and superb… Read more »
Cal 5, Stanford 3, Texas 3. These three schools account for more than half the top 20 recruits. It’s no secret why theses schools are at the top of the rankings every year.
Good coaches good locations
Good swimmers make coaches look good. When swimmers do well it’s all because of the coach. When swimmers perform poorly it’s the swimmers fault ie Cal Texas.
Robby Giller’s time drops are insane. 3:50 to 3:41 in the 4IM. 4:23 to 4:15 in the 500. Never really did the 200 back in high school, but on paper a 1:57ish to 1:41. Insane. Go Robby!