How Did We Do? Reviewing SwimSwam’s Final Men’s NCAA Power Rankings

The 2024 Men’s NCAA Championships came to a close on Saturday night with the Arizona State Sun Devils winning the program’s first-ever national championship title in dominant fashion.

Leon Marchand and co. were taking nothing for granted, but barring something drastic, the Sun Devils were not going to be denied the title this season. Too much firepower, too much depth.

There was a general consensus on which teams would finish in the top six in the overall standings, and our final Power Rankings ended up hitting those positions right on the money.

Things got murkier after that—two teams finished in the top 10 that we picked to place on the outside looking in, and several others in the 10-20 range either outperformed or underperformed relative to SwimSwam writers’ expectations.

(I would toot my own horn with my ballot being the most accurate, but my results in the Pick ’em contest cancel that out—though my team standing score did salvage a top 50 finish.)

2023-24 Men’s NCAA Power Rankings

• Pre-Season Edition
• November Edition
• December Edition
• January Edition
• Final Edition

Below, find the top 25 teams from the championships alongside our final edition of the Power Rankings, as we take a look at what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we got really wrong.

MEN’S NCAA RESULTS VERSUS SWIMSWAM PICKS

WHAT WE GOT RIGHT

• The top five spots were correctly predicted by our staff in the women’s meet, and this time we nailed the top six. No one had Indiana beating Florida, which they almost did, falling shy by just two points after the Gators outscored them by 16 in the 400 free relay. Florida also DQed a key relay.
• The only other position correctly predicted was Michigan in 14th, though Notre Dame was ranked below them and beat them, and Texas A&M was ranked above and finished below.

WHAT WE GOT WRONG – TOP 10

• Texas didn’t get as much of a diving boost as usual with zero ‘A’ finalists on the boards, but they still outperformed our expectations in taking 7th over Stanford. The Longhorns had six double-digit scorers, led by Luke Hobson‘s 43. The Cardinal had consistently solid relays, but only had three swimmers score individually and when we ranked them, we were surely banking on more than nine from Andrei Minakov. If it wasn’t for Jack Ryan‘s diving, Stanford would’ve slid to 9th.
• Virginia Tech had a sluggish start to the season—at least from an outside vantage point—and their rankings were all over the place, going as high as 8th pre-invite and as low as 14th pre-conference. We settled at 11th and they ended up cracking the top 10 in 9th, with all five relays placing in the top 10 and three of them in the top seven.
• The big top 10 miss in our rankings was Notre Dame. After a program-best 18th-place finish in 2023, the Fighting Irish battled to a breakthrough 10th-place showing in 2024, coming despite the loss of their top scorer last year, Jack Hoagland. Chris Guiliano was the big story for Notre Dame, scoring 45 points and leading the team to three top-10 relays, but Tommy Janton was also significant in scoring 17, snagging an ‘A’ final appearance in the 200 back.

OTHER SURPRISES

• Three teams in the top 20 made significant movement relative to our rankings coming in: Louisville, Texas A&M and SMU.
• Louisville wasn’t given a ton of credit, picked to finish 19th, but the Cardinals came through in 15th with three double-digit point scorers. That included Murilo Sartori, who didn’t score last season, and Ilia Sibirtsev, who didn’t qualify in either 2022 or 2023. Sibirtsev followed up a PB in the 1650 at ACCs by dropping an additional six seconds at NCAAs to finish 8th from the early heats.
• There was no consensus on Texas A&M coming in, with writer picks ranging from 8th to 13th. The Aggies ended up 15th, with relays falling short of any significant points. Baylor Nelson and diver Victor Povzner scored the lion’s share of their points.
• SMU was grossly underrated at 24th, as the Mustangs surged to 18th after transfers Hoagland (41) and Danny Kovac (14) delivered big points and the 800 free relay also got on the board.
• The other big mover relative to our rankings was USC, which was picked to finish 18th and ended up 22nd. Their divers chipped in, but maybe not as much as anticipated.

MOVING UP & MOVING OUT

• Three teams broke into the top 25 that we didn’t pick: Minnesota, LSU and Pitt.
• The Golden Gophers picked up 22 points from freshman diver YuTong Wang, who dazzled with a pair of ‘A’ final appearances in the springboard events. Bar Soloveychik also set personal bests in the 500 and 1650 free to total 18 points.
• For LSU it was predominantly Carson Paul, who scored 18 diving points. Croatian freshman Jere Hribar had an impressive NCAA debut, scoring in the 50 free.
• The writers were warned by one Spencer Penland that Pitt had the potential to surprise with their divers. No one picked them to finish in the top 25, but the Panthers tied for 24th behind 24 points from Cameron Cash, who was 4th on 3-meter and 9th on platform.
• The teams we ranked in the top 25 and fell short were Wisconsin, Arizona and BYU, picked to go 21-22-23.
• The Badgers (31st) failed to score in any relays and only sent three non-relay-only swimmers to the meet.
• Arizona (27th) didn’t score as much as expected in the relays (six points), though diver Gage Dubois (13 points) almost pushed them into the top 25.
• BYU (35th) was primarily relying on Jordan Tiffany to secure a top-25 spot, but they were overestimated by our writers. They scored just seven points (all Tiffany), but even if the Cougars matched their psych sheet total (17), they would’ve been 30th.

FINAL 2024 MEN’S NCAA STANDINGS

1. Arizona State — 523.5
2. Cal — 444.5
3. Florida — 378
4. Indiana — 376
5. NC State — 318
6. Tennessee — 231
7. Texas — 189
8. Stanford — 177
9. Virginia Tech — 172
10. Notre Dame — 132
11. Georgia — 116
12. Auburn — 100
13. Ohio State — 92
14. Michigan — 87.5
15. Louisville — 84
16. Texas A&M — 81
17. Virginia — 80.5
18. SMU — 59
19. Alabama — 56
20. Minnesota — 40
21. Florida State — 34
22. USC — 31
23. Purdue — 25
24. LSU / Pitt — 24
25. —
26. Miami (FL) — 21
27. Missouri / Arizona — 19
28. —
29. Towson — 18
30. Penn — 17
31. Wisconsin — 16
32. Brown — 11
33. UNC — 9
34. Penn St — 8
35. BYU — 7
36. Utah — 6
37. George Washington — 3
38. Northwestern — 1