2026 Men’s NCAAs: How Did Our Top 20 Recruits Perform As Freshmen?

We’ve already done a deep dive into our recruiting archives, looking at how the top 20 recruits from the high school class of 2022 did after four NCAA seasons. Now it’s time to look back at a more recent recruit ranking: the current year’s freshmen:

Relevant links:

• Way-Too-Early Sophomore Ranks, Class of 2025 Boys
• Junior Ranks, Class of 2025 Boys
• Senior Re-Ranks, Class of 2025 Boys

Naturally, this analysis has a far smaller sample size than the lookback of how the class of 2022 fared over their entire career, 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.

As always, our notes on this data:

• The data included is only individual scoring at NCAAs. That’s not an exact measure of an athlete’s contribution to a program: many of these swimmers (and others not listed) were relay scorers at NCAAs, scored significant points at conference meets and provided great leadership and culture-building for their programs. This data isn’t a perfect analysis of the best recruits – it’s merely a quick look at the data we can compile.
• A college swimming career includes four years of eligibility, and sometimes more. Revisiting scoring after one year is an incomplete analysis of a swimmer’s career – this is not the final word on any of these prospects, and we will revisit this data over the next three seasons to get a more complete evaluation.

The ranks listed below are from our re-rank last summer – they are not the 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 to include them in.

TOP 20 RANKED RECRUITS

HM=Honorable mention

The Hits:

• The Virginia duo of Maximus Williamson and Thomas Heilman delivered and then some in their NCAA Championship debuts, combining to score 72 points to help push the Cavaliers to a 9th-place finish after they were 32nd in 2025. There was plenty of debate about who should rank #1 in this class, and though Heilman earned the top spot coming out of high school, Williamson outperformed his teammate in their freshman year by winning two individual titles.
• Williamson won the 200 free (1:30.03) and 200 IM (1:38.48) titles, setting personal best times in both, and contributed to all four of Virginia’s relays that finished no worse than 10th. He didn’t swim a third individual event, so his 40 points were the maximum he could’ve scored based on his schedule.
• Heilman also only raced two individual events while contributing to all four UVA relays. He set personal best times en route to taking 2nd in the 200 fly (1:38.16) and 4th in the 100 fly (43.58), and added a PB in the 100 free (41.74) leading off the 400 free relay.
• Outscoring both of them, however, was Indiana’s Josh Bey, who ranked 6th coming out of high school but had a phenomenal first year with the Hoosiers, which included setting a trio of best times and winning the Big Ten title in the 400 IM (3:34.90) in February. At NCAAs, Bey followed up by dropping another big best time in the final of the 200 breast (1:48.79) to place 2nd, and he also took 7th in both the 200 and 400 IM to score a total of 41 points. He also set a new PB of 1:41.17 in the heats of the 200 IM to make the final.
• Bey’s Indiana teammate Noah Cakir also performed well in his freshman year, scoring 20 points as the 18th-ranked recruit. Cakir set a new best time of 1:40.94 in the prelims of the 200 IM, making the final where he placed 8th, and he also took 9th in the 200 breast (1:51.38) for 9th place.
• Texas’ Campbell McKean, who broke out last summer by making the U.S. World Championship team and posting the fastest time ever recorded by an 18-and-under male in the 100 breaststroke (58.96), scored 26 points in his NCAA debut as the #3-ranked recruit. McKean set new best times in the prelims (50.36) and final (50.25) of the 100 breast, placing 3rd, and also scored with a 9th-place finish in the 200 IM. His best time of 1:51.03 in the 200 breast from SECs would’ve made the final had he done it in the NCAA prelims, but he ended up 20th in 1:52.75.
• The fourth-highest scorer in this class was Cal’s Ryan Erisman, who dropped a big best time of 3:36.09 to lead the prelims of the 400 IM and then followed up by placing 5th in the final (3:36.32). He also took 9th in the 500 free (4:11.43) and 10th in the 1650 free (14:41.55), bringing his total to 30 points. At the ACC Championships in February, he set PBs in all three races, placing 3rd in the 500 free (4:11.17), 1650 free (14:37.58) and 400 IM (3:38.94).
• The breaststrokers in this freshman class really showed out. Joining Bey, McKean and Cakir in scoring double-digit points at NCAAs was Tennessee’s Gabe Nunziata, who set personal best times in the 200 breast (1:50.26) and 100 breast (51.17) to place 7th and 9th, respectively, while contributing to three of the Vols’ scoring relays.
• Also scoring were Georgia’s Sean Green, Stanford’s Ethan Ekk and Harvard’s William Mulgrew. Green delivered best times to place 8th in the 500 free (4:11.34 in prelims) and 10th in the 1650 free (14:46.60), Ekk took 11th in the 500 free (4:11.50) and 12th in the 200 back (1:38.78), and Mulgrew picked up a 9th-place finish in the mile (14:40.07).

The Misses:

With three more seasons of eligibility, there are no real misses, but we’re simply looking at swimmers who may not have performed as expected as freshmen.

• Indiana’s Luke Ellis (#4) didn’t have a bad freshman year, but was unable to reach his personal bests or score at NCAAs. He was 3rd in the 1650 free at Big Tens in 14:43.01, which would’ve been 11th at NCAAs, but he ended up back in 22nd after adding 15 seconds. Ellis also took 30th in the 400 IM (3:44.35) and 35th in the 500 free (4:18.35). He’s been as fast as 4:15.45 in the 500 free, 14:29.48 in the 1650 free, and 3:42.94 in the 400 IM.
• Two top-10 recruits didn’t earn individual invites. NC State Gavin Keogh got down to 1:40.80 in the 200 back at the ACC Championships, just over a second outside of qualifying for NCAAs, while Notre Dame’s Jack Armour set a best time in the 100 breast (51.77), narrowly missing out on an invite by just over two-tenths. He did, however, swim the 200 and 400 medley relays for the Fighting Irish at NCAAs.
• Virginia had a stacked recruiting class, with three boys ranked in the top 20 and two more as Honorable Mentions, but Heilman and Williamson were the only two who qualified for NCAAs as freshmen.

UNRANKED RECRUITS

And of course, we’ll include which unranked recruits earned NCAA invites and scored points this season – both domestic up-and-comers and international pickups.

DOMESTIC:

• Only two American freshmen who weren’t ranked in the top 20 or as Honorable Mentions scored at the NCAA Championships, and both were “Best of the Rest” recruits in our re-rank last year.
• NC State’s Max Carlsen set a new boys’ 17-18 NAG record in the 1000 free (8:41.12) during a January dual meet with Virginia, and then he managed to carry that form into the postseason. Carlsen swept the ACC titles in the 500 free (4:09.44) and 1650 free (14:32.68), and despite adding time, he scored at NCAAs by placing 12th in the mile (14:44.57) and 15th in the 500 free (4:12.47).
• Georgia’s Hayden Meyers, one of the last qualifiers in the 200 back after clocking 1:39.45 twice during the season, lowered his PB to 1:39.29 in the NCAA prelims to snag 16th place and score one point.

INTERNATIONAL:

• No surprise given his pedigree as a three-time world champion, Ahmed Jaouadi had a phenomenal performance at his debut NCAA Championships, scoring 37 out of a possible 40 points after only entering the two distance events. The Florida freshman opened the meet with a bang, setting a new NCAA and U.S. Open Record in the 1650 free (14:10.03) by more than two seconds, and then followed up by placing 2nd in the 500 free in a big best time of 4:06.90.
• Michigan freshman Luka Mladenovic, who has since entered the transfer portal, had a very strong season for the Wolverines, and although he wasn’t fully satisfied with his performance at the NCAA Championships, the Austrian still scored 32 points. He won the Big Ten title in the 100 breast (50.69) and 200 breast (1:49.34) in February, and then at NCAAs, he reset his PB to place 5th in the 100 breast (50.47) while tying his 200 breast best time on the number to take 3rd.
• Tennessee’s Koby Bujak-Upton, who moved from Australia to Knoxville prior to the 2024-25 campaign but didn’t start competing collegiately until this season, really broke out for the Volunteers as a freshman. He established himself as one of the best 200 freestylers in the nation, producing a trio of 1:31s in November at the CSCAA Dual Meet Challenge before clocking 1:30.77 at the SEC Championships leading off the 800 free relay. At NCAAs, he became the first freshman to break 1:30, leading off Tennessee’s 800 free relay in 1:29.79 before placing 2nd in the individual race in 1:30.11. He also placed 12th in the 500 free in a personal best of 4:11.86, scoring 22 points for the Vols.
• Louisville’s Nikita Sheremet came into college with an impressive resume as the reigning World Junior champion in the 50 free, and he backed it up with a solid freshman campaign. The Ukrainian native set a best time in the 50 free (18.65) en route to placing 7th at NCAAs, and he also scored in the 100 free (12th) after setting a best time of 41.39 at ACCs. He also performed well in the relays, throwing down respective anchor legs of 18.06 and 40.92 on the 200 and 400 medley.
• One of the biggest surprise scorers of the meet, Auburn’s Abdalla Youssef Nasr set a pair of significant best times at the SEC Championships in the 100 fly (44.91) and 200 fly (1:40.73) to qualify for NCAAs, but those still left him on the outside looking in in terms of scoring coming into the meet (seeded 23rd in both). The Egyptian native stepped up again at NCAAs, dropping down to 44.65 in the 100 fly to place 12th, and then in the 200 fly, he set a massive best time of 1:39.59 in the prelims to make the final before finishing 8th. Nasr recently entered the NCAA transfer portal.
• Three scoring swimmers who were listed as seniors but were in their first (and possibly last) seasons in the NCAA were Florida’s Koen de Groot and Charlie Hutchison, and Alabama’s Sean Niewold. De Groot and Hutchison are both 22, while Niewold is 24.

DIVING:

• Italian diver Matteo Santoro, a 2025 World Championship gold medalist, delivered in his freshman year at Miami (FL), putting up 32 points to finish as the third-highest scoring diver of NCAAs. Santoro placed 2nd in the 1-meter event and added a 4th-place finish on 3-meter, carrying on the Hurricanes’ diving legacy.
• Texas A&M first-year Emilio Trevino placed 4th in the platform event at his debut SEC Championships, and then after qualifying for the NCAA final in 7th, he had a breakthrough performance to win the national title with 465.30 points. Shortly after Trevino’s victory, Texas A&M diving coach Jay Lerew retired from his post, though multiple current and former members of the team told SwimSwam he was fired.
• Florida freshman Jesus Agundez Mora landed a 4th-place finish on 1-meter to score 15 points, while Stanford first-year Gunnar Grubbs had scoring performances on 1-meter (9th) and platform (12th) for 14 points.
• Tennessee’s Thomas Ciprik was listed as a sophomore in the NCAA Championship results, but was competing in his first season with the Vols. Ciprik placed 9th on 3-meter and 11th on 1-meter to score 15 points in his NCAA debut, tied for third among freshmen divers.
• Miami (FL)’s Jake Passmore was also listed as a sophomore but was a redshirt freshman with the Hurricanes. The English native scored seven points after placing 12th on 1-meter and 15th on 3-meter.

ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKS