The NCAA swim season is upon us, and it’s time for a time-honored tradition: SwimSwam’s staff predicting NCAA event champions half a year out.
We polled SwimSwam staff for event predictions and compiled them below for a “composite” prediction of the most-predicted champions. A couple factors to keep in mind:
- While most of the major redshirts, gap years and Olympic deferrals have come to light in the past month, there will probably be a few more trickling in as meets start. We hope that doesn’t affect our picks, but very well could, especially on relays.
- We tried to weigh the focus various athletes would have on short course yards vs long course meters. One big factor, for example, are Canadian swimmers, who have their Olympic Trial meet very close to the NCAA Championships. That didn’t scare all of us away from Canadian athletes (Maggie MacNeil was still particularly hard for many to overlook), but it does have an impact on all of our predictions.
- Relays are especially tough to call, given the guesswork you have to do on four legs, usually with some freshmen, transfers or other new faces filling in for graduated seniors.
- This post makes a great place to compile your own picks – feel free to join the fun in the comment section!
2019-2020 NCAA Preseason Picks (finalized 9/18/2019)
**Starred** athletes are unanimous picks.
| Top Pick | Braden | Jared | Karl | James | Spencer | Reid | Andrew | Torrey | Top Returning Swimmer | |
| 800 Free Relay | Stanford | Cal | Stanford | USC | Stanford | Stanford | Cal | Stanford | Stanford | Stanford |
| 200 Free Relay | Cal | Cal | NC State | Cal | Cal | Cal | NC State | Cal | Cal | Cal |
| 500 Free | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Paige Madden, Virginia | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Paige Madden, Virginia | Brooke Forde, Stanford |
Paige Madden, Virginia | Brooke Forde, Stanford |
Brooke Forde, Stanford |
| 200 IM | **Beata Nelson, Wisconsin** | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin |
| 50 Free | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
Erika Brown, Tennessee | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
| 400 Medley Relay | **Cal** | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal | Cal |
| 400 IM | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Calypso Sheridan, Northwestern | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford | Brooke Forde, Stanford |
| 100 Fly | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan | Louise Hansson, USC | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan | Maggie MacNeil, Michigan |
Louise Hansson, USC | Louise Hansson, USC | Louise Hansson, USC |
| 200 Free | Madden/Weitzeil (tie) | Paige Madden, Virginia | Paige Madden, Virginia | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Paige Madden, Virginia | Paige Madden, Virginia | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
| 100 Breast | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Lindsey Kozelsky, Minnesota | Emily Weiss, Indiana | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Emily Weiss, Indiana | Sophie Hansson, NC State |
Sophie Hansson, NC State |
Emily Weiss, Indiana | Sophie Hansson, NC State |
| 100 Back | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Katharine Berkoff, NC State | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin |
Beata Nelson, Wisconsin |
Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin |
| 200 Medley Relay | NC State | NC State | NC State | Cal | NC State | NC State | NC State | Cal | Cal | Tennessee |
| 1650 Free | Kowal/McMahon (tie) | Molly Kowal, Ohio State | Kensey McMahon, Alabama | Kensey McMahon, Alabama | Phoebe Hines, Hawaii | Kensey McMahon, Alabama | Molly Kowal, Ohio State | Phoebe Hines, Hawaii | Molly Kowal, Ohio State | Molly Kowal, Ohio State |
| 200 Back | **Beata Nelson, Wisconsin** | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin | Beata Nelson, Wisconsin |
| 100 Free | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
Erika Brown, Tennessee | Abbey Weitzeil, Cal |
Anna Hopkin, Arkansas |
| 200 Breast | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Anna Belousova, Texas A&M | Anna Belousova, Texas A&M | Allie Raab, Stanford | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Anna Belousova, Texas A&M | Sophie Hansson, NC State | Sophie Hansson, NC State |
| 200 Fly | Drabot/Hansson (tie) | Grace Oglesby, Louisville | Katie Drabot, Stanford | Louise Hansson, USC | Louise Hansson, USC | Katie Drabot, Stanford | Katie Drabot, Stanford |
Louise Hansson, USC | Grace Oglesby, Louisville | Louise Hansson, USC |
| 400 Free Relay | Cal | Cal | Cal | Virginia | Cal | Cal | Virginia | Cal | Cal | Cal |
Previous Picks Revisited
Just for fun, we’re looking back at how our writers did the past two preseasons:
The half-score is for the 200 IM, where our consensus pick was a 4-4 tie between champion Ella Eastin and Kathleen Baker.
| SwimSwam’s Top Pick | Braden | Jared | Karl | James | Spencer | Reid | Andrew | Torrey | Robert | Lauren | |
| 2019 | 11/18 | 10/18 | 9/18 | 7/18 | 9/18 | N/A | 11/18 | 11/18 | 10/18 | 12/18 | 10/18 |
| 2018 | 16.5/18 | 14/18 | 11/18 | 17/18 | 13/18 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 15/18 | 16/18 |
2018 turned out to be an extremely easy year to predict. That tends to happen when most of the events are dominated by heavy favorites like Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, Ella Eastin and Lilly King. Last year, the toughest piece to predict this far out was event lineups: most of us didn’t exactly know where Taylor Ruck would swim. A couple major upsets chipped in too: Beata Nelson over Ella Eastin in the 200 IM would have been an insanely bold call last fall. Louise Hansson over Eastin in the 200 fly was another pretty major upset.
Love the lone support for calypso Sheridan and northwestern
Could someone please explain how they see Virginia beating Cal in the 400 free relay? The only other team that I think has even a shot at winning is Texas and I still think Cal are pretty big favorites unless Texas gets a 46. leg
Hill, Douglass, Valls or Moroney or Pang, and MADDEN. Not saying it’s going to happen, just explaining how it COULD happen.
Damn. Beata Nelson is the unanimous favorite to win 2 events and the overwhelming fave in a third. And she’s a top 2 all time performer in all 3. Yet she appears to be a non-factor in LCM. Has there ever (in recent memory) been a swimmer who had such a large contrast between SC and LC performance?
John Shebat swims the same events and is way better in SCY
Shebat’s got a monster 1fly and 2IM long course, though. He suffers from what I call “Justin Ress Syndrome” where somehow the events you’re good at in yards and the events you’re good at long course are completely different.
Allie Howe when she got the American record in 100 back, not awesome at LC either
Terrible at LCM. Dont understate the obvious
Ryan Hoffer
Austin Staab and David Nolan
Didn’t Nolan get 3rd at Olympic trials?
Yes, but 3 seconds behind Phelps/Lochte and in a year where Licon, Kalisz, Prenot, and a few other potential finalists scratched. If 1:39 in yards translates to 1:59 in meters I really want to see Phelps come back and go 1:34.
Karl went from 94% in 2018 to 38% in 2019. Oof. But props for making some risky predictions. Makes the article more exciting.
LOL so much chalk.
Safe bets by and large.
Do we know what the deal is with Swedish OTs? I feel like that could affect the Hansson sisters.
mmmbop!
Beata for the triple-peat!
Mackenzie Padington is redshirting this year
That’s correct, we reported that last week. Maybe I’m missing something – is she mentioned anywhere in our picks?
Dean Farris is redshirting this year. Early favorite for four individual wins at NCAAs regardless. Team Erika all the way, after this football season we’ll definitely need something to look forward to
Ouch Vols…
Dean Farris retired…didn’t you hear?
HI Don!