2019 Men’s NCAA Championships: Top 10 Teams Point Changes

2019 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

  • Wednesday, March 27 – Saturday, March 30
  • Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, Austin, Texas
  • Live results

The story of this year’s NCAA championships was the performance of Cal’s sophomores. As a group they scored 178 points, more than double the already substantial 87.5 points they scored in 2018. That’s a pretty broad analysis, so let’s dive into the individual point change numbers a bit. The analysis below only considers swimmers that qualified for this year’s meet.

Cal had three swimmers who scored at least 20 points more than they did last year. The rest of the teams that finished in the top 10 combined had 4 swimmers who picked up at least 20 points. Sean Grieshop picked up 39 points (49 this year, 10 last year), Trenton Julian picked up 24 (36, 12), and Pavel Sendyk picked up 20 (35, 15).

The other swimmers who picked up at least that many on top 10 teams were Brendan Casey of Virginia who picked up 33 (33, 0), Dean Farris of Harvard who picked up 23 (53, 30), Paul DeLakis of Ohio State who picked up 21 (27, 6), and Ryan Harty of Texas who gained 21 (24, 3).

Cal only had two swimmers who dropped points this year (Bryce Mefford -10, and Carson Sand -6) compared to 9 who were better than last year.

By comparison, Texas had 4 swimmers drop points this year (Townley Haas -9, Austin Katz -18, Sam Pomajevich -24, and Jacob Cornish -4) compared to 5 swimmers that gained points.

In total Cal gained 140.5 individual points from returning swimmers while Texas had a net change of +4 individual points.

Indiana also had a bit of a rough go. They had a net change of -19 points. Their biggest gain came from Zach Apple who picked up 8.5 points, but their divers Andrew Capobianco and James Connor were a combined -28.

NC State were +10 over last year. Coleman Stewart led the way with +15 individual points. Andreas Vazaios had the biggest drop off with a -12.

Outside of Cal, the biggest points gains in the top 10 came from Ohio State who were +51 overall. They were led by DeLakis and junior Noah Lense who was +9. Next best were Virginia who were +43.

Point gains are not the be all, end all metric for team improvement. We also need to consider time change. I will be looking at that next week.

Team Net Changes

No Senior points are how many points that swimmer scored in a re scoring of last year’s national meet with the seniors removed.

Cal

Overall: +140.5

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Seliskar, Andrew SR 60 47 13 50
Grieshop, Sean SO 49 10 39 32
Hoffer, Ryan SO 45 26.5 18.5 39.5
Julian, Trenton SO 36 12 24 14
Sendyk, Pawel JR 35 15 20 20
Carr, Daniel SO 32 13 19 20
Thomas, Mike SR 32 27 5 42
Quah, Zheng JR 29 19 10 39
Whitley, Reece FR 29
Norman, Nick SR 16 16 0 18
Mefford, Bryce SO 16 26 -10 28
Jensen, Michael JR 8 0 8 11
Sand, Carson SR 1 7 -6 24
Robinson, Johnny SO 0 0 0 0
Arvidsson, Karl JR 0 0 0 0
Callahan, Connor JR 0 0 0 0

Texas

Overall: +4

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Shebat, John SR 51 34 17 34
Windle, Jordan SO 47 45 2 47
Haas, Townley SR 44 53 -9 56
Campbell, Grayson JR 28 23 5 25
Kibler, Drew FR 25
Harty, Ryan JR 24 3 21 13
Katz, Austin SO 17 35 -18 35
Newkirk, Jeff SR 16 9 7 16
Krueger, Daniel FR 15
Jackson, Tate SR 12 12 0 22
Cornish, Jacob JR 9 13 -4 18
Scheinfeld, Charlie FR 6
Sannem, Jake SO 5 0 5 0
Holter, Max SR 2 0 2 0
Yeager, Chris SO 0 0 0 0
Willenbring, Matthew FR 0
Vines, Braden FR 0
Pomajevich, Sam SO 0 24 -24 33
Zettle, Alex FR 0
Merritt, Reed JR 0 0 0 0

Indiana

Overall: -19

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Lanza, Vini SR 52 45 7 52
Finnerty, Ian SR 48 51 -3 54
Apple, Zach SR 47 38.5 8.5 46.5
Capobianco, Andrew SO 20 33 -13 35
Brinegar, Michael FR 17
Connor, James SR 14 29 -15 31
Backes, Zane FR 14
Samy, Mohamed JR 11.5 21 -9.5 27
Fantoni, Gabriel SO 7 0 7 2
Calvillo, Mikey FR 7
Blaskovic, Bruno SO 0 1 -1 11.5
Mathias, Van FR 0
Gould, Mory SO 0 0 0 0

NC State

Overall: +10

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Stewart, Coleman JR 49 34 15 43
Vazaios, Andreas SR 41 53 -12 56
Ress, Justin SR 25 23 2 33
Korstanje, Nyls FR 9
McIntyre, Jack JR 6 0 6 0
Knowles, Eric SO 6 0 6 0
Hensley, Noah SR 3 0 3 0
Molacek, Jacob SR 3 14 -11 26
Bretscher, James SR 1 0 1 0
Kiesler, Gil SO 0 0 0 0
Graber, Daniel SR 0 0 0 0

Louisville

Overall: +20.5

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Albiero, Nicolas SO 37 22 15 26
Somov, Evgenii SO 15 12 3 17.5
Harting, Zach SR 13 5.5 7.5 10.5
Acosta, Marcelo SR 13 23 -10 28
Whyte, Mitchell FR 6
Barna, Andrej JR 3 1 2 11
Sos, Daniel SO 3 0 3 6
Piszczorowicz, Bart FR 0
Sofianidis, Nikos SO 0 0 0 0

Florida

Overall: +23

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Smith, Kieran FR 25
Rooney, Maxime JR 15 0 15 0.5
Beach, Clark SO 13 0 13 1
Baqlah, Khader JR 10 16 -6 26
Stokowski, Kacper FR 9
Finke, Bobby FR 5
Freeman, Trey FR 2
Sanders, Grant JR 1 0 1 3
Lebed, Alex SR 0 0 0 0
Davis, Will FR 0
Guarente, Marco JR 0 0 0 0
Hillis, Dillon FR 0
Main, Bayley SR 0 0 0 0
Balogh, Brennan SR 0 0 0 0
Gezmis, Erge SO 0 0 0 0

Alabama

Overall: +16

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Howard, Robert SR 30 19 11 27
Waddell, Zane JR 5 5 0 11
Bams, Laurent SR 5 0 5 0
Disette, Sam SO 0 0 0 0
Perera, Nicholas FR 0

Harvard

Overall: +28

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Farris, Dean JR 53 30 23 40
Novak, Brennan SR 11 3 8 8
Marcoux, Raphael JR 0 0 0 0
Gures, Umitcan FR 0
Zarian, Michael SO 0 0 0 0
Houck, Logan SR 0 3 -3 12

Ohio State

Overall: +51

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
DeLakis, Paul SO 27 6 21 10
Canova, Joseph SO 12 0 12 0
Lense, Noah JR 9 0 9 6
Daniels-Freeman, Aaron SR 7 3 4 5
Loy, Andrew JR 5 0 5 2
Fielding, Jacob FR 3
Siler, Jacob SO 0 0 0 2
Painhas, Henrique SR 0 0 0 2.5
Mathews, Jason FR 0
Law, Christopher SR 0 0 0 0
Gaziev, Ruslan FR 0
Salazar, Michael SR 0 0 0 0

Virginia

Overall: +43

Name Year 2019 Points 2018 Points Diff 2018 No Senior Points
Casey, Brendan SR 33 0 33 10
Fong, Zach SR 14 5 9 21
Keblish, Bryce SR 4 0 4 11
Storch, Casey FR 4
Clark, Joe JR 3 3 0 5
Schubert, Ted JR 2 5 -3 18
Shelton, Ian JR 0 0 0 0
Magnan, Sam SR 0 0 0 6
Baker, Ryan JR 0 0 0 0
Creedon, Walker FR 0
Wozencraft, Cooper SO 0 0 0 0
Otto, Matthew SO 0 0 0 7
Barnum, Keefer SO 0 0 0 0

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Swimmer
4 years ago

With all the returning swimmers Cal has and then Eddie’s eventual retirement I see Cal as the team to beat in the next several years to come.

Caleb
4 years ago

I would interpret this a little differently. Yes, Cal has a great team and is probably the favorite for next year, but every breakdown confirms that they nailed their taper and hit it out of the park this year — hard to match that year-after-year. Texas, on the other hand, is probably a bit stronger than its returning points suggest.

DMacNCheez
Reply to  Caleb
4 years ago

Yeah Cal absolutely nailed NCAAs this year, but remember they ended up winning by more than 100 points. Texas underperformed yes, but Cal could have been much more off the mark and would have still won this meet.

Texas was very lucky to win that 4th title in a row last year…

Admin
Reply to  DMacNCheez
4 years ago

Here’s some data from last year: https://swimswam.com/ncaa-d1-mens-improvement-at-nationals/

I think the top 2 lines of this are relevant to this conversation.

Caleb
Reply to  DMacNCheez
4 years ago

Lucky, how? If you want to look at last year, it was Indiana that swam lights-out — they had a good meet this season but still couldn’t match the 2018 performance.

Caleb
Reply to  DMacNCheez
4 years ago

I mean, yes, Cal had a cushion this year but that’s not really my point, which is that Texas has a lot more room for improvement. Not just that Cal will have a tough time matching what they did this year, but Texas has a deeper pool (15 or 16 qualifiers coming back, no?) So more likely to have breakout performers. And we haven’t gotten to the freshmen yet.

Longhorn
Reply to  DMacNCheez
4 years ago

Your math is off. 85 points was the difference. Texas actually did not miss their taper they were just inconsistent with their swims definitely were good enough to win this year but needed their top guys to perform on every race and they didn’t. The whole Carr/Katz debacle was potentially over a 20 point swing alone. You’re right tho… Cal could’ve won last year so They made sure this year they were ready.

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  Longhorn
4 years ago

Agree with the taper argument. Haas hit his enough to break himself for the rest of the meet in the first 250 of his NCAA record 500 free. Katz had a good 800 free relay split, then was dormant until a best time in the 200 back. Newkirk swam well, Shebat was lights out consistent. The young breastroker and Kibler swam great. It’s not uncommon for UT to have an NCAAs like this. Think back to the Clark Smith debacle year, the Schooling 200 fly disaster year, even last year being flat on the first day’s 800 free relay (Haas slower on a relay start than in his individual event, by a lot).

Swimmer
Reply to  Longhorn
4 years ago

Inconsistent with their times = missed their taper. This makes two years in a row of missed tapers: Jackson Schooling, Ringold. TheTexas taper is not what it used to be.

Foreign Embassy
Reply to  Caleb
4 years ago

Texas may be returning more scorers but CAL also has Hugo Gonzalez coming in who can A final in 3 events and could potentially win the 400IM. And CAL still has room to improve with Jensen and Mefford who were one event scorers who could potentially go up to 3. Either way it will be a fun meet to watch and the rivalry will continue…