Revisiting NCAA Recruit Rankings: Men’s High School Class of 2020

Each summer, college swimming fans look forward to recruiting – the lifeblood of any NCAA swim program. Since 2012, we’ve been ranking down the top NCAA prospects in the nation from each recruiting class. But sports are inherently unpredictable, and even the most sure-fire prospect can go awry or completely change their role over four years.

As we do each year, we’ll look back at the high school class of 2020, which just finished four years of college eligibility this spring.

First, a few notes:

• Most of the data we’re tracking here deals with NCAA scoring. Obviously, some swimmers are great assets for their teams in dual meets and conference competition without ever being national factors. While we don’t discount the impact of those types of swimmers, the difference in competition between various teams’ dual meet schedules and conference meets makes NCAA scoring the best “apples to apples” comparisons between swimmers.
• Relays are another point of contention, as a swimmer in a strong program has more opportunity for NCAA relays, though they also have more competition for those relay spots. We’ve left relay results out of the data below, except where specifically indicated. That, too, gives us a more fair comparison between athletes.
• We don’t rank diving recruits, but we have started to track individual diving scoring, which is helpful in determining how much of an impact a diver is likely to have on NCAA finish.
• We did our best to scour NCAA results over the past four-plus years, but it’s certainly possible we made a mistake in compiling our data. If you spot an error, please respectfully let us know in the comment section so we can update our work!

2024 Note: Due to swimmers being granted an extra year of eligibility after the 2020 NCAA cancelation, some of these athletes may still have years of scoring still to come.

We only include domestic recruits in our recruit rankings, as it’s often harder to predict if and when an international recruit will join the NCAA, and which class they should be ranked with. However, we’ve gone back through and tallied up all individual scorers that roughly fit into this class – international and domestic.

REVISITING OUR TOP 20

Check out this post for our analysis of the top 20 recruits in the high school class of 2020. This class was just the second in which we did a re-rank for the swimmers when they were high school seniors (previously the final rankings were done during their junior years only). Since the re-rank gives us the best gauge of where the athletes were coming into the NCAA, and therefore we get a better idea of who improved the most during their time in college, we’re using the re-ranked top-20 rather than the original rankings from their junior seasons.

Here’s a look at our top 20 recruits, plus how many individual points they scored at NCAAs in each of their four years:

Note: we’ve made an effort to put a dash (–) in a season in which an athlete didn’t compete (or was cut short due to injury) rather than “no invite”. If you see an error please let us know in the comments.

The Hits:

• Carson Foster was elite through three seasons before opting to turn pro with two years of eligibility remaining. Although he never got that elusive individual NCAA title, Foster still went nine for nine in ‘A’ finals and ranks 3rd in the class despite sitting out this past season.
• Luca Urlando has not returned to college swimming since 2022, when the swimmer known for his 200 fly prowess stunned everyone by setting a new American, NCAA and U.S. Open Record in the 100 back. Injury knocked him out of his junior season and it’s unknown if he’ll be back in the NCAA after the Olympic summer.
• Talk about consistency – Jake Magahey scored 32 points in three consecutive seasons after putting up 42 as a freshman. Magahey hasn’t reached the heights of his 4:06.7 at SECs and then NCAA title victory in the 500 free in 2021, but been a reliable contributor for Georgia throughout his career.
• Destin Lasco was our #5 ranked recruit coming out of high school but comes away with the #1 ranking with a bullet, scoring 208 points (52 points per year) over four seasons at Cal. Incredibly, his 5th-place finish in the 100 back in 2024 was his lowest individual showing in his four-year career. On top of the individual success, Lasco was a lynchpin on Cal relays, always coming up clutch when called upon.
• Other top-10 recruits scoring big points were sprinters Matt Brownstead and Adam Chaney, and mid-distance freestylers Jake Mitchell and Coby Carrozza. Chaney’s individual point total doesn’t factor in the impact he had on Florida’s recent run of relay success, and Mitchell’s points have all come over the last two years following his transfer from Michigan to the Gators.
• Luke Miller straddled between the 200 free and 100 fly in previous seasons, but zeroed in on the latter this season and it paid off with a 3rd-place finish at NCAAs while joining the sub-44 club. More than half of his point total came from this past season.
• Similar to Longhorn teammate Foster, David Johnston was a standout before sitting out of 2023-24 (redshirt), punching above his ranking with 105 points over three seasons. As a junior, Johnston made three ‘A’ finals, including a runner-up finish in the 500 free and a 4th-place finish in the mile.
• Honorable Mention recruit Dare Rose has shown he’s better to the long course pool than he is in SCY, but still scored 62.5 points for Cal with 50.5 of those coming in his upperclass seasons. A three-time medalist at the 2023 World Championships for Team USA, including individual bronze in the 100 fly, Rose’s best NCAA finish came this past season when he was the runner-up in the 200 fly.

The Misses:

• #4 Wyatt Davis missed Big Tens and NCAAs in his sophomore year after returning home to focus on mental health, and missed the entire 2023-24 campaign due to a doping (cannabis) suspension. In his freshman and junior seasons, Davis performed well for Michigan at Big Tens, but never managed to crack individual points at NCAAs.
• #8 Ethan Hu set best times at his debut NCAAs in the fly events, scoring in the 100, but never went faster or earned an NCAA invite in the past three seasons.
• Six recruits in the 11-20 range didn’t score at NCAAs, though all earned at least one invite in their careers.

OTHER IMPACTFUL RECRUITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2020

Of course, not every contributor comes from our top 20 list. Some swimmers develop extremely well in college. Some swimmers slip under our radar, or don’t prove to be late bloomers once they hit the NCAA.

We dug through NCAA results to find the best American swimmers from this class to not appear on our top 20 list. Again, it’s not always easy to account for redshirt years, gap years or mistakes in an athlete’s listed class each season. So if we forgot anyone, please let us know in the comments.

DOMESTIC

Standouts:

• Charlie Clark slashed more than 20 seconds off his best time in the 1650 free at his debut Big Tens and never looked back, consistently chipping in points for Ohio State throughout his career while also representing the U.S. at two World Championships after being an unranked recruit.
• Virginia’s Noah Nichols broke through as a junior in the 100 breast, breaking 51 seconds at ACCs, but finished one spot shy of a second swim at NCAAs. He got it right in his senior year, making the ‘A’ final of both breaststroke events to score 28 points. He also scored as a freshman (100 breast ‘B’ final).
• Three breakthroughs this past season came from Brian Benzing, Owen Lloyd and Jassen Yep.
• Competing for mid-major Towson, Benzing was the runner-up in the 100 breast to score 18 points, having also put up a handful in his sophomore and junior years.
• Lloyd went viral at the ACC Championships after he was controversially disqualified from his conference title swim in the 1650 free after falling into another swimmer’s lane during his post-race celebration. The NC State swimmer nearly matched his ACC time (14:37.04) at NCAAs in 14:39.18, good for 5th and 14 points. As a junior, he was 11th for six additional points.
• Indiana’s Yep was 17th in the 200 breast last season (after not earning an invite in his first two years) and followed up by taking two seconds off his best time as a senior, clocking 1:50.40 to win the Big Ten title in February. He then scored in both breast events at NCAAs, putting his first points on the board in his fourth year.
• Two other 200 breaststrokers, Texas A&M’s Alex Sanchez and Yep’s IU teammate Max Reich, also scored for the first time as seniors, placing 10th and 12th in the consolation final of the event.

INTERNATIONAL

Standouts:

• Lasco and Bjorn Seeliger alone make this class a big boon for a Cal team that reaped the rewards with consecutive national titles bookended by two runner-up finishes. Seeliger was a force right from the get-go, contributing 32 points as a freshman, a career-high 45 as a sophomore, and following up with 39-29 showings the last two years. Despite no individual titles, Seeliger was on three relay championship teams and throughout his career was a key piece of Cal’s relays. Only Lasco scored more than his 145 points over four seasons.
• Youssef Ramadan has been the driving force behind Virginia Tech’s success over the past four seasons, with his NCAA title in the 100 fly last season the highlight. Other than being disqualified in the prelims of the 100 fly during his freshman year, Ramadan scored in every individual event he raced in at the NCAA Championships and was a key relay contributor.
• Carles Coll Marti has formed a 1-2 punch for VA Tech alongside Ramadan since 2021, as the two had vastly different skillsets but would come together to push the Hokie relays forward. Coll Marti was an ‘A’ finalist in the 200 breast all four years, had a 4th-place finish in the 200 IM as a sophomore, and despite being DQed in the 200 IM this past season, still matched his career-high point total as he cracked the top eight of the 100 breast for the first time.
• Tomer Frankel has been a relay horse for Indiana throughout his career, and has finished no lower than 5th in the 100 fly over the past three seasons. As a senior, Frankel swam on five relays for the Hoosiers and still scored 32 points in just two individual points, placing 2nd in the 100 fly and 4th in the 200 fly.
• Andrei Minakov‘s 60-point total over three seasons will be viewed by many as underwhelming considering the hype surrounding his commitment—he was the reigning Worlds silver medalist in the 100 fly at the time—and the fact that 36 of those came from one year. Minakov redshirted his freshman year and considered the idea this past season, though Russia’s Olympic status led him to return to the Cardinal in 2024. After winning the 100 fly and taking 3rd in the 100 free in 2022, he only scored in the 100 fly last season and then this year, salvaged nine points in the 200 fly after placing 20th in the 100 fly.

DIVING

Standouts:

• Tennessee could count on Bryden Hattie to give them a boost in the team standings all four years, as Hattie put up 16 in his first seasons and then had consecutive 30-point campaigns as an upperclassman. He was the runner-up on platform in 2022 and 2023, and then was 3rd this past season.
• Noah Duperre was the only other diver who scored in every year from this class, and he also put points on the board in 10 events (out of 11 entries and 12 total chances) for Texas. Duperre’s best finish came as a freshman, placing 2nd on 1-meter and adding points on 3-meter to score a career-high 23 points.

ALL INDIVIDUAL SCORERS IN THE CLASS

(Ranked recruits are listed with their 2020 rank. International recruits are listed with “INTL” and unranked recruits with “NR.” Diving recruits are listed with “DIVE”)

ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKINGS