Reviewing SwimSwam’s 2025 NCAA Event Predictions – Men’s Edition

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)
• Live Results
• Final Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4

The NCAA Championships are arguably the most unpredictable meets of the year, but we do our best to forecast what’s to come in each event before chaos takes over on two Wednesday nights every March.

In the men’s meet, we correctly picked seven of the eight ‘A’ finalists (or top eight finishers) in nine of the 18 swimming events, while we went a perfect 8/8 three times and 6/8 five times, with our worst showing coming in the 400 IM (5/8).

Overall, in our previews, we picked 122 of 144 ‘A’ finalists or top eight finishers correctly (84.72%), which is significantly better than we did in the women’s meet (107/144 or 74.31%).

Below, find our top eight picks in each event, along with where the swimmer/relay team ended up finishing. We’ve also included who finished in the top eight we didn’t predict under “Moving In,” and the number in the bottom right of each event indicates how well we did in picking the top eight.

• See all of our picks at the SwimSwam Preview Index here.

200 Medley Relay

800 Free Relay

500 Free

200 IM

50 Free

200 Free Relay

100 Fly

400 IM

200 Free

100 Breast

100 Back

400 Medley Relay

1650 Free

200 Back

100 Free

200 Breast

200 Fly

400 Free Relay

TAKEAWAYS

• Georgia and Stanford were the two teams that outperformed expectations the most in terms of landing swimmers in the ‘A’ final or securing top-eight relay finishes, with both teams earning a trio of them that we didn’t predict.
• The Bulldogs placed two relays in the top eight that we didn’t predict: the 200 and 400 medley relays, where they finished 8th and 6th, respectively (in the 200 medley, they initially finished 9th before Florida was disqualified). Ruard van Renen also placed 7th in the 200 back after he wasn’t picked to be an ‘A’ finalist (van Renen was also 3rd in the 100 back after he was picked 6th).
• The Cardinal had senior Ron Polonsky step up and make the ‘A’ final in the 200 IM and 100 breast, finishing 5th in both after he wasn’t picked to make the top eight in either. Stanford sophomore Henry McFadden also claimed 8th in the 200 free after he was predicted to be on the outside looking in.
• Louisville placed Denis Petrashov and Jacob Eccleston in the 200 breast ‘A’ final after neither was predicted to crack it.
• Strictly looking at event winners, our previews correctly picked 12 of 18, with four of our predicted winners finishing 2nd. We also picked Owen McDonald to win the 100 back (ended up 6th) and David Johnston to win the 1650 free (ended up 7th).
• The swimmers we picked to make the ‘A’ final who missed earning a second swim altogether were Nate Germonprez in the 200 IM (31st), Gabriel Jett in the 500 free (30th), Oleksandr Zheltiakov in the 200 back (30th), Connor Foote in the 100 free (25th) and Jack Hoagland in the 400 IM (19th).