2025 Women’s NCAA Pick’ems: Who are the Overwhelming Favorites and What is the Closest Race?

2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 19-22, 2025
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center — Federal Way, Washington
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Start Times: Prelims: 10 AM ׀ Finals: 6 PM (Pacific Daylight Time)
• Meet Central
• Official Psych Sheets
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Live Results
• Live Stream

Looking at this year’s Pick’em Responses, there is some pretty clear consensus about most of the events with who you, the readers, think will win particular events. In some cases, you agreed with our picks, and in others, you didn’t.

Here are some of the closest races and biggest favorites according to you.

Individual Events

Biggest Individual Favorite: Gretchen Walsh, 50 Freestyle

The event with the highest percentage of picks for the winner was the women’s 50 freestyle. Gretchen Walsh ran away with your picks, earning 99.4% of the vote or 495 of the 498 total votes. The only other swimmer to receive any votes was Louisville’s Julia Dennis, who received three.

When it came to 2nd place, the participants were torn between three swimmers. Camille Spink had the most votes with 34.9% or 174 votes. Claire Curzan was just behind her at 33.3% or 166 votes, and Julia Dennis had the 3rd most votes at 30.9% or 154 votes.

Closest Individual Race: 500 Freestyle

The 500 freestyle has a chance to be the closest event of the meet, despite being the 2nd longest. We picked Bella Sims in our rankings, though I’m sure not all of our writers agree with that position. The pick’ems also picked Bella Sims, but by just a smidge over Jillian Cox and Katie Grimes.

34.1% went with Sims, or 170 votes. 30.9% chose Jillian Cox which was 154 votes, and 30.7% or 153 votes went with Katie Grimes. This was one of just two individual events with 499 responses. The other was the 200 IM. The rest of the votes went to Aurora Roghair, who earned 3.6% or 18 votes.

After the first place finishers, there was slightly more consensus about 2nd. 36.7% of people think Jillian Cox will finish 2nd overall, which is more than any athlete received for the first place spot.

Most Overall Consensus:

The women’s 100 fly had more than 90% of respondents agree on the top three places, and 68% of them agreed on 4th place overall.

Gretchen Walsh is the overwhelming favorite in the event, earning 97.8% of the votes, or 487 total. Only two other swimmers received votes for 1st place, Torri Huske, who got 2% of the vote or 10%. Ella Welch from Louisville also received one vote

The votes for the 2nd place position went to Torri Huske with 96.4% or 480 votes. Gretchen Walsh and Emma Sticklen also received votes in this position at. 1.8% and 1.6% respectively.

90.9% of responders think Emma Sticklen will finish 3rd, or 452 people. After Sticklen, Leah Shackley received 6.4% or 32 votes.

Relays:

Biggest Relay Favorite:

The Virginia women are the favorite for all five relays, but one of the relays stands out above the rest. The 400 medley relay received 99.8% of the responses to win the event, the most votes of any other event with 498 votes. Only one person voted for another team, and they voted for Louisville.

After Virginia, 57.4% or 286 people voted for Florida to finish 2nd. Tennessee received 20.5% of the vote with 102, and Texas received 19.9% or 99 votes.

Most Open Relay:

The only relay that less than 90% of respondents think will go to UVA is the 800 freestyle relay. Only 84.8% of the votes or 423 went to the Cavalier women. Tennessee has the 2nd most at 9.2%, and then they are followed by Stanford at 2.8% or Texas at 2.6%.

Tennessee is the favorite to take over if Virginia does not win, receiving 44.3% of the 2nd place votes. While this is more than any other team, it isn’t an overwhelming percentage with Texas receiving 28.8% and Stanford receiving 15.1%. It seems like everyone thinks this will be a close race for 2nd.