Pre-Conference: How Does the Addition of Brooks Curry Impact Cal’s Relay Outlook?

Sophie Kaufman contributed to this report.

This is our third iteration of this article where we examine the relays of the teams contending for the men’s NCAA title next month. We started this series in early November when commenter Willswim asked if we could put together a chart like this, even though there has been lots of movement over the last few months.

Earlier today, Brooks Curry showed up on the ACC psych sheets as an addition to Cal’s roster for the conference championships next week. While Curry is not on the Cal roster, he is entered at ACCs in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle events. His appearance on the team shakes up quite a few of the relay placements, and could affect NCAA placement considerably.

Cal is not the only team that has seen changes, however. Florida lost senior Adam Chaney, who we had been including on our lists, to the transfer portal recently, and that shifted most of their relays back quite a bit. Some of the teams have also seen improved placement due to fast relay splits at meets in January that have affected the rankings.

We last looked at the relays back in December, when news of Caspar Corbeau heading to Indiana broke, along with updated splits from midseason meets.

Tables are organized from fastest to slowest, left to right. Relay splits are highlighted. Flat start times for non-lead-off legs aren’t filled and are noted with (FS).

200 Free Relay

This list saw one of the more significant changes with the addition of Curry and the removal of Chaney from Florida.

At the 2022 SEC Championships, Curry split 18.14 on the freestyle leg of the 200 medley relay, which was faster than the 18.85 from freshman Lucca Battaglini at the Minnesota Invite. Just the change in this split for Cal dropped their projected time from 1:14.18 to 1:13.47 and moved them up to first, just ahead of the 1:13.59 projection for Cal.

The opposite happened with Florida. We had Adam Chaney on the relay with his 18.26 split helping Florida to a projected first place finish, but without Chaney, their next fastest sprinter is Alex Painter at 18.64. This shifted Florida back into the third position, leaving ASU in 2nd.

Indiana and Texas did not shift at all, firmly standing in the 4th and 5th positions.

Not to be ignored is the Tennessee men, who might not be in the battle for the NCAA title, but could easily throw a wrench in this top five, particularly on the sprint relays with legs from Jordan Crooks and Gui Caribe.

400 Freestyle Relay:

The addition of Curry to this relay doesn’t change Cal’s predicted placement, it simply widens the margin by which they are on top. Curry doesn’t have a lot of rolling start relay splits in the 100 freestyle, and his flat start time is faster than his relay splits. His personal best of 40.84 would replace Matt Jensen’s flat start of 41.11, which improves the overall time by just under three tenths of a second, but they were already a second-and-a-half ahead of the field.

Their time also moves further under the NCAA record, with the record sitting at 2:43.40 from ASU last year, and their added time coming in at 2:42.68.

Florida moved down significantly in the rankings, dropping from 2nd back to 5th with their four fastest swimmers. Chaney had a recorded best split of 40.8, and he was replaced by Alex Painter, whose fastest relay split is 42.54.

Ilya Kharun went 41.03 to lead off the ASU relay at the Eddie Reese Showdown, which was enough to move ASU above Texas in the rankings by just over a tenth of a second. This means that, even though Florida shifted down, Texas’ spot doesn’t change.

Indiana didn’t see any changes, but they moved up a spot, thanks to Florida’s shift.

800 Freestyle Relay

The time difference between Curry and former 4th swimmer Robin Hanson is not incredibly significant, with Curry coming in just half-a-second faster with his flat start time. That half-a-second was enough, though, to move them into first over Texas by almost three tenths of a second.

It is worth noting that, in these predictions, three Cal swimmers and all four Texas swimmers have their flat start time making up their relay prediction. While generally relay starts are faster, it means that we could see a change in the way these relays actually shake out once all but the first swimmers are going from a relay start.

Both teams are also significantly under Cal’s 6:02.26 NCAA record from last year.

Florida potentially sees one relay change here from the way we have been predicting. So far, we have been putting Josh Liendo on this relay because he is over a second faster than any other potential swimmer, and Florida was supposed to win the medley relay with or without him. As we will see in a second, that is no longer the case, so Florida will likely move him off this relay in order to potentially win the medley. This moves freshman Alexander Painter on with his lifetime best of 1:34.11. With Liendo, the relay is predicted at 6:08.58. Without Lienod, they come in at 6:09.74. At last year’s NCAA championships, this time change would have made the difference between 8th and 11th or 22 points and 12 points.

ASU and Indiana see no changes from their midseason times, and are still predicted 3rd and 5th among these five teams respectively.

200 Medley Relay

This is where Florida’s decision comes in. At the beginning of the season when we worked out the relays, Florida won the relay with or without Liendo’s help, thanks in large part to Adam Chaney’s 20.19 backstroke leg. With this split, their time added up to 1:21.12, which would lead the NCAA this season. Without him, the backstroke leg goes to Jonny Marshall at 20.83. This is less than seven tenths of a second difference, but with how close this relay is right now, it moved Florida back into 5th place among these five teams at 1:21.76.

The original relay had Scotty Buff on the fly leg at 19.75. If we replace him with Liendo and his 18.97 50 fly split, the relay time drops down to 1:20.98, moving them up into 2nd. At last year’s NCAA Championships, 1:20.98 would have been 3rd and 32 points, and 1:21.76 would have been 5th at 28 points. Either way, the relay with Liendo will place significantly higher than the relay without him.

On the Cal side of things, Curry would replace Jack Alexy on this relay since he has a faster relay start time, which would put Alexy on only three relays at NCAAs because Bjorn Seeliger has the freestyle leg on the 400 medley relay with his 40.3 split. Curry isn’t the only big change here. At Cal and Stanford’s dual meet Yamato Okadome and Dare Rose both went new best splits, coming in at 23.06 and 19.68 respectively. Combined with Curry’s time, this moves Cal into the first predicted spot by two-one-hundredths of a second over Florida.

400 Medley Relay

Florida is the only relay with personnel changes here, replacing Chaney’s 40.9 with Painter’s 42.65. This raises their overall time from 2:57.77 to 2:59.52 and moves them back into third in these rankings with Indiana and Cal coming into first and 2nd.

Just like with Alexy, Crooks has not been faster than Seeliger’s 40.3 split, so this would be the one relay he doesn’t swim for the Golden Bears.

Texas only saw one change, but it was significant. At the Eddie Reese Showdown in January, Hubert Kos went 44.06 on the fly leg of the medley relay. This was almost 9 tenths faster than his flat start best time that we were using, and it singlehandedly moves Texas into first overall, one-one-hundredth ahead of Indiana at 2:59.09.

Indiana and ASU have not seen changes on this relay since our December rankings.