2025 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships
- March 26-29, 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)
- Psych Sheet
- Eligible Relays
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Live Results
- Live Recaps
Following the first preliminary heats session of the 2025 NCAA championships, the Indiana men have broken a program record in four of five contested events. Those events were the 200 medley relay, 500 free, 200 IM and 50 free.
On opening night of the competition, the quartet of Luke Barr (20.65), Brian Benzing(22.65), Finn Brooks (19.49) and Matt King (18.13) combined for a time of 1:20.92, finishing fifth and breaking NC State’s Amercian record of 1:20.98 from 2024. In addition, the Hoosier relay squad broke its school record of 1:21.39 from the Big Ten Championships last month set by the same squad.
The record breaking continued into day two as Zalan Sarkany clocked a time of 4:09.22 to qualify for the ‘A’ final, breaking Marwan Elkamash‘s Indiana record of 4:10.87 from 2017. Next, Owen McDonald clocked a best time of 1:39.81, resetting his own Indiana and Big Ten record of 1:39.81. Finally, in the 50 free, Brooks went a time of 18.86 to break Van Mathias‘ Indiana record of 18.89 from 2023.
It’s worth noting that a big reason for Indiana’s record onslaught is that many of its stars are transfers. Both Sarkany and McDonald come from other programs, and none of their school records were personal best times.
Although the Hoosiers did not take down the program record in the 800 free relay, they still had a strong performance in the event, finishing in sixth place with a 6:06.76 and improving 4.63 seconds from its seed time.
When considering day one and day two of swimming prelims, Indiana is projected to have 102 points, outperforming its seed by 34 points. Even with Texas leading the projected scoring for day two swimming events, performances from Indiana during the first two days of NCAAs could boost its status as national title contenders, especially considering that it had two qualify for finals in the one-meter diving events.
This swim sets Sarkany up very well. His best (4:09.19) is from the 2024 Pac-12 final where he hooked on to Marchand in his 4:06.1 swim, dragging directly off Leon for the first 400.
Then, though not remembered as well as his win in the 1650, Zalan had a quite forgettable NCAA in his 500/400 IM events. He was 10th in the 500 prelim at 4:11.38, while the ‘A’ heat required a 4:11.11 (Hoagland), nearly 2 full seconds slower than Zalan had done at his conference meet. In the evening, Sarkany was even less effective, 12th at 4:13.13.
The pattern continued in the 400 IM where Sarkany was seeded into the meet at 3:40.50 but finished 17th at 3:41.94, 0.03… Read more »
Ray doesn’t coach Zalan. It’s mostly work done with distance coaches Cory Chitwood and Luke Ryan
I would expect that on an issue such as unorthodox suit choice, it would have to be at least run by Ray.
Go Hoosiers
Sarkany was like 0.04 off his PB or something, I’m pretty confident he can manage a small PB in finals.