2026 Ivy League Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships
- Dates: Wednesday, February 25–Saturday, February 29
- Location: DeNunzio Pool, Princeton, New Jersey
- Defending Champions: Princeton men (1x)
- Teams: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale
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Princeton standout Mitchell Schott will move to Austin to train under University of Texas coach Bob Bowman after completing his senior season and graduating from Princeton.
Schott set the Ivy League Record in the 200 IM in 1:40.93 on Thursday, and both he and head coach Matt Crispino confirmed in interviews that Schott would go train with Bowman, who has become a magnet for the many of the country’s best swimmers.
He has said in several interviews that among his goals is making the 2028 US Olympic Team.
Schott was a huge commitment for Princeton when he announced it in the summer of 2021 – arguably the best American recruit in modern history for the program. He lived up to that hype, winning three Ivy League Championships in his junior season last year and qualifying for the NCAA Championships. He just missed an individual All-America honor by finishing 17th in the 200 IM at NCAAs.
This week, he has secured his spot at NCAAs in spades. He split 1:30.30 on a flying start as part of Princeton’s Ivy League Record in the 800 free relay on Wednesday, then winning and breaking the Ivy League Record in the 200 IM on Thursday.
The United States’ top two in the 200 IM from 2025 Carson Foster and Shaine Casas both train at Texas, as does the World Champion and World Record holder Leon Marchand.
In the 200 free, Texas was represented at Worlds by Luke Hobson, who won the silver medal. Schott’s other primary event, the 200 fly, is of course one where Bowman first rose to fame as the coach of the World Record holder Michael Phelps. He also put Caron Foster on the American World Championship team in that event last summer.
The Princeton men took a big lead on day 2 of the Ivy League Championships.
Scores After Day 2
- Princeton – 541
- Yale – 459.5
- Harvard – 376.5
- Columbia / Brown – 305
- –
- Cornell – 281
- Dartmouth – 226
- Penn – 196
This guy is a great relay swimmer..at worlds university games we saw his relay ability..as a non 100 free specialist going 48 .0 and low in all his relay swims is not a joke and leading off the 800 free relay with 1.46.0 was amasing..
Princeton people, what do you think of the line, “arguably the best American recruit in modern history for the program”? Who else is in that conversation?
Probably fair to adjust this for era, but I think the easy and obvious answer is Nelson Diebel. There was no SwimSwam in the early 90s, but he was clearly one of the best recruits in the country (not sure if he set high school records at the time, but his times at Peddie were very fast) and then won gold at the 92 Olympics.
Of course, Diebel only swam at Princeton for one year and wasn’t even the fastest 100y breaststroker on the roster, but as a *recruit* hard to put anyone above him.
Dan Veatch – 1988 US Olympian in 200 back.
I bet he makes it in the 4×200 free relay at least. So hyped for him
He’s not making an Olympic team lmfaooo
Damn so you’re saying he’s got a chance???
Damn now we know he will!
Bold commenting the day after yesterday’s article on Josh Bey
Braden has saved this newest post for a future 2028 article…
Great move for Schott and excited to see what he does after his Princeton career. I think an important point – Mitch is pretty young for his year, having just turned 21 this past fall. He still seems like he has a lot of development left to go.
Just wanting to be realistic, what events will he qualify in? 2im is foster, casas, 4im is foster, finke, maurer, 2free good luck, 2fly urlando, foster, and not to mention all the other Texas guys in this same range of events.
U never know tho
He was 1:46.0 last summer at age 20. What time do you think it’s going to take to make the relay or get top 2? 1:45.0, 1:44.5?
He has about 2 years to find 1-1.5 seconds.
He’s had a remarkably steady improvement curve and is already almost there in the 2Fr
800 free relay. His swims on the relay at WUGs this summer were comparable to what the guys on the worlds team were doing. His 130.3 relay split puts him in the ballpark. Two years of just training under Bowman without dealing with a Princeton course load as he hits the age that is prime for a lot of male swimmers? It isn’t a pipe dream for him to make it.
A lot can happen in two years. Should he just quit because it’s not going to be easy?
He was also a 48.1 flying split at WUGs on the 4×100. 3:41 400 in SCM this fall? That’s a great trajectory.
Ivy League to Austin pipeline going strong. Farris, Kelly, Schott
The Texas pro group is so filthy. The current swimmers in it, then add Schott, Nelson (presumably) and Kos. I’d say Johnston too, but waiting to see what’s up with that
Farris was in Texas? Dean Farris? Bro how did I not know that
Wayyyy back when
Just summers if I remember correctly. But the connection stands.
Dean had redshirted 2019-2020 to train full time at Texas. Then pandemic, etc. so he was there 2020-21 too.
It could be argued that gold medalist Nelson Diebel was the biggest recruit in Princeton history – but still, huge get
I was gonna say! And yeah, they pull bigger recruits all the time. But his development the past few years is something to see.