Could Nikoli Blackman Be Tennessee’s Next Male Sprint Star?

For the past two years, a freshman male sprint talent has emerged from the University of Tennessee. During the 2021-22 NCAA season, it was Jordan Crooks from the Cayman Islands. Crooks took the NCAA by storm at the 2022 SEC Championships, winning the 50 free and surpassing Caeleb Dressel to become the (then) fastest freshman ever in the event. Then, a year later it was Gui Caribe from Brazil. Caribe, like Crooks, wasn’t on the radars of many coming into the 2022-23 season, but then he went on to score 20 points at NCAAs and became a huge asset for Tennessee relays.

Headed into this upcoming NCAA season, we might already have an idea of who Tennessee’s next freshman sprint standout is. Once again, he’s an international swimmer from the Caribbean/South America region, and his name is Nikoli Blackman. Blackman is part of Tennessee’s class of 2027 and is set to come to Knoxville this fall.

Blackman, who represents Trinidad and Tobago internationally, showed his potential recently at the 2023 World Junior Championships. He first upset pre-meet favorite Flynn Southam to capture a gold medal in the 50 free with a time of 22.35, though he set his best time of 22.33 in the semi-finals. Then, he finished 6th in the 100 free final, setting another best time of 49.54. Those times converted to yards using SwimSwam’s Classic Converter are 19.41 and 43.90, which are pretty respectable for an incoming freshman.

Obviously, long course to short course conversions aren’t the most accurate, so we also converted his short course meters best times into yards—those conversions produce slightly slower but similar results.

Nickoli Blackman’s LCM To SCY Time Conversions:

Nickoli Blackman’s SCM To SCY Time Conversions:

Obviously, it’s hard to predict Blackman’s NCAA trajectory, as it is for all freshmen. But it’s worth noting that he’s faster than Crooks coming out of high school in both long course and short course (Crooks had pre-college PBs of 22.97/50.25 in long course and 22.02/49.47 in short course). In addition, his long course 50 free best time is right 0n Caribe’s high school best (22.35), though his 100 free time is nearly a second slower (Caribe’s high school best was 48.71).

Note: Caribe doesn’t have any short course meters times entered for him.

Blackman is also younger than Crooks was when he first came into the NCAA, as he just turned 18 on June 22 of this year. Meanwhile, Crooks and Caribe were both 19 when they arrived in Tennessee. That means that Blackman is already ahead of the curve in terms of the Tennessee improvement trajectory, though we know that being fast at a younger age doesn’t necessarily mean that a swimmer will continue to gain speed exponentially throughout the years.

Once again, it’s difficult to foresee how Blackman will end up in college. But given what Tennessee has done to other international male sprint recruits that came before him, he’s worth keeping an eye on.