Texas’ Top 2022 NCAA Scorer Drew Kibler Confirms He Won’t Use 5th Year

Tokyo 2020 US Olympian Drew Kibler won’t use his 5th year of eligibility at the University of Texas next season, he confirmed to SwimSwam this week.

The 22-year old Kibler announced a signing with swimwear brand arena on Tuesday, though under new NCAA Name, Image, and Likeness rules, endorsements no longer disqualify an athlete from collegiate competition.

Kibler tied with Carson Foster as the Longhorns’ leading scorer at the 2022 NCAA Championship meet. He scored 46 points individually as part of Texas’ runner-up effort at the championships, including 6th place in the 50 free, 6th place in the 100 free, and his first NCAA individual title in the 200 free.

Kibler ends his Texas career with 21 first team All-America awards and an additional two Honorable Mention All-America awards. He holds the NCAA, American, and U.S. Open Records in the 800 free relay. He was named the 2019 Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and the 2021 and 2022 Big 12 Swimmer of the Year.

Traditionally, most collegiate athletes have only received four seasons of eligibility. The NCAA awarded all athletes who competed in the 2020-2021 NCAA season an extra year, though, because of the challenges associated with that season. While in the initial season of 5th year competition (2021-2022), those athletes’ scholarships didn’t count against team limits, in future seasons they will. That is likely to reduce the number of student-athletes who take advantage of the opportunity moving forward.

Texas’ other two individual scoring seniors from NCAAs, Danny Krueger and Braden Vines, have not yet announced their plans for a 5th year.

In total, if neither returns, the Longhorns would lose 70.5 individual points from last year’s NCAA Championship meet. That is as compared to at least 85.5 and as many as 153.5 for the defending-champion Cal Golden Bears. Cal ended the meet 51 points ahead of Texas, so those differences set up a dead-heat, on paper, for next year’s title.

At least one Cal senior, 27-point scorer Reece Whitley, won’t return next season, while 41-point scorer Hugo Gonzalez hasn’t revealed his plans either. Cal did get a boost toward their title defense when Olympian Patrick Callan announced that he will move to Berkeley next season for his 5th year of eligibility, though he hasn’t historically been a big scorer at the NCAA Championships (he scored 0 individual points in 2022).

Kibler swam a prelims leg of the American 800 free relay at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and earned a spot in the finals of that relay at all. The Americans finished 4th overall, missing the podium in that event for the first time since it was added to the Olympic schedule in 1908 (disregarding the boycotted 1980 Games).