After spending his freshman season with Texas, Finn Winkler has entered the transfer portal. Winkler has three years of eligibility remaining.
Winkler committed to Texas in February 2023 and arrived this past fall. Most of his season best times came from midseason last November. At midseason, he swam personal best times in the 50 (20.40), 100 (44.52), and 200 (1:37.78) freestyles. Primarily an IMer and backstroker arriving to Texas, Winkler began to focus on the freestyle events.
Finn swam a personal best time of 1:49.21 in prelims to finish 18th at the 2024 Big 12 Championships. He went on to finish his season at the Lonestart Last Chance at Texas A&M. There he swam times of a 44.65 in the 100 free and a 1:40.15 in the 200 free.
Winkler’s best SCY times are:
- 50 free: 20.40
- 100 free: 44.52
- 200 free: 1:37.78
- 200 IM: 1:49.21
- 100 back: 49.39 (high school)
Finn is the older brother of Kaii Winkler who is committed to NC State for this upcoming fall. Kaii is currently the #1 recruit in the class of 2024. Unlike speculation, Texas did not land the commitment from Kaii as some thought Finn’s commitment may bring in Kaii a year later as well.
Finn was one of 10 freshmen for the Longhorns this past season. Head coach Eddie Reese retired this offseason and was replaced by Bob Bowman who was announced as the Director of Swimming on April 1st.
The transfer portal closes for men’s swimming and diving tomorrow, May 3rd. Athletes who enter the transfer portal do not have to transfer schools. Instead, it allows for them to come in contact with other coaches about the potential of transferring.
Wow some these comments are horrible. He’s a talented 18 yr old. Eddie saw something and it has nothing to do with Kai who committed before hand. Each coach has a vision and sometimes roster changes happen. Best of luck in finding the best spot for yourself Finn!
He definitely got cut on Bob’s birthday, as is the way.
Very Game of Thrones
The comments here make me sad for humanity. He is a hard working young person who is being erroneously judged on swim times alone. There is even speculation that he may have academic problems. Do you all know him personally? It is hurtful to say things like he was recruited just so his brother would go there. He is a nice person and we wish him the very best wherever he ends up. He deserves to be where he will be happy and thrive.
Relax lmao. He nepo’d his way to a spot he didn’t deserve and it’s simply self correcting.
i mean are they wrong? his times are nowhere near Texas standards and he was quite literally recruited to sweeten the pot for his brother lol
Actually, I looked up the 23-24 season stats for UT Austin (see link here: https://texassports.com/ documents/2024/1/5/MSD_2023-24_Top_Performances.pdf). If Finn was neither a top performer in any of them, nor, with one exception (the 100 IM which appears to have been a one-off event against Va) was he the slowest in any of the events in which he participated, and it’s worth pointing out that in most cases, those who were slower were at least one year ahead of him, including one 5th year. So while Finn may not have been one of Texas’ biggest point scorers, his times were clearly still competitive enough for him to be a fit for the team, and as a… Read more »
https://www.swimcloud.com/team/105/roster/?page=1&gender=M&season_id=27&sort=perf
As respectfully as possible, you’re just incorrect. The only person he’s above when you sort the roster by points on swimcloud is Nathan Quarterman who didn’t swim past October (and is most certainly better). Eddie and some other coaches do take kids like this, but that doesn’t mean they can keep up with the team, they do it because they want to give it a shot.
Very few people have a good sense of Texas’s FULL ROSTER times. They traditionally carry large squad (like 30+) and some of the bottom tier swimmers are not what most think of as “Texas fast.”
Wow the comments are vicious.
🦁💪🏼🥇
Heard today from a parent of a Texas swimmer that some boys did not get their D1 scholarship renewed.
Bowman era has arrived!
This wouldn’t be a novel thing to occur in any program, including at Texas during the Reese era.
lol those times ain’t gonna cut it at at Texas now lol. I hear ASUs lookin
Maybe this has nothing to do with his athletic performance or the coaching situation. Could this have anything to do with academic performance?
college is hard