2026 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships
- Dates: Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28
- Location: McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
- Defending Champions: Texas (1x)
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We are two sessions down at the 2026 men’s Division I NCAA Championships, which means it is time for some overreactions as we look at teams who might be really strong early, and teams who have their work cut out for them.
Florida Looking Strong Early
The big news out of night one of the 2026 men’s Division I NCAA Championships was Florida’s Ahmed Jaouadi setting a new NCAA record in the men’s 1650 freestyle, touching in 14:10.03 to take more than two seconds off Bobby Finke‘s 2020 record of 14:12.08. What does this mean for Florida the rest of the meet?
The Florida men have historically struggled at NCAAs, and last year they were -108 points from their seeded score, with 40 of those points coming from their night one DQ in the 200 medley relay. This year, they came out swinging on night one, and are currently tied for first with Indiana with 86 points. This is +11 from where they were projected to finish the day at 75.
Twenty of those points came from their top finish in the 1650 freestyle, but they also picked up 4th with Ahmed Hafnaoui, 5th with Gio Linscheer (who swam in prelims), and 14th with Eric Brown. This event alone totaled 52 points, a 19 point jump from their projected 33 points in the event.
They dropped a spot in the 200 medley relay, finishing 2nd to ASU for 34 points. They also dropped in the 800 freestyle relay from their projected 16th place finish to 19th, but they only added four tenths.
If the individual events continue to go well for the Gators, they could be looking at their first positive actual vs seed year.
Virginia Already Showing Off
For months, there has been a lot of skepticism about the UVA men’s team and their very strong freshmen class. They swam in the prelims session, and had the fastest prelims 800 free relay time of 6:06.85. This time ended up finishing 4th overall for 30 points. This is more than double the total 14 points they earned in 2025.
Their 4th place finish was their highest relay finish since 2012, when they finished 4th in the 800 free relay. We will see how the rest of the week goes for the Cavaliers, but this is a promising sign for the men.
Could We See A New NCAA Record in the 500 Free?
Florida freshman Ahmed Jaouadi had a massive swim in his first ever NCAA event, swimming 14:10.03 in the men’s 1650 freestyle. He won by a little more than two seconds over Indiana’s Zalan Sarkany after the two turned just three hundredths apart at the 1600 mark. Jaouadi had a massive final 50 split of 22.73 to break the NCAA record.
Jaouadi will race again in the 200 free tomorrow and the 500 freestyle on Friday. The 500 freestyle is looking like it could be electric, as we could see another rematch between Jaouadi and Sarkany along with American Record holder and 2nd fastest performer of all time Rex Maurer.
Maurer is the top seed in 4:08.66, just over eight tenths ahead of Jaouadi’s 4:09.28. He is seeded more than four seconds off his American record swim of 4:04.45 from November of 2024. He has been a little off this season, but it also seems he hasn’t swum a fully tapered meet since last year’s NCAA Championships when he won the 500 free in 4:07.55. Maurer is also known for his closing 50 speed, which means if he is on, we could see a very exciting final 50.
New Format Blues
Last week, the women’s mile saw a large number of ads in the prelims session as some swimmers were far off their seed times, but the finals heat was all drops. The men’s mile was almost the opposite.
The prelims swimmers were fast, and three of them ended up in the top eight overall. In finals, there were a few big adds. William Mulgrew added 13.28 seconds to finish 9th for Harvard in 14:40.07. Max Carlsen added 11.89 for NC State, finishing 12th in 14:44.57, and Cal’s Nathan Wiffen added 12.64 seconds to touch in 14:46.81 for 15th.
Whether these results are because of the new NCAA format and the mile swimming on the first day is not clear. For comparison, in 2025, no swimmer in the top 16 added more than 10 seconds in the event, and only one added more than five.
Is This the End of the Cal Taper?
Wiffen was Cal’s top seeded miler, and he finished 15th with his aforementioned 12.64 second add. Ryan Erisman was their only other scorer in the event, and he was 10th in 14:41.56, which was a 3.97 second add from his seed time.
In the 200 medley relay, Cal finished 6th in 1:21.58, which was only 0.06 seconds faster than their seed time, and in the 800 free relay they were 12th in 6:10.91, which was a 1.38 second add from their seed.
Cal has always been known for a monster taper that sees them move way up the leaderboard at NCAAs, but they only had one drop tonight and it was less than a tenth total. We will see how the week shakes out, but the “Cal Taper” could be absent this year.
Rex was a 4:07 in prelims last year. He won in a 4;05.
My opinion is that the “Cal taper” is kinda miss understood it’s less of a way to make swimmers swim extremely fast but rather it’s more of just mentally not needing to go all out in season because of having a lot of confidence in their ability which arises from being at the top for so many years. This year because they are not the team they once were there are a lot more incentives to prove themselves and swim faster in season. Also they have a lot of freshman who never experienced the success of the past couple years of Cal so they didn’t have the same mindset of swimming slow in season. You can kinda see it in… Read more »
I agree, they are no better than anyone else at tapering. What Durden was really good at was resting his swimmers just enough to qualify for NCAAs, then fully rest for NCAAs. He has been able to do that almost every year because his swimmers were so fast and could somewhat swim through the season and fully peak at NCAAs. They aren’t good enough to do that this year, so I wouldn’t expect a lot of big drops.
Surely we can make this into paragraphs rather than a huge block of text.
Where’s the fun in that
Can you summarize it in like a sentence or two?
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but I agree if by “prove themselves” you mean Cal knows their top swimmers are going to qualify for NCAAs, so there’s no reason to rest them earlier.
If you mean that it’s the swimmers themselves “feeling they had something to prove,” I don’t think that’s quite right. I can tell you that Cal does not care how they are perceived by anyone else. The reason they swim slow in season is that they simply just don’t rest their top swimmers at all throughout the year if they can safely qualify for NCAAs. They are beat up lol
That’s the difference you see between their men’s team this year and their teams in the past and… Read more »
Weird to see Florida out of the money in 4×200 relay
Anybody else watching find it annoying that actual splits and lead splits don’t pop up on the youtube vids?
4:07.55 was Maurer last NCAAs in prelims. He was 4:05 in the final. Hopefully he’s at his peak this weekend if he’s going to fend off Jaouadi and the rest of the pack!
No one is touching Marchand’s NCAA record in the 500 free. Maybe we will see a 4:04 but I think 4:05 or 4:06 probably wins it.