A thrilling men’s NCAA championships wrapped up a couple weeks ago, but we’re still reflecting on what we saw in Indianapolis. And while the pool at the IUPUI Natatorium is probably just now settling down from the waves produced by some incredibly fast swimming there, we’re pretty sure that both coaches and swimmers alike are already thinking about next year, and of course, we are too.
One might expect that Texas will be taking a bit of a hit after having three seniors accounting for six individual victories, and sure enough, seniors Mark Anderson, Jack Conger, Will Licon, and Clark Smith earned a whopping 153.5 individual points out of the Longhorns’ 542 total points.
Yet, such is Texas’s depth, that even losing those four competitors, they are still slated to return the most individual points, thanks to very strong sophomore and junior classes. The Longhorns will need those swimmers to step again next year, as several other teams look to be within striking distance of the 160.5 individual points that the Longhorns will bring back next year.
While the Longhorns are losing the most points, the Missouri Tigers are arguably taking a bigger hit, as they are losing every single one of the 78.5 individual points they earned this year, as they were all courtesy of seniors Michael Chadwick, Carter Griffin, Andrew Sansoucie, and Fabian Schwingenschlogl. Not only that, but the Tigers only had a single individual swim from any non-seniors, meaning that they’ve got a lot of rebuilding ahead of them.
California and Georgia both lose 66 points. Eight-time individual backstroke champion Ryan Murphy was responsible for 56 of the points earned by California seniors, and he’s been a key member of most of Cal’s relays next year, so that’s going to be a big loss for the Bears. His absence should be tempered, however, by a very strong incoming freshman class, as well as a likely 20-30 points Cal left on the table due to DQ’s. The Bulldogs lose almost half of their individual points, including 34 earned by Chase Kalisz.
The teams which ranked 3rd-7th this year all appear to be in very similar shape heading into next year. None of those teams lose more than 21 individual points from senior graduation, and all will return between 110 and 132.5 individual points, setting up what should be another great team battle next year, and meaning that incoming freshmen and relay performance could be critical than normal to the overall team rankings.
Here’s a team-by-team look at the top 12 teams from the 2017 NCAA Championships:
| Team | Senior Points | Non-Senior Individual Points | Returning Points (including relays) | Senior Relay Swims* |
| Texas | 153.5 | 160.5 | 388.5 | 7 |
| California | 66 | 125 | 283 | 5 (1) |
| Florida | 12 | 132.5 | 283.5 | 4 |
| NC State | 21 | 121.5 | 251.5 | 8 (1) |
| Stanford | 19 | 110 | 223 | 3(1) |
| Southern Cal | 3 | 132 | 234 | 2 |
| Indiana | 12 | 120.5 | 217.5 | 6 |
| Georgia | 66 | 71 | 117 | 9 |
| Missouri | 78.5 | 0 | 101 | 12 |
| Alabama | 49 | 24.5 | 104.5 | 5(1)** |
| Louisville | 29.5 | 35 | 114 | 14 |
| Auburn | 37 | 23.5 | 90.5 | 8 |
*swimmers who competed in prelims, but were swapped out in finals are in parentheses
**plus two legs of a DQ’d relay
Note: totals include divers and diving points.
Florida loses D’Arrigo and Blyzinskyj but gains Clark and Ethan Beach, and an immediate scorer in Michael Taylor. Backstroke was a weakness this year, but it certainly won’t be next year, and the medley relays will be that much faster for it. Dressel, Szaranek, and Switkowski are the type of Swiss-Army knife swimmers Florida is known for developing; you can slot them into anything and they’ll swim fast. They are the nucleus of this team. I expect that Rooney will develop into one of these during his time at Florida a la Dwyer, and he should be much better next year now that he’s experienced NCs and knows what it takes to get into finals. If they can get the… Read more »
I think Florida can move up, but I think their biggest obstacle is they didn’t have an event where they put 3 or more guys in the top 16. Their relays will be up there, but it seems like Texas and Cal had events where they put multiple guys top 16 during their recent runs. The compound effect of scoring points and denying points to other teams.
Huh?
I can’t wait for Michael Taylor to attend the University of Florida Underwater Camp. This is a great school that will help him to improve his underwaters.?
Huh?
It looks like in collegeswimming they landed a guy from Turkey. You never know on the international recruits but if he comes and if he does the work he looks to be a great addition.
…”if he comes and if he does the work he looks to be a great addition.” Huh?
I know they will eventually do it on here but rank the classes for the top 12 above and incoming recruits. CAL’s looks to be hands down #1 but after that?
Wow. No mention of Dean Farris. I thought his fanboys would be back out by now.
Yes Dean Farris who swims for Harvard is not mentioned in an article about the top 12 teams and the swimmers on them
Remarkable.
The application to change Harvard University to Farris-U is still in the approval process; once it is done SwimSwam will revised the article to include them.
Everyone is talking about Cal and Texas. We all know Texas will be the team to beat. Cal has a great incoming class… but you never know with freshman! It could go either way…
Let’s talk about the rest of the schools in the top 4.
UF – People may call me crazy, but I think they will be in the mix to challenge for national team title against Cal and Texas. Their freshmen had a great season and I think they will be able to develop them to become ‘players’ at NCAA next year. Dressel did not have a good freshman year, but exploded his Soph year. I am expecting similar improvement for Rooney, Baqlah, and Bray… Read more »
Didn’t Dressel win the 50 free as a freshmen?
He did, then went 44.1 leading off the 4 free relay at prelims.
Yes he did
Texas’s relay points will take a huge hit
This is true.
The TX relays will be just fine. For the Medleys — there’s a big dropoff losing Licon, but their 400 MR was so far ahead of the field, they could lose 2 seconds and still go 3:01! And Licon is the only piece of the 200 MR they lose. For the 400 FR, Newkirk went 41.7 in prelims and didn’t even make the finals relay (replaced by Conger’s 41.3) – so they are the heavy favorite there also. Losing Conger will hurt 800 FR, but they could add schooling back to the relay if needed. Clarm Smith did not swim great on the relay last two years.
Licons loss is big and that’s good logic you got, losing Conger doesn’t hurt their chances cause they have someone who was .40 seconds slower than him those .40 are going to matter when they also lose potentially 2 seconds with Licon gone. Yeah Clark Smith was terrible on the relays but him and Conger mean they still lose two people who were very important to it. And even those two couldn’t help beat NC state who loses one member.
The 4×50 free relay, NC state will destroy them, they have Molacek and a 22.09 49.53 LC freestyler. Face it Conger and Licon were insanely valuable to their relays.
Texas next year will have Schooling, Ringgold, Jackson, and Shebat – easily could be 18.6, 18.2, 18.6, 18.4 – remember Shebat is awfully quick on free relays, just wasn’t needed this year
Just cause Shebat did good at a meet in highschool and split a 19.30 doesn’t mean he’s going to be some insane freestyler on a relay. Sure he can go an 18 but I don’t think 18.6. And 18.2? You think schooling will go an 18.2 as a lead off?
No, he’ll lead off in 18.6. Ringgold split an 18.3 at NCAAs with a 0.4 reaction time.
yea, very confident Shebat will go 18.6. And I said Schooling will go 18.6…
I mean Shebat will go 18.4
Don’t forget Townley! He split an 18.6 at class relays. Freestyle relays are stacked again for next year. Hook ‘Em!
Cal could be close to the same- best flat starts hoffer 18.7 sendwyk 18.9 Jenson 19.1 and lynch 19.1. 3 of the 4 freshman or in high school with those times. I don’t think hoffer is going to improve much but i do think Jenson and sendyk will. 4 18s?
Jackson is the Texas swimmer who swam the 41.7 on the 400 Free Relay Prelims, not Newkirk. Newkirk swam on the 800 Free Relay.
Losing Licon is a big hurt, but if it looks really awful for breaststroke it makes them winning the 800 more likely because they can put Schooling back on it. They remain huge favorites in the 200 and 400 relays.
Even if Texas gets no freshmen points I would expect that with the re-additions of Harty and Schooling’s 200 Fly combined with the improvement rates of some of their young kids that they will still be favorites. It’s difficult to make up almost 200 points in a year.
Please tell me how they remain huge favorites in the 200 free relay while losing a key piece? Did you know NC state is bringing in a 19.08 freestyler and someone who’s nearly a 21 in long course?
NC State lost by 1.2 seconds. Texas will replace their 18.37 leg with someone who has already gone 18.6 or someone else who has 18.mid potential. Also, simply flipping Schooling and Ringgold could gain them back that simple replacement cost.
This would be different if we were talking about freshmen or internationals where we have no idea what the replacements look like but all of these are in-house replacements of athletes who have already done the times we’re talking about. The variance is much lower for Texas while they also have a higher expected value than anyone else.
“as well as a likely 20-30 points left on the table due to DQ’s”
This is the swimming equivalence to saying the falcons won the Superbowl if you take out a couple holding penalties.
If a swimmer takes shortcuts on turns or extra kicks to touch the wall in a scoring position- those points were never up for grabs.
Not really. DQs at this level are a lot more rare than penalties in football. It is unlikely they will happen again.
USC looks real good going into next year
Yeah, was thinking the same thing. They seemed a little off this year. Carter was lights out, but I think everyone expected more from Santo and Malone…not sure, but thought I read/saw they were sick…might be wrong.
But I agree. Carter and Santo are difference makers. And between their returning pieces and incoming they look to be on the rise.
Santo did go his best times in the 50 and 100 free and threw in an 18.6 relay split, so overall pretty good season
Santo cracked a rib
Don’t forget Ryan Harty, he’ll score big next year