Top DI NCAA Teams Make Roster Updates For Second Semester

As the second half of the 2024-25 NCAA season kicks into gear, teams eyeing top finishes in the postseason have made mid-season updates to their rosters. For some teams, this meant picking up a valuable transfer or recruit, while other programs see Olympians return from a semester away from collegiate racing or an injured star return.

So far, the majority of the changes we know about are on the men’s side. The championship trophy is fully up for grabs in March, and the top programs in the hunt are doing all they can to add as much depth as possible.

However, the Virginia women, four-time defending NCAA champions, have two big additions coming to their 2024-25 roster. Katie Grimes, the #1 recruit in her high school class, has arrived on the Cavaliers’ campus. Grimes, a two-time Olympian, deferred her college commitment decision until October. When she chose Virginia, she added distance freestyle and IM depth to the roster, which made an already-favored Virginia team a near-lock to win another title in March.

Alex Walsh (photo: Jack Spitser)

The rich continue to get richer, as Alex Walsh should be back in the water for the Cavaliers this semester as well. Walsh didn’t compete during the first semester of her fifth year as she rehabbed from a meniscus procedure. A two-time Olympian herself, Walsh returned to racing at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, where she won silver in the 200 IM, bronze in the 200 breaststroke, and helped the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay win gold in a world-record-setting time. Walsh swept her events at the 2024 NCAA Championships, winning the 200 breaststroke, 200 IM, and 400 IM. She also swam on four relays for the Cavaliers.

There have been changes on the Virginia men’s team as well, though not additions. Noah Nichols and Tim Connery are no longer on the roster and SwimSwam has confirmed that they won’t be back. The loss of Nichols is particularly a blow, as he was the team’s top breaststroker. Full story will come on that.

Mona McSharry is the other major mid-season addition to a women’s program. After winning bronze in the 100 breaststroke at the Olympic Games, McSharry took the fall season off from Tennessee to travel. She’s expected back in a Volunteers cap for the second semester. The Vols have swum well so far this season, but McSharry’s return will affect not only their breaststroke and sprint freestyle groups but their relays as well. The middle of the top 10 women’s programs is tight, and McSharry’s return could push Tennessee to the top of that heap.

Rafael Miroslaw (photo: Jack Spitser)

The Indiana men boasted a strong transfer class this offseason, and the last piece of that puzzle fell into place for them as Matt King made his Hoosier debut in the team’s win over Florida this week. King trained with the team this fall, but this was his first time suiting up this NCAA season. Rafael Miroslaw is a familiar face on the Indiana roster, but he too didn’t compete in the NCAA this season, instead taking on the World Cup circuit after the Games. He made his season debut in Gainesville along with King, picking up a win in the 200 freestyle.

King and Miroslaw will aid the Hoosiers’ sprint freestyle events and relays, which are a weak spot for them compared with the other teams contending for the NCAA title. They’ve got more help coming in the form of Caspar Corbeau, who announced last month he was returning to the NCAA as a Hoosier rather than a Longhorn (where he spent the first four years of his NCAA career). Corbeau won bronze in the 200 breaststroke at the Olympics, but in yards, his strengths are breaststroke and sprint freestyle. We’ll have to wait to see Corbeau make his Indiana debut—he did not suit up in Gainesville.

Chris Guiliano (photo: Jack Spitser)

Texas is also light on freestyle sprinters and has tried to rectify that by adding Olympian and three-time 2024 NCAA ‘A’ finalist Chris Guiliano. Guiliano had a major breakout in 2024, and the Longhorns will hope that his speed will help them win an NCAA title in the first year of the Bob Bowman era. He’s the team’s major mid-season addition as World Championships medalist Ksawery Masiuk has delayed his arrival to the fall after originally planning to arrive in Austin in January.

Adam Chaney remains on Florida’s roster as a fifth-year but has yet to compete this season. It seemed he was taking the first semester off but didn’t compete for the team in its first meet of the season against Indiana. Getting Chaney back racing in a Florida cap would be a boost to the Gators; Chaney has been a fixture on their NCAA title-winning and record-setting relays for multiple seasons now.