Over the next few weeks, as the Long Course season closes out, new freshman are arriving on campus, and fans everywhere ramp up for another exciting NCAA Season, we will be running a team-by-team preview of the upcoming NCAA season. Starting with the no.12 teams and finishing with the defending National Championships (Texas men and Florida women) we will work our way down the top finishers from last year’s NCAA teams, and will also jump into some rising teams that we expect to break into the top tier this season. Click here to see the other men’s previews, and click here to see all of the previews for both Men and Women.
Key Losses: Craig Jennings (3 NCAA Relays), Chris Thompson (1 NCAA Prelims Relay), Troy Prinsloo (14 NCAA Points)
Key Additions: Will Freeman (distance free, IM), Doug Reynolds (sprint free), Jameson Hill (free, IM)
2010 Championship Lookback: In 2010, Georgia had a very good NCAA Championship meet overall, although it was a bit of an up-and-down meet for them. They were involved in two of the meets three swim-off races. They won a swim-off against Minnesota in the 200 medley, and then were able to move up to 12th in the final despite entering a bit of a weakened relay in the final. In the other swim-off was Mark Dylla, who won against Josh Schneider in the 100 fly, and was able to bump up a spot to 7th in the A-final.
The biggest controversy of the 2010 NCAA meet also involved Georgia and Dylla. He came into the wall first in the 200 fly with a 1:41.14, in a relatively comfortable margin of victory, but was then DQ’ed for a one-handed touch. There was huge debate over whether or not his touch was truly one-handed (or whether or not the official would even be able to tell a missed touch versus a brushed touch with the wake and speed of these elite swimmers), but the DQ stood, costing Georgia 20 big points.
The silver lining is that this DQ didn’t significantly hurt them in the team standings, as they were 61 points away from catching 7th place Michigan.
Shining Stars: Despite the disappointment of Dylla’s DQ, there were plenty of other hallmark moments for the Bulldogs. Dylla will be back as a senior as the favorite to win the 200 fly, though he will be pushed strongly by Thomas Shields of Cal, who last year broke Michael Phelps’ 17-18 200 fly NAG record.
Senior Billy Cregar finished 3rd in the 400 IM last season. With everyone else in the top 5 of that event moving on—either through graduation or in the case of champ Tyler Clary going pro—Cregar will be the favorite to win that event this year. He also made the B-final in the 200 IM, where Georgia as a team had three swimmers finish in the 17th-24th place positions (Dylla, Matt Bartlett, and Martin Kata), which should be an event where the Bulldogs score big this season.
Distance Kings: They also established themselves as one of the top distance programs in the nation, with 3 scorers in the mile. Martin Grodzki, who was only a freshman at the time, placed second in the mile at 14:48.15, which is an incredible time for anybody, let alone a first-year collegian. He also took 12th in the 500, at 4:18.0, and should be a double A-finalist this season.
Andrew Gemmell, who was also a freshman, finished 12th in the mile for more big points. He was the 2009 USA-Swimming Open Water swimmer of the year, and has been anointed as the future of American distance and open water swimming. He finished 5th in the 1500 at the 2010 Long Course Championships, and has really improved his pool swimming recently. I would expect him to make a big move to compete with the likes of the Grodzki, La Tourrette from Stanford, Wilcox from Texas, and a slew of other young distance studs in the NCAA. Gemmell also finished 15th in the 400 IM.
Georgia also got big points from the now-graduated Troy Prinsloo, who was 7th in the mile and 15th in the 500 in his senior season.
Small but Powerful Class: Georgia made a concerted effort to continue making a big mark in the distance events with the recruiting class that they brought in. The class of only 6 swimmers, which is small compared to what most teams we’ve looked at have been bringing in, includes 4 Georgians and the top two in-state swimmers. While the class is a small one, the top 3 swimmers are dynamite.
Take Will Freeman out of SwimAtlanta, the state’s top high school swimmer. His textile times as a senior in the 500 and the mile (4:24/15:08) put him within sniffing distance of top-16 times before he’s even set foot on campus. He’s also got a pretty good 400 IM, with a textile best of 3:53.
They also brought in Doug Reynolds, the number two in-state swimmer. Reynolds fills out the sprinting role that Georgia badly needs to improve their relay standings. He has gone an impressive 20.53/44.57 already in textile, which are very impressive times for a high schooler. The sprint events are always very difficult to break into a final of as a freshman, (19.63/43.22 made the B-final last year) but he’s a good bet to crack the 400 yard free relay as a freshman, and probably score some individual points as a sophomore. Reynolds is also a very good sprint butterflier, including a 48.43 100. Even more intriguing for Georgia is his 21.86 flat-start 50 fly, given that they chose to pull Dylla off of the medley relay for the swim-off and A-final at NCAA’s last year. Having a swimmer who is that fast in the 50, while it doesn’t match Dylla’s time will certainly give them more flexibility to play with when event limits come into play.
The third big-time recruit that brought in was an out-of-stater in Jameson Hill from Virginia. Ironically, even their top out-of-state recruit is a native Georgian. He has been living and trainingwith his coach Rick Benner in Virginia for the last two years, after Benner took a head coaching job there. He overcame the lure of staying close to his second home and going to no. 10 Virginia to train with the likes of Scot Robison to head back south to Athens to work with another equally impressive freestyle crew at Georgia.
Hill is the most versatile freestyler of the three, and is a good bet to be a standout in whichever of the distances he chooses to pursue. I think he’ll end up as a 100-200-500 guy at the NCAA level (his best marks there as a senior are 44.9, 1:37.7, and 4:21.4, respectively), but he has Junior Nationals cuts or better in every freestyle distance. He could also go after the mile (15:27.1), but will fill much more needs for Georgia in a middle-distance role.
They also nabbed Conor Sweeney in-state, who is a plus 500 (4:27) and 200 (1:39.0) freestyler.
Skipped A Step on the Boards: Diving is a real area of weakness for the Bulldogs. Last season, they didn’t have a single diver finish in the top 8 at the SEC Championships on any board, let alone score at NCAA’s. For the first time since at least the 2006 season, the Bulldogs didn’t bring in a diving recruit this year. The good news is that out of the three returning divers, the best two are young, and very close to at the least breaking through for SEC A-final points for Georgia. Diving coach Dan Laak is banking on huge strides from junior Owen Blank and sophomore Alex Watson, who was the top prep diver in the state of Georgia in 2009.
2010-2011 Prognosis: Georgia didn’t lose enough to expect any sort of a backslide from their 8th place position last year. Unfortunately, the points gap between them and the two teams ahead of them makes it hard to imagine them moving up all that far either. Their best hope is jumping a Tyler Clary-less Michigan for 7th place this year. Next season’s recruiting class will be the real telling one for Jack Bauerle, as they will be replacing their two stars in Mark Dylla and Bill Cregar, as well as key relay contributors Matt Bartlett and Martin Kata.
Robison is pretty good at the middle distances too, but you’re right Hill is more of a MacLean guy. I just used Robison because he’s a little bit of a bigger name, but right you are.
And yeah, I think you’re right about Hill being from Georgia natively. He actually LIVES with Benner in Manassas, and has for 2 years. He swam at least his last few years of HS in Virginia though, so we counted him as an “out-of-stater”. I’ll go add a note about him being a Georgian natively. Good catch.
Hill is not from Virginia .I think he is from GA and only moved up here for a couple years to train with his coach (Benner)..recognize the name? His son and distance swimmer is Peter Benner..Oh and Hill is not a sprinter like Robison, more mid D like Mcclean