32 Schools Qualify Relays For 2025 Men’s NCAA Championships

2025 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 26-29, 2025
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center, Federal Way, Washington
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Psych Sheet

The official psych sheets for the 2025 Men’s NCAA Championships were released last week. IN addition to learning which swimmers earned invites to Federal Way, Washington later this month, the psych sheets revealed which teams have qualified relays for the championships.

In total, 32 schools have qualified at least one relay, an increase of one from last season.

Before we get to the breakdown of relays, here’s quick reminder on how teams qualify relays for NCAAs.

How To Qualify Relays for NCAAs:

• The simplest way to qualify relays for NCAAs is to hit the ‘A’ cut, formally known as the “Qualifying Standard”
• Once a team has an ‘A’ cut in one relay, it can enter all relays where it’s earned the ‘B’ cut, formally known as the “Provisional Standard”
• Teams with four individually qualified can swim relays in which they have at least a ‘B’ cut and bring up to four uninvited relay swimmers
• Relays are qualified “to the team” not the individual swimmers so teams can take whichever swimmers they want to use on the relay
• Teams must have at least one individual invite to send relays to the championships

Obviously, relays are a critical part of the race in the team standings, as they count double. But relay qualification is also an important barometer about a program’s health, from teams fighting for a top five finish to the mid-major programs.

As more programs adopted the strategy of swimming fast year-round, we saw midseason relay qualification explode when we did our post-invite check-in. Only 14 schools had earned at least one ‘A’ cut by midseason during the 2023-24 season and only two had hit all five ‘A’ cuts. This season, 20 teams had swum at least one relay ‘A’ cut by the end of the first semester and six had all five.

Since then, 12 more programs have earned at least one ‘A’ cut, including four mid-major programs.

• Army
• Georgia Tech
• Harvard
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Northwestern
• Ohio State
• Princeton
• Texas A&M
• USC
• Yale

From this list, one team to keep an eye on is Ohio State. The Buckeyes did not have an relays qualified after mid-season. Last season, they earned one ‘A’ cut, the 800 freestyle relay, which allowed them to swim three relays (200/400/800 freestyle) at the 2024 Championships. After a strong showing at Big Tens, the team has four ‘A’ cuts, all but the 400 medley relay, and will swim all five relays in Federal Way.

Last year, Minnesota and USC qualified relays for the NCAA Championships by having four individual qualifiers. This year, both programs have swum at least one ‘A’ cut. The Trojans have three ‘A’ cuts and are qualified for all five relays, while the Golden Gophers have two ‘A’ cuts.

Schools Qualified To Send 1+ Relay To NCAAs

Note: Table is organized by number of ‘A” cuts, then ‘B’ cuts, then alphabetically. 

Four schools have qualified relays for NCAAs this year after not doing so last year.

• Army — After winning the 400 medley relay at the Patriot League Championships, the Black Knights hit the NCAA ‘A’ cut in the 400 medley relay a week later at the ECAC Championships by swimming 3:04.51.
• Princeton — Princeton won a thrilling race against Yale in the men’s 800 freestyle relay on the opening night of the 2025 Ivy League Championships. The Tigers clocked 6:13.75, hitting an ‘A’ cut and earn the team’s first relay berths since 2016.
• Yale — A 1:30.44 split from anchor Noah Millard wasn’t enough for the Bulldogs to track down the Tigers during that race, but the Bulldogs were also under the NCAA ‘A’ cut with a 6:13.98. Yale went on to earn two other ‘A’ cuts at the championships.
• Harvard — The Crimson are a familiar team to see suit up for relays at the NCAA Championships, though they were missing last year. The team hit the ‘A’ cut in the 400 free relay on the final day of Ivies. That makes them eligible to race the 200/800 freestyle relays as well, making this the first time since 2022 Harvard has had three relays qualified for NCAAs.
• Northwestern — The Wildcats had a strong showing at the Big Ten Championships, taing down multiple school records. In addition to qualifying four swimmers for NCAAs, Northwestern also hit an ‘A’ cut in the 400 freestyle relay at the end of the meet, booking their ticket to NCAAs with a 2:49.77.

Projected Relay Points

Thanks to SwimSwam’s Andrew Mering, here are the relay points each program is projected to score at NCAAs. 

For all the concern about Florida’s relays after two key departures from the team, the Gators are projected to earn the most relay points at NCAAs. Highlighted by their NCAA record in the 400 medley relay, the Gators projected to earn 182 points from their relays, 30 ahead of Tennessee.

It’s also noteworthy that the Volunteers rank second with 152 points. Last year, the team only qualified four relays for NCAAs; this year they have five, which could be the difference maker for them to crack the top five.

Texas rounds out the top three teams with a projected 150 points, two ahead of Arizona State, making the top three projected teams all SEC based programs.