Liam Bell has entered the NCAA transfer portal after his freshman season with the Alabama Crimson Tide.
TOP TIMES PRE-COLLEGE
- 50 free – 20.29
- 100 free – 44.18
- 200 free – 1:39.73
- 100 breast – 52.21
- 200 breast – 1:57.30
- 100 fly – 48.78
- 200 IM – 1:48.85
LIFETIME BESTS WHILE AT ALABAMA
- 100 breast – 51.39
- 200 breast – 1:52.93
- 200 IM – 1:44.35
Bell, a strong commit (54.0/2:00 in the breaststroke events) when he was recruited in the fall of 2018, improved further in his senior year, getting down to 52.21 in the 100 and 1:57.30 in the 200. In his freshman campaign with Alabama, he made huge drops in the 200 breast and 200 IM especially, while taking a good chunk of time off of his 100 breast.
While the 2020 NCAA Championships were canceled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Bell was seeded to make the 100 breast A-final and the 200 breast B-final. With the 2019-20 NCAA season all but concluded, Bell was the fastest freshman in the country in the 100 breast, just ahead of Texas first-year Caspar Corbeau (51.46). His season culminated at the 2020 SEC Championships, where he was the 100 breast runner-up and placed fourth in the 200 breast, while also winning the 200 IM C-final.
Bell had committed to the Alabama program prior to their hiring of current head coach, Coley Stickels.
It’s unknown as of this posting where Bell plans on going next, but he’d be a prime pickup for any program in the country with his breaststroke speed.
Next year, Alabama still returns rising sophomore Derek Maas, who improved to 51.81 in the 100 breast and 1:53.15 in the 200 breast in his freshman campaign with the Crimson Tide. Maas was seeded T-10th in the 100 breast and T-20th in the 200 breast for the 2020 NCAA Champs.
Liam is staying at Alabama, not transferring
I’m sure Coach Cooley is a good coach in terms of producing results and producing good swimmers. However, there’s signs that there’s something deeper going with HOW he’s coaching. My son is an SEC swimmer and things quickly spread around with what’s happened with Bama Swim program because of Cooley. Heard a lot of negative things about him. I wish Liam Bell a successful swim career wherever he goes!
From what I’ve seen, the Bama swimmers looked fantastic and Coley was a first year coach producing excellent results with swimmers he didn’t recruit. Haven’t heard the same sentiment about him as you say.
BcJane/BillC – please adhere to commenting rules regarding multiple usernames in the same thread. Thanks!
Coley is intense. Some people match with that, others don’t. You can see in results who those people are
Best wishes Liam! It’s been so much fun watching you tear it up this year, and you will continue to tear it up at a new school in the future! I’ll be pulling for you at Trials this summer, and at NCAAs next year!
Really good guy with a ton of potential, sad to see him go but wish him the best!
Florida!
Go to Cal!
Would need to have strong scholastics. Does he have a major yet?
Who knows what he went through or what his reasoning is. You have to respect a guy for whatever is going on under the surface.
#ColeyEffect
I’ll take those results. Didn’t Liam switch teams multiple times in Atlanta? Looks like the same pattern here.
Every time I wonder why a kid left a program, I come to the comments to see his former teammates rip him to protect themselves. Then I know all I need to know.
Exactly MULTIPLE club teams