Psych vs Actual: How Do Men’s Teams Typically Perform at NCAAs (2026 Edition)

2026 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• Dates: Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28
• Location: McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
• Defending Champions: Texas (1x)
• Championship Central
• Updated Psych Sheets (3/22)
• Live Results
• Live Video
• Scored Psych Sheets

The 2026 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships start tomorrow, and, SwimSwam is trying to analyse where teams will finish based on past performances.

A few weeks ago, we scored out the psych sheets, predicting where teams would place with no diving and if every team swam their exact placement. This can be helpful for understanding teams who might be in the race for the top of the podium, but it leaves out a few pieces.

On top of that, there have been a few scratches since that former psych sheet was scored, primarily from Georgia’s Luca Urlando, who pulled out of the meet last week due to a “minor injury”. Andrew Mering rescored the psych sheet without Urlando’s individual points (thank you Andrew), and the Georgia men have dropped a few places in their seeded rankings. They will likely drop a few more during the actual meet due to the fact that all for of their scoring relays are seeded with times swum with Urlando.

Here are the updated psych sheet scores:

Based on these results, the Texas men are projected to win the meet by about 100 points over the next highest team, ASU. How do these teams typically perform at NCAAs, though, and how will that impact the final results?

SwimSwam has compiled all the data since the 2022 NCAA Championships, looking at a teams projected psych sheet scoring vs their actual scoring (without diving). While this method can be helpful, it can’t predict everything. DQs happen every year, and that will always impact the way a team’s net score looks.

The men’s teams in particular have a lot more volatility in their overall performances than the women, and we can see some major swings on both ends of the spectrum, which will impact team score.

In 2025, California had the biggest point increase from psych sheet to final, adding 178 points to their predicted score. This was their 2nd straight year with more than 100 points added to their psych sheet score, and in the seven meets since 2018, they have added more than 100 points five times. Their 2025 increase was the largest they have ever seen with only their 2019 increase of 158 points coming over 150.

Cal graduated a large number of seniors and are currently projected to finish 7th at the meet without diving with 217 points. If we add 100 to that total, they are looking at a race for 3rd with Indiana and Florida, though a lot of their roster will be swimming their first NCAA Championships, which could impact performance.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Florida Gator men. They typically perform worse than their seed, and over the last three years, they have been more than 50 points off their psych sheet score. 2025 was their biggest deficit in the years we have tracked with -108 points. This is a big jump from the -69 they scored in 2024 and the -66.5 they scored in 2023. Just like we mentioned above, this doesn’t tell the whole story. Florida had a big drop in points on the first night of competition when they DQd their 200 medley relay, which initially won the gold. Those 40 points would have moved them up to -68, which is slightly better than they scored in 2024.

Other notable performances came from the Texas men, who had -17 points for their first negative performance since we started tracking. Indiana (+50.5), and Georgia (+73.5) both had really strong performances in 2025. If Indiana can add those points again this year before diving, they could challenge Texas and ASU for the top of the podium.

ASU typically performs close to their seed, last year coming in at +3, an improvement from 2024 (-14.5), and in line with 2023 (+3.5).

After Florida, Michigan had the 2nd biggest drop at -34.5 from their seed. This was a little more than their -15.5 drop in 2024, but was better than the -49 they dropped in 2023 and the -56 they dropped in 2022. They haven’t increased from their seed while we have been tracking.

While this is a fun exercise, all the predicting and analyzing in the world can’t account for the fact that coaches and athletes are human and a bad night’s sleep or a bad airport meal could significantly impact athlete performances in a way we can’t predict. It is safe to bet that Cal will improve from their psych sheet scoring. If Indiana improves at the same rate as the last few years, they will be a strong contender for 2nd, and could move into 1st with diving and a drop from Texas.