2021 NCAA Men’s Diving Preview: Texas & Ohio State Could Score 70+ Points Each

2021 NCAA MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, March 24 – Saturday, March 27, 2021
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
• Prelims 10 AM/ Finals 6 PM (Local Time)
• Short course yards (SCY) format
• Defending champion: Cal (1x) – 2019 results
• Streaming:
• Championship Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results

ROUGHLY PROJECTING DIVE POINTS BY TEAM

For the purposes of projecting the team battle, we’re making some rough stabs at which teams will benefit most from diving. These projections are very fuzzy – without an NCAA meet last year, we’re mostly relying on 2018 and 2019 NCAA finishes, Zone performances this year and last year, and conference showings.

The bottom group isn’t an exhaustive list, as we’ll probably see more teams scoring some diving points. But we want to highlight the groups that could/should score enough to make a visible impact on our team projections. These teams are ranked by their overall diving scoring, not as individuals – and the teams are probably projected a bit closer to their dive scoring ceiling than their floor:

Mega-Dominators (ballpark 70+ points):

The men’s diving points look more centralized than the women’s, so much so that we had to add a new category here for the teams that projected much higher even than our highest-projected women’s dive groups.

Texas: Senior Jordan Windle has never finished outside the top 8 in any diving event across his NCAA career – and he competes on all three boards. He’s a title contender in all three. Freshman Noah Duperre looks like a potential A-finalist coming in the door. Two more depth guys could sneak in to score in an event or two and Texas could legitimately get 60 or more diving points with even a decent showing.

Ohio State: The Big Ten is the toughest diving conference in the nation, and Ohio State went 1-2-3 on 3-meter with a total of 11 A final appearances between the three boards. Lyle Yost looked like last year’s breakout-freshman-to-be, and this year will really reveal whether he’s an NCAA scoring type or an NCAA-title-contending type. All four Buckeye divers have real shots to make A finals on at least one board.

Dominators (ballpark 45+ points):

Miami: Vaunted dive program Miami has four qualifiers, including the top three finishers on platform from ACCs. Zach Cooper was a platform A finalist in both 2019 and 2018.

LSU: LSU has just one diver qualified, but it’s Juan Hernandez, who has placed in the top 8 at least once on all three boards between 2018 and 2019. He’s a title contender, but even just finishing high in all three events would put LSU in this category.

Indiana: Same goes for IU, which has two divers qualified but expects to get most of its points from star Andrew Capobianco, who won the 3-meter title in 2019 and has made the top 8 on all three boards in his career.

Purdue: Like Miami, Purdue has a deep platform group, and those two teams could combine to fill perhaps half of the A final in that event. Brandon Loschiavo is a returning NCAA scorer, and Benjamin Bramley was 6th on platform in 2019.

Strong Programs (ballpark 20-44 points):

Tennessee: As a freshman in 2019, Matthew Wade scored on both springboards. He’s joined by current freshman Bryden Hattie, a standout platform diver who won SECs this year.

Stanford: Stanford returns Noah Vigran, who was an A finalist on 3-meter as a freshman back in 2019. Meanwhile Conor Casey was the Pac-12 champ on 1-meter.

Contributors (ballpark 10-19):

This is not an exhaustive list:

• Florida State
• UNC
• Kentucky
• Minnesota
• Wisconsin
• Michigan

DIVERS & ENTRIES BY TEAM

By Event

1-Meter

Texas’s Jordan Windle was 5th as a freshman and 4th as a sophomore. None of the divers who beat him are still competing in the NCAA. He’s the frontrunner here after dominating the Big 12 and Zone D. LSU’s Juan Hernandez (the SEC champ) has been 9th and 7th on this board over the past two NCAA meets and might be Windle’s biggest challenger.

The deep Big Ten should put multiple men into the A final, and a great list could vault one of these guys up into title contention. Andrew Capobianco is a returning scorer (11th in 2018) and won Big Tens. Greg Duncan of Purdue scored in this event in 2019. And sophomore Lyle Yost of Ohio State gets his first taste of NCAA action.

3-Meter

IU’s Capobianco has been in the A final in both of his NCAA 3-meter appearances, and won the national title in 2019. But Windle (5th in 2018, 7th in 2019) has also been in the top 8 both seasons. Those two, along with LSU’s Hernandez (4th in 2018) are the top title contenders.

Ohio State went 1-2-3 at Big Tens with Joseph Canova, Yost, and Jacob Siler. Those three should be in the hunt for A final slots, along with standout Texas freshman Noah Duperre.

Five other 2019 scorers return here in a loaded field: Stanford’s Noah Vigran (6th), Tennessee’s Matthew Wade (8th), Purdue’s Duncan (9th), Kentucky’s Danny Zhang (11th) and UNC’s Anton Down Jenkins (13th).

Platform

Windle has never finished lower than second at NCAAs on platform and is the defending champ for Texas. Hernandez was 3rd in 2019 for LSU and Zach Cooper 4th for Miami. Meanwhile back in 2018, Indiana’s Andrew Capobianco was 3rd in this event.

This one could get very clogged up by three very strong platform programs. Miami went 1-2-3 at ACCs and should score Cooper, Max Flory and Brodie Scapens. Purdue returns 2019 6th-place finisher Benjamin Bramley and 2018 9th-place finisher Brandon Loschiavo, who went 1-3 in this event at Big Tens last month. And Ohio State packed four men into the Big Ten A final with Jacob Fielding (a 2019 B finalist at NCAAs on platform), Siler (the Big Ten runner-up this year) and Yost.