2019 Men’s NCAAs: How Did Our Top 20 Recruits Perform as Freshmen?

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

• 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.

• 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:

• 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)