2024 NCAA qualifier from Arizona State Ieva Maluka has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Maluka just finished up her sophomore season.
Maluka competed at NCAAs and was just off of making finals in the 200 IM as she finished 18th in a 1:55.67. It took a 1:55.45 to earn a second swim. Her time from Pac-12s of a 1:54.43, that stands as her personal best, would have been 13th in prelims if she had swam it at NCAAs. She also holds the Arizona State school record in the 200 IM.
In Athens, Maluka also swam in prelims of the 200 free (1:44.77, 28th) and 100 free (49.05, 52nd). Both times were off of her season and lifetime bests of a 1:43.94 in the 200 and 48.75 in the 100 that she swam at Pac-12s.
In addition to swimming individually at NCAAs, she also swam on ASU’s 400 and 800 freestyle relays. She split a 1:44.39 lead-off in the 800 free relay helping the team to a 12th place finish. She split a 48.44 flying start on the 400 free relay.
Maluka did not make NCAAs as a freshman and finished her season at Pac-12s. She showed great improvement over her sophomore season, as seen below, swimming best times in all three of her primary events. She went from scoring 41 individual points at 2023 Pac-12s to 70 individual points at 2024 Pac-12s. She was the 2nd highest individual scorer at 2024 Pac-12s only behind Lindsay Looney who had 84. Looney just finished up her senior season with the Sun Devils.
Time Progression:
| Freshman | Sophomore | |
| 100 free | 49.45 | 48.75 |
| 200 free | 1:46.25 | 1:43.94 |
| 200 IM | 1:57.37 | 1:54.43 |
Maluka is the 2nd swimmer to enter the transfer portal today from Arizona State as Hubert Kos also entered after just finishing up his sophomore season. Former ASU head coach Bob Bowman departed the program on Monday, April 1st (not an April Fools joke) to become the new Director of Swimming at Texas. Soon after, Arizona State announced the elevation of Herbie Behm from associate head to head coach.
Maluka originally is from Latvia and has been majoring in psychology. Entering the transfer portal does not mean an athlete is required to transfer. Instead, it allows for athletes to communicate with other potential schools.
Very Strong and Cheerful Ieva
forgot regan smith was in the portal already
Regan Smith recently mentioned on a podcast that she’s very close with Ieva so they’re definitely off to Texas together
What podcast? I’m looking for some new podcasts
Unfiltered waters, so good
I guess they had the chance to talk to Bowman one-to-one after he came back from the press conference at Austin, and will now all enter the portal.
It would be illegal tampering to have one-on-one conversations with athletes from a different school before them entering the transfer portal, so if this happened Bowman is committing major NCAA violations in his first week on the job.
Regan is not an ASU athlete, and she’s already in the portal, so I assume Bowman can talk to her.
Let me guess…Bowman talks to Smith, Smith to leva…
Once you enter the portal, does it immediately process your application same-day or whatever or is there a couple days where it has to process the individual and then after 3-4 days places you in the portal?
Yes after the compliance offer enters your name you define if you want to be contacted and then you are put in the same day
Ok cool, that’s interesting. I never thought to ask
Compliance has 48hrs to add you to the portal once notified