2019 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 27 – Saturday, March 30
- Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, Austin, Texas
- Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (Central Time)
- Defending champion: Texas (4x) (2018 results)
- Psych Sheet
- Live Stream
- Live results
We’ve already done a deep dive into our recruiting archives, looking at how the top 20 recruits from the high school class of 2015 did after four NCAA seasons. Now it’s time to look back at a more recent recruit ranking: the current year’s freshmen, whom we ranked in the spring of 2017, then re-ranked one year later after the close of their high school careers.
Relevant links:
- Top 20 recruits, high school class of 2018 (original rank as of June 1, 2017)
- Top 20 recruits re-rank, high school class of 2018 (ranked on June 7, 2018)
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 listed below are from our re-rank last summer – they are not current ranks of NCAA athletes. We also do not rank international athletes as recruits, as it’s hard to predict if and when they’ll come to the U.S., and which class with which to include them.
TOP 20 RANKED RECRUITS
HM=Honorable mention
| Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
| 1 | Reece Whitley | Cal | 29 | 29 |
| 2 | Drew Kibler | Texas | 25 | 25 |
| 3 | Alexei Sancov | USC | 0 | no invite |
| 4 | Max McHugh | Minnesota | 33 | 33 |
| 5 | Daniel Krueger | Texas | 15 | 15 |
| 6 | Trey Freeman | Florida | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | Cody Bybee | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
| 8 | Patrick Callan | Michigan | 7 | 7 |
| 9 | Jack Levant | Stanford | 0 | — |
| 10 | Daniel Roy | Stanford | 5 | 5 |
| 11 | Kieran Smith | Florida | 25 | 25 |
| 12 | Robert Finke | Florida | 5 | 5 |
| 13 | Michael Brinegar | Indiana | 17 | 17 |
| 14 | Matthew Willenbring | Texas | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | Noah Henry | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
| 16 | Jason Park | Texas | 0 | no invite |
| 17 | Danny Kovac | Missouri | 0 | 0 |
| 18 | Khalil Fonder | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
| 19 | Andrew Abruzzo | Georgia | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | Mason Gonzalez | Stanford | 0 | no invite |
| HM | Shaine Casas | Texas A&M | 10 | 10 |
| HM | Andrew Koustik | Texas | 0 | 0 |
| HM | Zach Brown | NC State | 0 | no invite |
| HM | Jack Dahlgren | Missouri | 0 | 0 |
| HM | Will Davis | Florida | 0 | 0 |
| HM | Jack Franzman | Indiana | 0 | no invite |
- There was a lot of discussion at the time of our ranks about the battle for the #1 spot between Reece Whitley and Drew Kibler. That race is far from over, but ironically enough, neither was the top scorer as a freshman. That honor went to Minnesota breaststroker Max McHugh, who was second in the 200 breast and 3rd in the 100 breast, ahead of Whitley in both. McHugh has been on a tear with time drops, and had the best freshman year of any breaststroker in the history of NCAA swimming, at least based on times.
- Whitley did outscore Kibler individually, though you could still make an argument for either as the more impactful freshman. Both swam two finals relays, but Kibler did swim prelims of two other relays. Neither will really see his full relay value until later in his career, though, as it’s hard for freshmen to break into relay spots, especially on the two best and deepest rosters in college swimming.
- One comment from our original ranks said then-#8 recruit Kieran Smith was “at least 20 places higher than he should be.” Smith responded by tying for 3rd in the class in individual points as a rookie. Good on ya, Kieran. Thanks for making us look smart.
- It’s not easy for freshmen to earn NCAA invites, particularly on the men’s side. But we did have six of our top 20 not earn invites. The most surprising one was #3 Alexei Sancov, who was the last alternate not called in on the men’s side. #7 Cody Bybee is another name to watch out for: he didn’t even swim Pac-12s for Arizona State, though there’s no word on why he was out.
UNRANKED RECRUITS
And of course, we’ll include everyone’s favorite part: which unranked recruits scored NCAA points as freshmen, both domestic up-and-comers and international prospects who competed as freshmen this year.
| Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
| Zane Backes | Indiana | 14 | 14 |
| Mikey Calvillo | Indiana | 7 | 7 |
| Charlie Scheinfeld | Texas | 6 | 6 |
| Mitchell Whyte | Louisville | 6 | 6 |
| Raunak Khosla | Princeton | 6 | 6 |
| Casey Storch | Virginia | 4 | 4 |
- Zane Backes has had a really good two-year run. He was 54.3/2:02.6 in the breaststrokes when we first ranked. By the re-rank, he was 53.1/1:55.0 and pushing for a top 20 spot. This year, he went 51.3/1:53.7 for Indiana.
- All of these guys had really notable drops as freshmen: Mikey Calvillo from 15:05 to 14:40 in the mile, Charlie Scheinfeld from 53.6 to 51.4 in the 100 breast, Mitchell Whyte from 1:46 to 1:40.2 in the 200 back, Raunak Khosla from 3:52 to 3:42 in the 400 IM and Casey Storch from 3:46 to 3:42 in the 400 IM.
INTERNATIONAL:
| Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
| David Schlicht | Arizona | 22 | 22 |
| Nyls Korstanje | NC State | 9 | 9 |
| Kacper Stokowksi | Florida | 9 | 9 |
| Antani Ivanov | Virginia Tech | 5 | 5 |
| Victor Johansson | USC | 3 | 3 |
- The Australian David Schlicht was a great pickup, scoring in all three events, including a 6th-place showing in the 400 IM.
More recruiting rank analysis:
Women’s:
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2015
- Re-Ranking the recruiting classes: Collegiate class of 2016-2019
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2018
- All recruits, Classes of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 (coming soon)
Men’s:
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2015 (coming soon)
- Re-Ranking the recruiting classes: Collegiate class of 2016-2019 (coming soon)
- All recruits, Classes of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 (coming soon)
Arizona State with 3 freshman in the top 15 and not one of them makes NCAA’S. Bowman may have been a good coach for Phelps but I’m not sure he is the man for this position.
I agree. Definitely concerning.
Or college swimming, in general. Didn’t michigan have virtually the same kind of results before Bottom got there? He’s def one of the best long course coaches but maybe that doesn’t translate as well to yards and college swimming. Still wondering what happened to Cameron Craig after his breakout frosh season…
I’ll admit I was wrong, Kieran Smith is a stud. Probably even better in LCM too
Ranking them by points is a good but not complete measure. I would measure it also by percent time drop in key races, if any. Sometimes a wildly talented high schooler comes out able to score heavily at NCAAs in their junior or senior year. Points scored may not tell the whole story.
Totally agree. Improvement over time says a lot. Points scored is affected by competition. What’s fast enough to get 3rd one year might be the winning time the following year…but time drops don’t lie. Which top ranked swimmers improved at their new school and by how much?
That’s certainly going to evaluate something… but it’s really not what we’re trying to evaluate here. This post is, very specifically, looking at the 20 recruits we ranked as having the biggest NCAA impact, plus those we didn’t rank who have already had NCAA impact. Time drops are great, but you don’t score NCAA points for time drops. We’re trying to specifically track impact on NCAA scoring so far. There will almost certainly be more swimmers from this class who drop lots of time and score later in their careers – but this story isn’t really about forecasting the future or trying to project who will score the most points down the road. It’s a tracking of what just happened:… Read more »
Interesting to note that both Kibler and Kieran Smith put up stellar relay splits to contribute beyond their individual event points. Both are going to collect a lot of bling over the next 3 years. Also, too bad Kieran didn’t swim lead off for Florida’s 800 relay – his 1:31.6 200 free split would have translated to a NAG record (he’s still only 18..)
Kieran’s relay swim was amazing. But relay splits are relay splits. A flat start on the relay may or may not have been under the NAG of 1:32.18. I agree it would’ve been great to see.
A little off topic here, but swimmers and runners are effective physically a little different. An interesting article from the New York Times.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/phys-ed-the-heart-of-a-swimmer-vs-the-heart-of-a-runner/ar-BBVz7ut?ocid=spartandhp
Sir, this is a Wendy’s drive-thru!
Kieran smith tied for 3rd, not 4th correct?
When you are doing points scored shouldn’t you include say 1/4 of relay points? When you are ranking these swimmers you are also ranking their relay potential. So even if a swimmer never scores an individual point but scores on 4-5 relays each NCAA that should be taken into account. Just a question/suggestion.
Woflensf – we had a discussion about this on our recruiting posts yesterday. The main reason that we don’t include relay scoring in these analyses is that’s not very consistent athlete-to-athlete, especially as freshmen. Recruits who go outside of the traditional powers get their value artificially lowered because their programs can’t plug them in to already-scoring relays. But some recruits at the top programs also get impacted if their school is deep enough to not need them on relays as freshmen. The other angle is that 1/4 of relay points doesn’t accurately portray a contribution: a freshman splitting 19-low isn’t exactly adding 1/4 of the value to a relay that has someone going 18-low on the end, for a non-specific… Read more »
Understood – just pointing out that it is included in the factor or your rankings for recruits is all. Believe me it is not a criticism just an observation and thanks for what you guys do!!!!
No, we appreciate the feedback! Like I said, we would like a way to track relay points, and I like hearing different ideas of how to do it – gives us a starting point when we look at how to improve these rankings in the future!
Hmm, I wonder if a sort by split time ranking would be a way? In a medley, compare against the other 15 finalists or 23 or so prelim swimmers in the stroke to see where their split sat or against the other 15 free lead offs or 45 non lead off splits in free relay finals. Not sure if it would be a pain to do, but that would give an empirical measure irrespective of rest of relay (ie. Dean Farris would come out looking like the beast he is). You guys do an amazing job pulling all this together. Thank you for that and for continuing to look for ways to do it even better.
Something akin to this would be the right way to do it, or you’d do some sort of delta ranking above and below where the middle splits lie and accurately capture where they rank that way. But even with a proper measurement, there isn’t a way to account for the fact that a guy like Kibler would have been on basically every team’s 400 free relay except the one team he’s on, or like Backes would have been the breaststroker for anyone outside of Indiana/USC/Cal/Minny.
maybe a separate Freshman relay score:
Freshmen swam in relay Prelim that get the team to B Final get 1 pt, A Final get 2 pt.
Freshmen swam in relay Final (A or B) get 1 pt. If the team improve in position (or maintain top position) and Freshmen swim faster in his/her leg (compare with oneself if swam prelim, or whoever Freshman replaced) get an additional point.
If team has no replacement option, thus Freshman must swim both prelim and final get an additional point.
In other word, freshman swam relay will get at least 1 point and up to 3 points, Freshman’s relay contribution give them 1-2 extra point if their swim improve replay result… Read more »
I think if you were going to give points for relay contribution it can be simple. No points for prelim swims, whatever place the relay finished in final, you divide by 4 and that’s your points. So if you swam in the A relay and your team won, you get 10 points. If you’re good enough to be in A final it doesn’t matter if you have the fastest split or the slowest split, you deserve your 1/4 th points. With relays being worth as many points as they are it’s too big of a factor to not factor in.
Lol Texas didn’t win the meet so they’re fighting HARD in the comments section to make sure that they win the ‘recruiting performance article.’
Always next year, y’all.
Unfortunate we didn’t get to see Levant at NCAAs. Does anyone know his health status for this summer? He is on the US roster for Worlds and WUGS