Reviewing SwimSwam’s 2024 NCAA Event Predictions – Men’s Edition

2024 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 27-30, 2024
• IUPUI Natatorium, Indianapolis, Indiana
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Meet Central
• Official Psych Sheets
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Live Results

The NCAA Championships are arguably the most unpredictable meets of the year, but we do our best to forecast what’s to come in each event before chaos takes over on two Wednesday nights every March.

At the men’s meet, we went 7/8 in picking ‘A’ finalists (or top eight finishers) in eight of 18 events, while we went 6/8 in three events.

We didn’t do quite as well as we did at the women’s meet (though it was close), with there being five events where we were 5/8 and another at a tough 4/8.

There was one where we were perfect, which was the 800 free relay.

On two occasions, one of our top-eight picks was disqualified, but in both instances, another one of our picks was bumped up to ‘A’ final status, so it didn’t affect our % of correct picks.

Below, find our top eight picks in each event, along with where the swimmer/relay team ended up finishing. We’ve also included who finished in the top eight we didn’t predict under “Moving In,” and the number in the bottom right of each event indicates how well we did in picking the top eight.

• See all of our picks at the SwimSwam Preview Index here.

200 Medley Relay

800 Free Relay

500 Free

200 IM

50 Free

200 Free Relay

400 IM

100 Fly

200 Free

100 Breast

100 Back

400 Medley Relay

1650 Free

200 Back

100 Free

200 Breast

200 Fly

400 Free Relay

TAKEAWAYS

• The 1650 free was the toughest event to predict on the women’s side, and it remained one of the most difficult for the men. We went 5/8, and two of the swimmers we missed, Bar Soloveychik and Ilia Sibirtsev, sat down in 13th and 17th, respectively, on the psych sheets and hit big lifetime bests to earn their top eight spots.
• Our worst showing came in the 200 breast, where we only picked half of the ‘A’ final correctly after three of the top seeds were off just a tocuh in the prelims and missed, and another, Josh Matheny, was DQed but his time would’ve only made the ‘B’ final regardless. Liam Bell, Noah Nichols and David Schlicht all had standout meets and qualified, as did Brown’s Jack Kelly.
• We were only 10/18 in picking winners (compared to 15/18 for the women), with most of the success coming from backing ASU. Leon Marchand‘s three wins were clear-cut selections, and we also correctly picked Ilya Kharun in the 200 fly, Zalan Sarkany in the 1650 free, and the Sun Devil 400 medley and 400 free relays.
• The winners we missed were primarily either Cal or Florida: Destin Lasco in the 200 IM and 200 back, Josh Liendo in the 50 free and 100 free, Brendan Burns in the 100 back, and the Gators (200 free and 200 medley) and Bears (800 free) in the relays.
• Florida proved to be the team we underestimated the most, as five of their swimmers made ‘A’ finals in events we didn’t predict: Mason Laur, Gio Linscheer, Julian Smith, Adam Chaney and Andrew Taylor.
• We also missed three Stanford relays that placed in the top eight, and both Jack Hoagland (SMU) and Schlicht (ASU) were First Team All-Americans in two events we didn’t predict.
• Some of our predictions that missed included two Texas relays, and multiple events for Longhorn Will Modglin, Stanford’s Andrei Minakov and Rex Maurer, Georgia’s Ian Grum, Florida’s Macguire McDuff and ASU’s Sarkany.
• Overall, we went 111/144 in picking top-eight finishers (77.08%), a small downtick relative to the 114 (79.16%) we picked for the women’s meet.