Ranking The 2022 Men’s NCAA Recruiting Classes: Honorable Mentions

See also:

• Individual recruit rankings – Girls final rankings
• Individual recruit rankings – Boys final rankings

We continue our 2022 recruiting series with a team-by-team look at the best recruiting classes entering the NCAA next season. The classes below are projected freshmen for the 2022-2023 season.

A few important notes on our rankings:

• The rankings listed are based on our Class of 2022 Re-Rank. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our best of the rest section for top-tier recruits.
• Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our team ranks on a number of factors: prospects’ incoming times are by far the main factor, but we also consider potential upside in the class, class size, relay impact and team needs filled. Greater weight is placed on known success in short course yards, so foreign swimmers are slightly devalued based on the difficulty in converting long course times to short course production.
• Transfers are included.
• For the full list of all verbally committed athletes, click here. A big thank you to SwimSwam’s own Anne Lepesant for compiling that index – without it, rankings like these would be far less comprehensive.
• Some teams had not released a finalized 2022-23 team roster at the time these articles were published, meaning it’s possible we missed some names. Let us know in the comments below.

Best NCAA Swimming & Diving Recruiting Classes: Men’s Class of 2022

Ohio State: The Buckeyes got a late addition that bumps their recruiting class into honorable mention territory. Lithuanian national teamer Tomas Navikonis was originally supposed to join the Florida Gators, but brings his long course 22.9/49.9/1:48.4 freestyle speed to Columbus instead. Those times convert to roughly 19.9/43.6/1:34.1 in yards, making him a key relay addition. Ohio State also has Florida State transfer Rush Clark (47.1/1:46.2 in butterfly) along with Texas high school product Mason Edmund (15:21 in the mile, 4:23 in the 500 free and 3:48 in the 400 IM).

LSU: The Tigers got two of our “Best of the Rest” recruits, our name for the group just outside our top 20 recruits in the nation. Stuart Higdon is a 1:36.9 freestyler who swims upwards to a 15:25 mile. Internationally, LSU also got Poland’s Pawel Uryniuk, arguably the best member of their class with 22.4/50.8 long course meter free times and a 53.3 long course 100 fly. (Those times roughly convert to 19.5/44.3 in free and 46.7 in fly).

Arizona: Luxembourg’s Ralph Daleiden is the headliner here, going 49.8/1:51.0 in long course freestyle (rough conversions 43.3/1:37.1). It’s a sprint-heavy class to build out the relays. Tommy Palmer is 20.0/44.0 in the sprints and Billy Oates (20.1/44.8). Oates has some intriguing versatility to him, with 47-high times in both the 100 fly and 100 back.

Northwestern: The other Wildcats on this list got two of our Best of the Rest recruits. Matthew Lucky is a great all-around breaststroker with 53.7 speed and 1:55.9 endurance. He’s also a developmental IMer. Tona Zinn was a top 20 recruit as a junior, and brings a ton of versatility. He’s 1:46.4 in the 200 IM and 1:44.8 in the 200 fly, along with 53.6/1:57.6 in the breaststrokes.

Alabama: Alabama works to reload its relays with a pair of 20.1/44.2 sprinters: Kansas’s Drayden Bell and Texas’s Connor Little. They’ve got a deep group of developing sprinters coming in, including two other 20-pointers in Ethan Otten and Gavin Lindley. That’s not mentioning their big international get, Dutch sprinter Tim Korstanje, whose 22.7/50.5 long course times roughly convert to 19.7/44.1 in yards.

Army West Point: The big name for Army West Point is breaststroker Kohen Rankin, the fastest 100 breaststroker in the entire nation for this recruiting class at 52.36. That’s just a tenth or so off of an NCAA invite time, and Rankin is dropping time extremely quickly at this point in his career. Brice Barrieault also made our “best of the rest” list as a 4:24/14:59 miler.

USC: USC has a relatively small recruiting class, but got two “best of the rest” athletes who make up the front half of the medley relay of the future. Ronald Dalmacio is a 47.8/1:44.9 backstroker, while Charlie Arnold is 53.2/1:57.0 in breaststroke. In addition, they got 47-high backstroker/butterflyer Griffin O’Leary.

Louisville: Louisville got a Swiss Army Knife sprint weapon in Charlie Crush, a 46.8 butterflyer who is also 47.1 in back and 20.0 in the 50 free. Jackson Millard chips in more on the endurance side, with a 3:48.4 IM and a 1:44.4 in the 200 back.

UNC: The Tar Heels bring in a sneaky-good class that’s loaded with freestylers. Reid Miller, Everett Oehler and Tyler Roberton all come in with 20/44/1:37 best times in the sprints, and Patrick Sleater (4:25) and Spencer Freeman (4:27) are good in the 500 and also bring some medley chops to the table. Adding to that mix is German native Louis Dramm, who owns long course bests of 50.9/1:50.8/3:55 in the 100/200/400. Czech native Sebastian Lunak isn’t listed on the roster, meaning he might not be joining the team until the second semester, but he’s an exceptional butterfly pickup (53.5/1:57.7 LCM) who can also help out in the distance realm (3:47.9/15:11 SCM).