How’s It Going? Reviewing Second-Year NCAA Head Coaches Seasons

It is NCAA retrospective season and today, our reviews of new (ish) Division I head coaches continues. We did a widespread review of the first-year head coaches last week. But it can take more than a year to truly settle into a position. So, with that in mind, we have narrowed the scope a bit to Power 4 and recent NCAA Championship-qualifying schools to see how the second-year head coaches are faring.

Michigan: Matt Bowe

Big 10 Championships Results:

asterisk denotes new conference structure

The Wolverines were performing well when we last checked in on these coaches, and that’s remained true for Michigan. Michigan went through plenty of upheaval for a few seasons after the pandemic, but Matt Bowe has helped steady the course during his first two years in Ann Arbor.

Most notably, the women’s team returned to the top 10 at the NCAA Championships in just two years of Bowe’s leadership. The team placed ninth in Federal Way, scoring 196 points and moving up from their 12^th place finish a year ago. Excellent sprint speed and relays pushed Michigan into the top 10. Plus, six women contributing individual points and all but one should be back next season. The performance also showed a team capable bouncing back after disappointment. Michigan was likely surprised to find itself in the thick of the team title race at the Women’s Big 10 Championships, but it would’ve still stung that a relay DQ took them out of the hunt.

The men’s team moved up at the NCAA Championships as well. After finishing 14^th in 2024 with 87.5 points, the Wolverine men scored 98.5 points in Federal Way, placing 11^th overall. Three men scored individually for Michigan—Gal Cohen Groumi, Colin Geer, and Tyler Ray.

While lots of coaches in this group are having positive competitive results – Bowe is clearly the standout.

Purdue: Alex Jerden

Big 10 Championships Results:

asterisk denotes new conference structure

The Boilermakers excelled during Alex Jerden’s second year at the helm. For the first time since 2021, both the Purdue men and women finished in the top 20 at the NCAA Championships. The women scored 53 points for an 18^th place finish, while the men scored 62 points for 17^th place.

Diving continued to be the driver for Purdue’s points at the NCAA Championships. The women’s team sent four divers to NCAAs, all of whom scored. Three of the four individual scorers for the men were divers, highlighted by Jordan Rzepka capping a decorated collegiate career with 36 points from two ‘A’ finals. But the Purdue men also had a scorer in the pool.

Brady Samuels was on fire all season, breaking program records in multiple events He made the ‘B’ final of the men’s 100 butterfly, becoming Purdue’s first All-American in a butterfly event since 2010. He took down the school record twice in Federal Way, first becoming the first man in program history to break 45 seconds (44.94), then swimming 44.87 in the final.

Kentucky: Bret Lundgaard

SEC Championships Results:

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When we checked in on the Wildcats halfway through Bret Lundgaard’s first season as head coach, Kentucky was still solidly in the rebuilding phase. Crucially, the Kentucky women had lost all of their NCAA scorers from the 2022-23 season. The Wildcat women are still certainly in that zone. They sent three athletes to the NCAA Championships, though they did not get on the board.

The men, however, jumped forward with a 20^th place finish at their NCAA Championships, the team’s best finish since 2010. The Wildcats sent four men to Federal Way and they earned three All-American honors, two top-eight finishes, and two program records.

Distance freestyle has developed into a strength for the Wildcat men. Carson Hick reached a new level this season, joining Levi Sandidge as an NCAA scorer for the Wildcats in the distance events. Hick scored in both the 1650 and the 500 freestyle. He placed sixth in the mile with a program record (14:30.35) and 11^th in the 500 after swimming 4:10.27 in the morning. After missing at last year’s NCAA Championships, Sandidge got back into the top 8 with a 14:31.08, slightly off the lifetime best 14:30.61 he swam for silver at the SEC Championships.

Princeton: Abby Brethauer

Ivy League Championships Results:

The Princeton women did not skip a beat when Abby Brethauer took over the program two seasons ago. In her first season, the Tigers won their second-straight women’s Ivy League Championship, a streak they extended to three in February, with Brethauer and her staff winning “Coaching Staff of the Year” honors.

The team’s success this season continued to the NCAA Championships. As one of the only mid-major schools that has qualified at least one relay to the big dance in the past couple of seasons, Princeton is consistently one of the biggest mid-major teams at the championships. They are still working on getting those relays to score in the Brethauer era, but the team took a step forward in the individual event front this season. Sophomores Eleanor Sun and Dakota Tucker made the 400 IM ‘B’ final, with Sun taking 12^th and Tucker 16^th. This marked the program’s first All-Americans since 2014 and the first time they had at least two in the same season since 2010.

Further, both move up the mid-major all-time rankings in the event—Sun to sixth and Tucker to tenth—giving the Tigers three women inside the top 10 in the event. Sun, the co-high point swimmer of the women’s Ivy League Championships, also moved up the top 10 in the 200 fly (5^th, 1:54.64), and 200 IM (5^th, 1:55.50).

Northwestern: Rachel Stratton-Mills

Big 10 Championships Results:

asterisk denotes new conference structure

Rachel Stratton-Mills took over as the Northwestern head coach when Katie Robinson departed for a position at Stanford. The Big 10 is dominated by much bigger swimming powerhouses than Northwestern, but the team still took major steps this season.

The men’s team’s postseason effort was the highlight of the season. After a Big 10 Championships where multiple swimmers were pushing each other to break program records set by Matt Grevers, the program’s greatest swimmer, four swimmers qualified individually for NCAAs for the first time since 2022. Further, the team qualified its first relays for the NCAA Championships since 2008, send the 400 free, 200 medley, and 400 medley relays.

The team peaked at the Big 10 Championships, but it was an important step in the young team’s growth for David Gerchik, Stuart Seymour, Tyler Lu, and Joshua Staples to gain experience racing on the NCAA’s biggest stage.

• Related: The Story Behind Northwestern Swimming’s Largest Men’s NCAA Contingent Since 2007

The women’s team sent six swimmers and one diver to the NCAA Championships after a ninth-place finish at the Women’s Big 10 Championships. Though they didn’t score any points at NCAAs either, they did finish 18^th in the 400 freestyle relay, just outside of scoring, breaking the four-year-old program record in the event.

Duke: Brian Barnes

ACC Championships Results:

asterisk denotes new conference structure

The Duke women got rolling quickly when Brian Barnes took over the program, while the men’s team is still building. By their 2023 midseason invitational, multiple women’s school records had fallen and swimmers like Kaelyn Gridley and Ali Pfaff were beginning to assert themselves.

The team faced a couple of setbacks this season as Sarah Foley, the team’s big scorer, graduated and Stanford and Cal both arrived in the ACC. Those teams’ presence at this year’s conference championships meant both the women’s and men’s teams fell from their 2024 placements, but Gridley has emerged as the next big star of the program. She scored 26 points at this year’s NCAA Championships from an eighth-place finish in the 100 breast (58.72) and fourth-place in the 200 breast (2:05.91).

Diver Margo O’Meara was the team’s only other individual point contributor among the Blue Devils’ seven-strong NCAA Championships squad as the team finished 21^st with 33 points.