Men’s Recruiting Class Rankings Revisited: Top 12 Schools For 2017-2021

Every summer, we rank down the top recruiting classes snagged by each team. But what do those rankings look like four years later, when each swimmer has had an opportunity to complete a full NCAA career of competing and scoring?

We’ve already looked back at our top 20 individual athletes in the high school graduating class of 2017, ranked when they were high school juniors in the summer of 2016. Now it’s time to look back at our team-by-team recruiting class rankings to see which teams got most from their recruiting hauls.

• Revisiting Recruiting Ranks: Top 20 Athletes From High School Class of 2017

Back in July of 2017, we ranked out the top 12 recruiting classes nationwide. You can look back on our ranks here:

• #9-#12
• #5-#8
• #1-#4

We’ve republished each of the 12 classes below, verbatim from how they were listed in our 2017 post. Then we tracked down some stats on each class, plus a short analysis of each class along with any extra swimmers who wound up being part of the class.

Bear in mind that international swimmers throw a wrinkle into this sort of analysis, given the difficulty in projecting ahead of time when an international recruit will join an NCAA program and officially start their eligibility.

Note: The ‘number of NCAA Scorers’ section refers only to individual scorers, and only among athletes included in our original recruiting class rankings. Late additions to the classes are noted when we can find them.

*Special 2020 note: with the 2020 NCAA Championships canceled, any 2020 references below refer to psych sheet scoring, including the team finish, marked with an asterisk.

#12: SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS

Top-tier additions: Brandonn Almeida (Brazil – IM), Rafael Davila (Canada – distance free)
The rest: AJ Ross, Tamas Novoszath, Grant Summers (diver)

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 17th, 27th, *23rd*, —
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 1 (Almeida)

South Carolina’s big get was the Brazilian sensation Almeida. But he only competed in the NCAA for one season, scoring 15 points as a freshman.

#11: GEORGIA BULLDOGS

Top-tier additions: #4 Camden Murphy (MI – fly), Youssef Abdalla/Youssef Said (UAE – back), Tal Davis (SC – free/IM)
The rest: Joshua Fulcher, Greg Reed, Billy Rothery, Cade Anderson, Teagan Cheney, Aaron Apel

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 10th, 18th, *17th*, 4th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 3 (Murphy, Reed, plus transfer Jack Dalmolin)

Murphy was a brilliant college swimmers, scoring 55 points between just his sophomore and senior seasons. (He didn’t score as a freshman but was seeded to score 17 in the canceled junior year NCAAs). Reed scored in two seasons.

#10: ARIZONA STATE SUN DEVILS

Top-tier additions: #7 Grant House (OH – free/IM), Jack Dalmolin (GA – breast/IM)
The rest: Cristian Musterait, Dylan Boyd, Evan Kolde, Joshua Vedder, Will Brenton, Graham Hauss, Aaron Beauchamp

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 20th, 21st, *7th*, N/A
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 1 (House)

House scored 9.5 points between his freshman and sophomore seasons. He redshirted in 2020, and then the entire program redshirted in 2021, and it’s unclear how many more years House will compete at the college level. Arizona State also would have likely added Carter Swift as a scorer in this class – he was seeded with 12 points in 2020. Dalmolin didn’t score for ASU, but scored for Georiga later in his career, post-transfer.

#9: VIRGINIA TECH

Top-tier additions: Lane Stone (VA – distance free), Thomas Hallock (VA – sprint free/breast), Connor Doyle (PA – IM/back)
The rest: Sam Tornqvist, Alex Hines, Lasse Pittioni, Gershwin Greene, Alex McMurray

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 33rd, 35th, *17th*, 11th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 1 (Tornqvist)

You can see the huge rise in NCAA finish over this group’s four years. Tornqvist scored 5 points individually as a senior.

#8: LOUISVILLE CARDINALS

Top-tier additions: Spencer Carl (MI – fly), #18 Nick Albiero (KY – fly/back)
The rest: TC Smith, Michael Hampel, Daniel Pinto (diver)

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 9th, 5th, *10th*, 5th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 3 (Albiero plus Evgenii Somov & Daniel Sos)

This crew never finished lower than 9th in an NCAA meet, including a pair of 5th-place showings. Albiero was one of the top scorers in the entire class, putting up 110 individually with another 50+ projected in 2020. Somov scored 42 individually. Sos scored 2 as a sophomore.

#7: INDIANA HOOSIERS

Top-tier additions: Bruno Blaskovic (Croatia – sprint), Nikola Miljenic (Croatia – sprint), Gabriel Fantoni (Brazil – back), Corey Gambardella (CT – fly), Spencer Lehman (IN – IM)
The rest: Gary Kostbade, Gage Hamill, Griffin Eiber, Jacob Steele, Thomas Vanderbrook, Matthew Jerden, Brock Brown

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 3rd, 3rd, *4th*, 6th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 4 (Blaskovic, Fantoni, Steele plus Andrew Capobianco)

Another group with outstanding team finishes in all of their NCAA meets. Capobianco was one of the most productive athletes in the class, scoring 94 points. He could have another year left after a 2020 redshirt. Fantoni scored as a sophomore and senior, but was a relay factor even as a freshman. Blaskovic scored just one individual point, coming in his freshman year. He was seeded to score 38.5 in the canceled 2020 meet and would likely have scored big in 2021 had he not been a late-season scratch.

#6: NC STATE WOLFPACK

Top-tier additions: Giovanni Izzo (Italy – sprint), Gil Kiesler (Israel – distance free), Eric Knowles (Ohio – IM), Noah Hensley (FSU transfer – back), Jacob Molacek (Auburn transfer – sprint free/breast)
The rest: Daniel Forndal, Jacob Johnson, Ray Van Deusen, Luke Sobolewski

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 4th, 4th *8th*, 8th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 3 (Knowles, Izzo, Molacek)

Molacek was actually a Class of 2014 high school grad who had a transfer and a gap year in his college career. He scored and won several NCAA relay titles with NC State. Izzo could still have more eligibility left. Knowles scored as a sophomore.

#5: USC TROJANS

Top-tier additions: Robert Glinta (Romania – back), Nikita Tretyakov (FL – back), #8 Jake Sannem (PA – free), Justin Nguyen (CA – free)
The rest: N/A

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 6th, 20th, *30th*, 27th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 2 (Glinta, plus transfer Nikola Miljenic)

Glinta was a freshman star who scored 14 points and broke 45 in the 100 back. But he turned pro after one college season. Sannem transferred out, but did eventually score big for Texas. Attrition was brutal on this group – in fact, not a single one of these four were on the roster as of this past year. Miljenic was the only true senior, scoring a few points this year after transferring from Indiana.

#4: STANFORD CARDINAL

Top-tier additions: #3 Matthew Hirschberger (MD – distance free), #14 Alex Liang (CA – IM), #13 Brennan Pastorek (GA – IM/breast)
The rest: Alberto Mestre, Glen Cowand, Johannes Calloni, Jordan Greenberg

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 7th, 15th, *27th*, 14th
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 3 (Liang, Calloni, Pastorek)

Liang scored in both his sophomore and senior seasons. Calloni tied him for the team lead with 9 individual points, all put up in his sophomore year. Pastorek scored as a freshman and was seeded to score again as a junior.

#3: FLORIDA GATORS

Top-tier additions: #5 Michael Taylor (GA – back), Gerry Quinn (Ireland – free), Clark Beach (VA – back/IM), Ethan Beach (VA – back), Grant Sanders (Arizona transfer – IM/free)
The rest: Erge Gezmis, Tate Callahan, Marty Stange, Santi Corredor

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 5th, 6th, *3rd*, 3rd
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 2 (Beach, Sanders)

Florida’s superstar recruit in this class, Taylor, had his career pressed by medical issues, but this class still spanned a great run inside the NCAA’s top 6. Beach scored 25 points between his sophomore and senior seasons, and probably had a dozen or more points to score in the canceled junior-year meet. Gezmis was a solid NCAA contributor and bubble NCAA swimmer as a freshman before transferring to NC State, where he was a relay contributor and NCAA qualifier.

#2: TEXAS LONGHORNS

Top-tier additions: #6 Austin Katz (FL – back/free), #10 Chris Yeager ( – distance free), #12 Sam Pomajevich (VA – fly/free), Parker Neri (OH – free)
The rest: JohnThomas Larson, Colter Carman, Luke Bowman, Braedyn Ringgold, Jordan Windle (diver)

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 1st, 2nd, *1st*, 1st
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 6 (Windle, Katz, Pomajevich, plus transfers Jake Sannem, Alvin Jiang, Chris Staka)

Windle turned out to be the #1 scorer in this class, putting up 45+ points in all three of his NCAA meets. He’ll get one more year to add to that total, as he’s suggested he wants to take advantage of extra NCAA eligibility. Katz scored big, including one individual NCAA title and two relay titles. Pomajevich scored huge as a rookie, then slumped as a sophomore, but returned to scored 20 again as a senior. Yeager never scored, but was an NCAA invitee in multiple seasons. He was a roster cap casualty as a junior.

The Longhorns added plenty of points via transfer, too: UNC transfer Alvin Jiang scored 31 as a senior. USC transfer and former top-20 recruit Sannem scored 15 in his senior year. Alabama-to-Texas transfer Chris Staka scored 10.

#1: CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEARS

Top-tier additions: #1 Ryan Hoffer (AZ – sprint everything), #2 Sean Grieshop (TX – IM/distance free), #11 Bryce Mefford (CA – free/back/IM), #15 Trenton Julian (CA – IM/fly/free), #16 Daniel Carr (CO – back/IM)
The rest: Jackson Gabler (diver), James Daugherty, Jarod Hatch, Nate Biondi

• NCAA finishes over 3* years: 2nd, 1st, *2nd*, 2nd
• Number of NCAA scorers in class: 7 (Hoffer, Julian, Grieshop, Mefford, Carr, plus transfers Hugo Gonzalez, Zach Yeadon)

This was an incredible group that, frankly, made our recruit rankings look good. All five of Cal’s top-20 recruits scored and scored big. None of the five scored less than 70 points over three seasons. All five scored in all three NCAA meets they took part in. And all five finished in the top eight across the entire class in individual scoring. Hoffer scored 131.5 and won a class-leading 4 NCAA titles individually. Carr (70 points) won an NCAA relay title. So did Biondi.

Julian scored 96, including 48 as a senior and had 33 psych sheet points in the canceled season. Grieshop scored 90. Mefford scored 78. Cal also added transfer Hugo Gonzalez, who scored 42 as a senior and may have another year or two of eligibility, if he chooses to take it. Yeadon scored 34 over two seasons with Notre Dame followed by 22 in one NCAA meet with Cal.

RE-RANKING THE CLASSES

Certainly, individual points don’t encapsulate everything a recruiting class brings to a program over four years. But they are the easiest way to rank the classes against each other four years later. Here’s a look at all the classes represented, ranked by individual points from all swimmers in this graduating class:

And our new top 12, purely in terms of individual NCAA points:

The far left column tracks each swimmer’s final rank within the class. The next column tracks their individual ranking in our top 20 recruits post. HM means “honorable mention.” UNR means “unranked” and INTL means “international”, as we don’t rank international swimmers in our top 20 post. “DIVE” refers to divers, also not ranked in our top 20 lists.

In the case of transfers, we’ve only awarded points to the school that the athlete earned while at that school – so a swimmer who transferred after two years will have their first two year’s worth of point totals count for their original school and their next two years for their second school.

#1: Cal (-)

#2: Texas (-)

#3: Louisville (+5)

#4: Indiana (+3)

#5: Ohio State (+)

#6: Georgia Tech (+)

T-#7: Michigan (+)

T-#7: Arizona (+)

#9: Georgia (+2)

#10: Miami(+)

T-#11: Notre Dame (+)

T-#11: Purdue (+)