2024 NCAA Swammy Awards: Men’s NCAA Swimming & Diving

2024 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 27-30, 2024
• IUPUI Natatorium, Indianapolis, Indiana
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Bob Bowman led the Arizona State men to the first NCAA Swimming & Diving team title in program history this weekend, the culmination of a vision for the program when Bowman took over the program in 2016.

It’s time to hand out some awards.

FINAL SCORES

1. Arizona State — 523.5
2. Cal — 444.5
3. Florida — 378
4. Indiana — 376
5. NC State — 318
6. Tennessee — 231
7. Texas — 189
8. Stanford — 177
9. Virginia Tech — 172
10. Notre Dame — 132
11. Georgia — 116
12. Auburn — 100
13. Ohio State — 92
14. Michigan — 87.5
15. Louisville — 84
16. Texas A&M — 81
17. Virginia — 80.5
18. SMU — 59
19. Alabama — 56
20. Minnesota — 40
21. Florida State — 34
22. USC — 31
23. Purdue — 25
24. LSU / Pitt — 24
25. —
26. Miami (FL) — 21
27. Missouri / Arizona — 19
28. —
29. Towson — 18
30. Penn — 17
31. Wisconsin — 16
32. Brown — 11
33. UNC — 9
34. Penn St — 8
35. BYU — 7
36. Utah — 6
37. George Washington — 3
38. Northwestern — 1

Swimmer of the Year: Leon Marchand, Arizona State

Heading into the final day of the meet, the hot topic was whether Arizona State junior Leon Marchand or Florida sophomore Josh Liendo deserved Swimmer of the Meet honors.

On the final day, though, I think Marchand did enough to earn this award for the second-straight year. He set a new NCAA Record in the 200 breast and out-raced Liendo head-to-head on leadoff legs of the 400 free relay as Arizona State won their first-ever NCAA relay title and first-ever NCAA team title.

Marchand’s 2024 NCAA Championship Results:

• 200 medley relay – 22.59 breast split (2nd place)
• 800 free relay – 1:28.97 leadoff (2nd place) – New NCAA/US Open Record
• 500 free – 4:02.31 (1st place) – New NCAA/US Open Record
• 400 IM – 3:32.12 (1st place)
• 400 medley relay – 48.73 breaststroke split (1st place) – fastest split ever
• 200 breast – 1:46.35 (1st place) – New NCAA/US Open Record)
• 400 free relay – 40.28 leadoff split (1st place) – New NCAA/US Open Record for the relay

The other tie-breaker is really the totality of the season that Marchand had. He broke the NCAA Record in the 500 free at the Pac-12 Championships, he swam a 1:39.64 in the 200 back in dual meet in October, and he set NCAA Records in three individual events (200 free, 500 free, 200 breast). It really feels like not giving him this award just because of the 400 IM time of 4:32, which was admittedly a bit disappointing, would be unfairly discrediting the totality of his season.

Honorable Mentions:

• Josh Liendo, Florida – Liendo became the 75th occasion of a swimmer winning three individual events at a single NCAA Championship meet when he won the 100 free (Marchand would become the 76th one event later). He pulled off a minor upset over Tennessee’s Jordan Crooks in the 50 free (18.07), swam the #2 performance in history in the 100 free (40.20), and swam the #2 performance in history in the 200 fly (43.07). That 100 fly was an NCAA record swim for 99 yards, but a very long finish probably cost him Dressel’s mark there. He also swam on a pair of NCAA title-winning relays. He looked light and powerful – which sets up for an exciting summer for him.
• Destin Lasco, Cal – Lasco is going home with a pair of individual titles, including a new NCAA Record in the 200 back of 1:35.37. That took out Hubert Kos’ NCAA/US Open Record of 1:35.69 from Pac-12s and Ryan Murphy’s American Record of 1:35.73 from 2016 NCAAs. If that’s the end of Lasco’s collegiate career, it’s a great note to go out on.

Coach of the Year: Bob Bowman, Arizona State

This is an award almost a decade in the making. When Bob Bowman took over the Arizona State program, it wasn’t entirely clear how things were going to go. His (the) most famous swimmer Michael Phelps moving with him to Tempe helped as a big recruiting tool, but Bowman’s first stint at the collegiate level at Michigan wasn’t great (though it wasn’t as bad as many remember it).

It wasn’t a perfect season for the Sun Devils. They didn’t hit all of their tapers at NCAAs, and between women’s results, Regan Smith’s results in 2023, and this meet, Arizona State still hasn’t hit a perfect taper. But where the Sun Devils have excelled beyond any program in the country is making swimmers fast on a holistic level, independent of hitting perfect tapers. Leon Marchand came to Arizona State as a gifted age grouper who had stalled out. Zalan Sarkany split his season training between Hungary and Arizona State, but it worked for him. Guys like Jonny Kulow and Owen McDonald scored 46 points and was the NCAA runner-up in the 200 IM. If Marchand goes pro, Owen McDonald becomes the de facto favorite to win that title at the NCAA Championships. That’s a guy who came out of high school as a 1:46 IM’er.

This is a new evolution of Bowman. Team swimming, NCAA swimming, looks really good on a guy who is most famous for coaching individuals. I can’t speak for what Bowman is feeling internally, but externally, he looks like an entirely-different coach and person than he was during the Phelps years and his early Arizona State years. He looks overjoyed, he’s having fun, he’s goofing for the camera.

This is not the same Bob Bowman we knew before, and credit to his staff and athletes for helping him on that journey.

This was a fun Arizona State team to watch. That makes this title all-the-more special.

Honorable Mentions:

• Chris Lindauer, Notre Dame – Notre Dame finished 10th at the NCAA Championships, which was their best finish by eight spots. Their previous best finish was last year, when they were 18th. Prior to the Lindauer era was 2017, when they scored 29 points to finish in a four-way tie for 23rd. Notre Dame has always felt like a sleeping swimming giant, and Lindauer has awakened that. Chris Guiliano is on a perpetual-improvement cycle, Tommy Janton had an 8th-place finish in the 100 back, and the Notre Dame relays came up big.
• Anthony Nesty, Florida – Josh Liendo had one of the great NCAA meets we’ve seen and the Florida relays were nasty, with a 400 medley DQ ultimately not costing them any spots in the team standings. The development of Julian Smith in the breaststrokes while splitting 18.51/41.30/1:32.78 on the free relays was a big come-up as well.

New-Hire Coach of the Year: Matt Bowe, Michigan

An Honorable Mention from the women’s season, Michigan’s Matt Bowe is the clear winner here. Last season, the Michigan men were in turmoil, finishing 20th at the NCAA Championships. This season, they climbed all the way to 14th place, led by 37.5 points from Gal Cohen Groumi.

Bowe has a lot of recruiting to do in order to rebuild Michigan into an NCAA title contender, but in terms of both athlete development and hitting tapers, it was a great season for the Wolverines. Tyler Ray was only 46.58 in the 100 fly last year as a freshman; this year he was 44.74 to win the B-Final at the NCAA Championships.

That gives Bowe something to take out on the recruiting trail to rebuild the depth chart in Ann Arbor.

Breakout Swimmer of the Year: Zalan Sarkany, Arizona State

When Arizona State sophomore Zalan Sarkany left to go home to train in Hungary, he was a 14:42.80 miler. When he returned, he was a 14:28.09 in a dual meet. While Sarkany didn’t have his season-best times at the NCAA Championships, his mid-season breakthrough was a little kickstart to the spring semester for the Sun Devils. In a sport where momentum is so undervalued, he gave Arizona State a little mid-season surge in the doldrums of winter training.

In a year of many firsts for the Arizona State men, he became the program’s first-ever NCAA Champion in the 1650 yard freestyle.

Honorable Mentions:

• Owen McDonald, Arizona State – Another great story in a season full of them, McDonald had gigantic drops in multiple events this season. In the 100 back he dropped from 44.85 to 44.25; in his best event the 200 back he dropped from 1:39.01 to 1:36.63; and in the 200 IM he dropped from 1:41.60 to 1:39.23, making him the NCAA runner-up in the event. He had the best NCAA Championship taper among Arizona State swimmers, and I’m now curious about how this is all going to translate to long course, where he hasn’t been as good to this point in his career.
• Charlie Hawke, Alabama – Hawke didn’t have a monster drop in time in the 200 free from last year to this year: 1:31.28 to 1:30.58. But he did have a big glow-up in the national consciousness with big swims across the season in the 200 free. He also hit his taper at NCAAs much better than last year, finishing 4th in the 200 free and 5th in the 500 free this year, up from 16th and 33rd last season, respectively.
• Gio Linscheer, Florida – At the University of Florida, distance guys who drop at NCAAs tend to drop at NCAAs repeatedly. Linscheer proved that rule this year. Last season, he dropped from 14:53 to 14:48 at NCAAs to pick up a single point for 1st place. This year, he dropped from 14:38.78 at SECs to 14:36.01 at NCAAs, finishing in 2nd place, and in the 500 going from 4:13.10 to 4:11.97 to 4:11.84 for 10th place. Those little drops made a big difference for the Gators, who finished 2 points ahead of Indiana for 3rd place.

Freshman of the Year: Ilya Kharun, Arizona State

Ilya Kharun had an ostentatious start to his Arizona State career, breaking a school record in his first NCAA yards meet and then swimming a 1:37.93 in the 200 fly in January. At NCAAs, he was a bit in-the-background until winning the final individual swimming race of the meet in the 200 fly – albeit in a time slower than the dual meet, 1:38.26.

In a year where there weren’t many freshmen at the top of the NCAA tables, he was the lone rookie to win an individual NCAA title.

Honorable Mentions:

• Andrew Taylor, Florida – Until Kharun’s win in the 200 fly, Taylor’s 3rd-place finish in the 1650 free was the best finish by a freshman at the NCAA Championships. The distance program at Florida is alive-and-well: Taylor had a best time of 15:08.83 in high school and dropped that by more than 31 seconds for a third-place finish on Saturday.
• Jonny Marshall, Florida – Only five freshmen had top 8 finishes in individual swimming events at NCAAs (Taylor, Kharun, Texas’ Nate Germonprez, and USC’s Krzystof Chmielewski). Marshall had two of them, finishing 4th in the 200 back and 8th in the 100 back at the NCAA Championships. While neither was a season-best time, he finishes his rookie year with the fastest freshman time ever in the 100 back (44.12), which he traded with Texas’ Will Modglin throughout the season. Modglin won the B-Final in the 100 back at NCAAs in 44.20: better than Marshall’s NCAA times, but slower than Marshall’s SEC Championship time.