It’s a week of NCAA retrospectives: we’ve looked back at how the graduating senior class did over four NCAA seasons, comparing the data to our rank of the class as high school recruits in 2014. We’ve also taken a look back at team-by-team recruiting classes and our 2015 ranks. And we looked at the current crop of NCAA freshman and the early returns compared to our recruiting rank and re-rank from the past two years.
Since we’ve got the data compiled, we thought it was worth sharing a quick in-progress look at the remaining two classes and how they’ve scored individually over their NCAA careers.
Further reading:
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2015
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2018
- Re-Ranking the recruiting classes: Collegiate class of 2016-2019
We’ll also include this year’s freshmen and seniors to have all the data in one post. You can find further analysis of those classes above.
Notes:
- The data included is only individual scoring at NCAAs. That’s not an exact measure of an athlete’s contribution to a program: many of these swimmers (and others not listed) were relay scorers at NCAAs, scored significant points at conference meets and provided great leadership and culture-building for their programs. This data isn’t a perfect analysis of the best recruits – it’s merely a quick look at the data we can compile.
- Some of these athletes haven’t had as many scoring seasons as others in their class. Some redshirted a season and have more remaining seasons. Some deferred their enrollment as freshmen. Some sat out a year with a transfer. Some turned pro early. Some will turn pro early. Some are hard to pigeonhole into a specific class, international athletes especially. We did our best to group athletes where they best fit. Again, this isn’t a hard-and-fast ranking of value – it’s just the best data we can compile.
- The ranks are from our recruit rankings, typically compiled when these athletes were high school juniors. We don’t include internationals in those rankings, as it’s difficult to figure out if and when internationals will join the NCAA and which class they should be grouped with before they appear in the NCAA. Do bear in mind that our rankings were done well over a year before any of these athletes appeared in NCAA competition, so if you do have a quibble with a specific rank, you may want to check how fast that athlete actually was when the ranking was done before you get too livid. Unranked recruits showing massive improvement curves are some of the best stories in the NCAA year-in and year-out, and one reason we rank recruits is so we can better see which athletes had great rises during their college careers.
- All that said, compiling these ranks is a lot of data entry and a lot of research. If we missed anyone, or mis-classified anyone with the wrong class or with the wrong domestic/international tag, please let us know in the comments and we’ll update our data as soon as possible!
Seniors (High School Class of 2015, College Class of 2019)
Ranked Recruits
Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2016 NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
1 | Andrew Seliskar | Cal | 192 | 42 | 43 | 47 | 60 |
2 | Townley Haas | Texas | 198 | 55 | 46 | 53 | 44 |
3 | Mike Thomas | Cal | 68 | 0 | 9 | 27 | 32 |
4 | Carsten Vissering | USC | 50 | 1 | 16 | 16 | 17 |
5 | Aidan Burns | Georgia | 0 | no invite | 0 | 0 | 0 |
6 | Patrick Mulcare | USC | 48 | 13 | 16 | 16 | 3 |
7 | Cole Cogswell | Stanford | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite | no invite |
8 | Thomas Brewer | Auburn | 2 | no invite | 0 | 2 | 0 |
9 | Ryan Harty | Texas | 51 | 24 | redshirt | 3 | 24 |
10 | Alex Valente | USC | 0 | 0 | 0 | no invite | 0 |
11 | Ryan Dudzinski | Stanford | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | no invite |
12 | Tabahn Afrik | Notre Dame | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite | |
13 | Ross Palazzo | Florida | 0 | no invite | 0 | no invite | no invite |
14 | Cody Bekemeyer | South Carolina | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | no invite |
15 | Bowen Anderson | Kentucky | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite | no invite |
16 | Brennan Balogh | Florida | 0 | 0 | 0 | no invite | 0 |
17 | Brad Zdroik | Stanford | 0 | no invite | 0 | 0 | no invite |
18 | Nick Norman | Cal | 32 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 16 |
19 | Jake Miller | Louisville | 0 | — | — | — | — |
20 | Tate Jackson | Texas | 25 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 12 |
Unranked Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2016 NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
John Shebat | Texas | 131 | 12 | 34 | 34 | 51 |
Abrahm Devine | Stanford | 119.5 | 18.5 | 21 | 46 | 34 |
Zach Apple | Auburn/Indiana | 108 | 22.5 | 38.5 | 47 | |
Ian Finnerty | Indiana | 100 | 1 | 0 | 51 | 48 |
Justin Ress | NC State | 52.5 | 4.5 | 23 | 25 | |
Bowen Becker | Minnesota | 51 | 19 | 32 | ||
Robert Howard | Alabama | 49 | 19 | 30 | ||
Brendan Casey | Virginia | 33 | 33 | |||
Jeff Newkirk | Texas | 27 | 2 | 9 | 16 | |
Jack Saunderson | Towson | 26 | 1 | 11 | 14 | |
Zach Harting | Louisville | 24.5 | 6 | 5.5 | 13 | |
Chatham Dobbs | Arizona | 23.5 | 7 | 2.5 | 3 | 11 |
Zach Fong | Virginia | 19 | 5 | 14 | ||
Mark Andrew | Penn | 19 | 1 | 18 | ||
Blair Bish | Arizona/Missouri State | 18 | 9 | 2 | 7 | |
Brennan Novak | Harvard | 14 | 3 | 11 | ||
Devon Nowicki | Oakland | 13 | 13 | |||
Jordan O’Brien | Missouri | 11 | 11 | |||
Carson Sand | Cal | 8 | 7 | 1 | ||
Sam Stewart | Auburn/Texas | 5 | 5 | |||
Kanoa Kaleoaloha | Florida State | 5 | 5 | |||
Jacob Wielinski | Missouri | 4 | 4 | |||
Bryce Keblish | Virginia | 4 | 4 | |||
Luke Mankus | Missouri | 4 | 4 | |||
Logan Houck | Harvard | 3 | 3 | |||
Noah Hensley | Florida State/NC State | 3 | 3 | |||
Jake Armstrong | West Virginia | 2.5 | 2.5 | |||
Kyle Decoursey | Tennessee | 2 | 2 | |||
Max Holter | Texas | 1 | 1 | |||
James Bretscher | NC State | 1 | 1 |
International Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2016 NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Vini Lanza | Indiana | 131 | 13 | 21 | 45 | 52 |
Andreas Vazaios | NC State | 131 | 37 | 53 | 41 | |
Fynn Minuth | South Carolina | 43.5 | 18 | 9.5 | 16 | |
Marcelo Acosta | Louisville | 43 | 7 | 23 | 13 | |
Mikel Schreuders | Missouri | 25 | 7 | 18 | ||
Mark Nikolaev | Grand Canyon | 23 | 7 | 16 | ||
James Guest | Georgia | 22 | 11 | 11 | ||
Laurent Bams | Alabama | 13.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 0 | 5 |
Will Pisani | Florida State | 9 | 9 | |||
Metin Aydin | Hawaii | 8 | 2 | 6 | ||
Angel Martinez | Texas A&M | 4 | 4 | |||
Rodrigo Correia | Georgia Tech | 1 | 1 |
Juniors (High School Class of 2016, College Class of 2020)
Ranked Recruits
Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
1 | Maxime Rooney | Florida | 28 | 13 | 0 | 15 |
2 | Michael Jensen | Cal | 10 | 2 | 0 | 8 |
3 | Grant Shoults | Stanford | 44 | 26 | 18 | — |
4 | True Sweetser | Stanford | 29 | 6 | 11 | 12 |
5 | Jack Xie | Cal | 0 | 0 | no invite | no invite |
6 | Mark Jurek | USC | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite |
7 | Thomas Anderson | Arizona | 0 | no invite | no invite | 0 |
8 | Greg Brocato | UNC | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite |
9 | James Jones | Michigan | 0 | no invite | 0 | no invite |
10 | Andrea Vergani | Cal | 0 | — | — | no invite |
11 | Ethan Young | Cal | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite |
12 | Jeremy Babinet | Michigan | 2.5 | no invite | 2.5 | 0 |
13 | Taylor Abbott | Tennessee | 0 | 0 | no invite | no invite |
14 | Charlie Swanson | Michigan | 22 | 0 | 13 | 9 |
15 | Thomas Cope | Michigan | 29 | no invite | 14 | 15 |
16 | David Crossland | Auburn | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite |
17 | Albert Gwo | Cal | 0 | no invite | no invite | no invite |
18 | Benjamin Ho | Stanford | 0 | no invite | 0 | no invite |
19 | James Murphy | Stanford | 0 | no invite | no invite | 0 |
20 | Ted Schubert | Virginia | 7 | 0 | 5 | 2 |
Unranked Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Dean Farris | Harvard | 101 | 18 | 30 | 53 |
Coleman Stewart | NC State | 86 | 3 | 34 | 49 |
Walker Higgins | Georgia | 27 | 2 | 25 | |
Zachary Poti | Arizona State | 19 | 2 | 17 | |
Cameron Craig | Arizona State | 18 | 14 | 4 | |
Benjamin Walker | Texas A&M | 17 | 5 | 12 | |
Miles Smachlo | Michigan | 17 | 1 | 16 | |
Jacob Montague | Michigan | 11 | 6 | 5 | |
Noah Lense | Ohio State | 9 | 9 | ||
Hank Poppe | Stanford | 9 | 9 | ||
Jack McIntyre | NC State | 6 | 6 | ||
Andrew Loy | Ohio State | 5 | 5 | ||
Grant Sanders | Arizona/Florida | 1 | 1 | ||
Matthew Garcia | Tennessee | 1 | 1 |
International Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2017 NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Felix Auboeck | Michigan | 95 | 40 | 35 | 20 |
Zheng Quah | Cal | 79 | 31 | 19 | 29 |
Pawel Sendyk | Cal | 63 | 13 | 15 | 35 |
Javier Acevedo | Georgia | 45 | 6 | 18 | 21 |
Mohamed Samy | Indiana | 36.5 | 4 | 21 | 11.5 |
Khader Baqlah | Florida | 26 | 16 | 10 | |
Zane Waddell | Alabama | 15 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Kane Follows | Hawaii | 12 | 12 | ||
Cam Tysoe | Wisconsin | 7 | 7 | ||
Itay Goldfaden | South Carolina | 6.5 | 5.5 | 1 | |
Joe Clark | Virginia | 6 | 3 | 3 | |
Santiago Grassi | Auburn | 6 | 6 | ||
Olli Kokko | Hawaii | 5 | 5 | ||
Etay Gurevich | Louisville | 4 | 4 | ||
Andrej Barna | Louisville | 4 | 1 | 3 | |
Jorge Iga | Arizona | 4 | 4 | ||
Mario Koenigsperger | USC | 4 | 4 |
Quick Analysis: This hasn’t been a great class so far, with a lot of our ranked recruits still without even an individual NCAA invite. The two big unranked risers have been Dean Farris (1:38.7 in the 200 free and 48.6 in backstroke when we ranked) and Coleman Stewart (48.2/1:47 in back and 48.5 in fly when we ranked). But the strength of the class has been internationals, four of whom have scored more point than our best ranked domestic recruit.
Interestingly, this should’ve been a great class for Cal with 5 of the top 20 recruits. But two don’t even appear on the roster anymore. They’ve made up for it with internationals Pawel Sendyk and Zheng Quah, though. Texas, meanwhile, has had no swimming scorers in this class through three years after getting none of the top 20 recruits in this class.
Sophomores (High School Class of 2017, College Class of 2021)
Ranked Recruits
Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
1 | Ryan Hoffer | Cal | 71.5 | 26.5 | 45 |
2 | Sean Grieshop | Cal | 59 | 10 | 49 |
3 | Matthew Hirschberger | Stanford | 0 | 0 | 0 |
4 | Camden Murphy | Georgia | 25 | 0 | 25 |
5 | Michael Taylor | Florida | 0 | 0 | redshirt |
6 | Austin Katz | Texas | 52 | 35 | 17 |
7 | Grant House | Arizona State | 9.5 | 3 | 6.5 |
8 | Jake Sannem | USC/Texas | 5 | no invite | 5 |
9 | Paul DeLakis | Ohio State | 33 | 6 | 27 |
10 | Christopher Yeager | Texas | 0 | 0 | 0 |
11 | Bryce Mefford | Cal | 42 | 26 | 16 |
12 | Sam Pomajevich | Texas | 24 | 24 | 0 |
13 | Brennan Pastorek | Stanford | 4 | 4 | 0 |
14 | Alex Liang | Stanford | 5 | 0 | 5 |
15 | Trenton Julian | Cal | 48 | 12 | 36 |
16 | Daniel Carr | Cal | 45 | 13 | 32 |
17 | Michael Zarian | Harvard | 0 | no invite | 0 |
18 | Nicolas Albiero | Louisville | 59 | 22 | 37 |
19 | Spencer Rowe | Auburn | 0 | no invite | 0 |
20 | Corban Rawls | Harvard | 0 | no invite | no invite |
Unranked Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Zach Yeadon | Notre Dame | 34 | 27 | 7 |
Brooks Fail | Arizona | 16 | 16 | |
Clark Beach | Florida | 13 | 13 | |
Mark Theall | UNLV/Texas A&M | 13 | 13 | |
Johannes Calloni | Stanford | 9 | 9 | |
Cameron Auchinachie | Denver | 7 | 7 | |
Eric Knowles | NC State | 6 | 6 | |
Sam Iida | Arizona | 4 | 4 | |
Robby Giller | Virginia | 2 | 2 | |
Greg Reed | Georgia | 2 | 2 | |
Trent Pellini | Purdue | 2 | 2 |
International Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Ricardo Vargas | Michigan | 45 | 23 | 22 |
Caio Pumputis | Georgia Tech | 41 | 41 | |
Evgenii Somov | Louisville | 27 | 12 | 15 |
Brandonn Almeida | South Carolina | 15 | 15 | |
Robert Glinta | USC | 14 | 14 | |
Hugo Gonzalez | Auburn | 7 | 7 | |
Gabriel Fantoni | Indiana | 7 | 7 | |
Daniel Sos | Louisville | 3 | 3 | |
Gus Borges | Michigan | 2 | 2 | |
Bruno Blaskovic | Indiana | 1 | 1 | |
Christian Ferraro | Georgia Tech | 1 | 1 |
Quick Analysis: in contrast, this has been an awesome domestic class through two years. #1-ranked Ryan Hoffer has outscored everyone by more than 12, and almost all of our top 20 have either scored individually or on a relay at NCAAs in their first two years. There aren’t too many unranked standouts yet, though a few of them seem to be improving rapidly. It hasn’t been a huge class of internationals, especially with Brandonn Almeida returning to Brazil.
Cal’s 5 top-20 ranked recruits have already combined for 265.5 individual – that’s more than most senior classes had scored in four years, based on our analysis of the senior classes. Only the outgoing seniors from Texas (430), Cal (300) and Indiana (278) scored more over four years than the current Cal sophomores have over two.
Freshmen (High School Class of 2018, College Class of 2022)
Ranked Recruits
Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
1 | Reece Whitley | Cal | 29 | 29 |
2 | Drew Kibler | Texas | 25 | 25 |
3 | Alexei Sancov | USC | 0 | no invite |
4 | Max McHugh | Minnesota | 33 | 33 |
5 | Daniel Krueger | Texas | 15 | 15 |
6 | Trey Freeman | Florida | 2 | 2 |
7 | Cody Bybee | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
8 | Patrick Callan | Michigan | 7 | 7 |
9 | Jack Levant | Stanford | 0 | — |
10 | Daniel Roy | Stanford | 5 | 5 |
11 | Kieran Smith | Florida | 25 | 25 |
12 | Robert Finke | Florida | 5 | 5 |
13 | Michael Brinegar | Indiana | 17 | 17 |
14 | Matthew Willenbring | Texas | 0 | 0 |
15 | Noah Henry | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
16 | Jason Park | Texas | 0 | no invite |
17 | Danny Kovac | Missouri | 0 | 0 |
18 | Khalil Fonder | Arizona State | 0 | no invite |
19 | Andrew Abruzzo | Georgia | 0 | 0 |
20 | Mason Gonzalez | Stanford | 0 | no invite |
HM | Shaine Casas | Texas A&M | 10 | 10 |
HM | Andrew Koustik | Texas | 0 | 0 |
HM | Zach Brown | NC State | 0 | no invite |
HM | Jack Dahlgren | Missouri | 0 | 0 |
HM | Will Davis | Florida | 0 | 0 |
HM | Jack Franzman | Indiana | 0 | no invite |
Unranked Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
Zane Backes | Indiana | 14 | 14 |
Mikey Calvillo | Indiana | 7 | 7 |
Charlie Scheinfeld | Texas | 6 | 6 |
Mitchell Whyte | Louisville | 6 | 6 |
Raunak Khosla | Princeton | 6 | 6 |
Casey Storch | Virginia | 4 | 4 |
International Recruits
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points |
David Schlicht | Arizona | 22 | 22 |
Nyls Korstanje | NC State | 9 | 9 |
Kacper Stokowksi | Florida | 9 | 9 |
Antani Ivanov | Virginia Tech | 5 | 5 |
Victor Johansson | USC | 3 | 3 |
More recruiting rank analysis:
Women’s:
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2015
- Re-Ranking the recruiting classes: Collegiate class of 2016-2019
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2018
- All recruits, Classes of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 (coming soon)
Men’s:
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2015 (coming soon)
- Re-Ranking the recruiting classes: Collegiate class of 2016-2019 (coming soon)
- Revisiting recruiting ranks: High school class of 2018 (coming soon)
The Cal recruit for the junior class Albert Gwo never matriculated at Cal. He swims for Columbia.
Neither did Andrea Vergani. In fact he never even finished high school in the US. That class also included Aukai Lileikis who didn’t make it past the first semester, and Xie has seemingly been in decline since he arrived in the US. Jensen and Young are headscratchers though.
Mike Jensen at 19.1/42.1 SCY and 22.0/48.7 LCM is nothing to sneeze at, especially with his
excellent relay swims. Ethan Young has been steadily improving and is now at 46.1/1:41.4 backstrokes right on the NCAA bubble so I am not scratching my head too much. Lileikis is still swimming fast (recently went 45.73 fly at Northwest sectionals) but was apparently unhappy away from home. He is tentatively listed on the Hawaii roster but hasn’t represented them yet.
Jensen isn’t a headscratcher he just didn’t improve a TON and can only Sprint now. Still won NCAA on a relay and several top 3 relay finishes. Won consys in 19.1 and split an 18.5. think he was 19.6 in HS?
Julian has impressed me so much, look for him to make big moves next year. Also glad to see Hoffer killing it.
I too am happy for Ryan Hoffer as he seemed to be enjoying the meet and contributing to Cals relays but to say he’s “killing it” is not accurate. Swimmers usually measure their success in terms of improvement. Ryan Hoffer swam a best time in the 50 free by a little over a tenth of a second but is still a half a second away from his best time in the 100 free from 3 years ago! His 100 fly was also not his best. So he’s looking better than last year but hasn’t “killed it” until he can show some best times.
Oh man so dissapointed he can’t repeat one of the fastest 100 freestyles ever. Ryan carried the relays hard, and scored more points than last year so I would def say he killed it.
Just stating facts. I would be shocked if Hoffer himself thinks he “killed it.” To describe a 6th place finish in arguably your best event that’s 6/10 slower than your best time 3 years ago ad “killing it” is in my opinion, downplaying the swimmers who truly killed it. Dean Ferris. Dropped 2 seconds in one year in the 200 free to crush all records. What?! He went on to drop 2 seconds in One year to WIN the 100 free and dropped over a second in the 100 back in one year to win the 100 back. Dean absolutely killed it. Ryan, improved on last year. Good for him.
Sorry Hoffer killed Texas.
Nope. Texas killed texas.
He carried the relays hard? He was out split by ress who was racing him and seliskar who went after him on the 200 fr relay. Kind of hard to figure out who was the 50 champ after looking at splits for that relay. Also seli out split him on the 400 fr relay.
He had two huge medley that splits where he ran down everyone but the winners. What else would you call that?
I can figure out who the 50 champ was pretty easily. Just refresh the results page or clear your cache (I just use incognito mode in chrome), then I scroll until I can find the 50 Free in the left hand column (usually under the 1st full day of events under “200 IM Finals”), click on that, then look over to the right and it should have the results listed there. I almost always look at the very top next to the “1” and I can find out who won the event. I have found that the winner is never listed next to the “2” or the “8”. Also, I have always found the winner is ALWAYS listed. Just an… Read more »
> Swimmers usually measure their success in terms of improvement.
Is that so? How do you get to decide what “success” is for every athlete? Do you get to be the one to tell Michael Phelps he wasn’t a success in 2012 and 2016 because he didn’t improve his best times? Or Katie Ledecky that she’s not technically “killing it” when she sets Worlds medal records but isn’t setting personal bests in everything?
I’m sure Hoffer is weeping into his NCAA Championship ring that he was the fastest high schooler ever and now is only one of the best college swimmers in the country swimming for the nation’s best team.
Ya… I had a feeling World records were going to get mentioned next. Listen. We’re not talking world records here. We’re not talking not beating a time that won an Olympic gold medal. The lack of perspective here is starting to get annoying. No swimmer who sets an age group record expects or wants that to be their best time for years to come. you are taking my comment out of context. Hoffer did well. As I said before I am truly excited as a swim fan that Hoffer is beginning to get back on track. And I would imagine he is very happy about his team championship…congratulations to Cal.
The combined top 20 juniors (61 points) came perilously close to getting outscored by Seliskar at NCAAs this year. That’s wild.
Angered by the lack of faith shown by His followers, Dean Farris cast down divine retribution upon the top 20 beings foolish enough to be ranked before Him.