Projected Men’s 2020 NCAA Points By Class – All Classes

There are no NCAA Championships this spring, but we’ve been using psych sheet projected points to take a quarantine-fueled look back at our yearly recruit rankings.

You can see our analysis of the outgoing senior class here, and can find our analysis of the freshman group here.

Now, we’ll look at the two middle classes, comparing ranked recruits, unranked recruits, and international additions based on NCAA scoring (and 2020 NCAA psych sheet projected points) across each year of their eligibility so far.

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 2016, COLLEGE CLASS OF 2020)

Ranked Recruits

Unranked Recruits

International Recruits

Juniors (HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2017, COLLEGE CLASS OF 2021)

Ranked Recruits

• This is a heck of a class at the top, particularly for Cal. Ryan Hoffer is the #1 scorer in the class and projected for a class-high 53 points this year. Sean Grieshop is the #2 scorer, exactly mirroring our original ranks. Bryce Mefford, Trenton Julian and Daniel Carr have all scored big.
• Louisville’s Nicolas Albiero has well outperformed his #18 rank, scoring 59 through two years and projected for 52.5 more this year.

Unranked Recruits

• UNC-to-Texas transfer Alvin Jiang would have likely scored his first NCAA points this year – 25 points worth.
• It’s been distance swimmers who have really come from the unranked crew to score big so far: Notre Dame’s Zach Yeadon and Arizona’s Brooks Fail.

International Recruits

• Indiana was set to get a huge boost from Bruno Blaskovic, projected for 38.5 points after scoring just 1 in his two previous seasons.
• Cal’s Hugo Gonzalez had 35 psych sheet points, and still projected to have two years after this of eligibility remaining. He should rocket up this list later on, if he sticks around the NCAA.

Sophomores (HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2018, COLLEGE CLASS OF 2022)

Ranked Recruits

• We had a spirited Whitley-vs-Kibler debate at #1… then last year, Max McHugh outscored them both. Seeds were almost identical between the three this year, and it looks like a rivalry that should continue into the future.
• Shaine Casas has obviously exploded. When we ranked this class as juniors, the 47.6 flyer didn’t even make our top 20. By the time our re-rank rolled around, Casas was an honorable mention with 47s in fly and back. It’s been a great year for Casas, who went 44.4/1:37.2 back and 45.2 fly this season, plus 1:39.9 in IM, almost 8 seconds faster than he was in high school.
• #11 Kieran Smith was arguably the breakout swimmer of the year, and projected to lead almost all scorers in this class with 47 points this year. (One of my favorite comments on our rankings for this class, many years ago, said Smith was ranked at least 20 places higher than he should have been. Turns out, he might have been too low at #11).
• It also looked like a shot at redemption for #3 Alexei Sancov, who was set to score after missing NCAAs his freshman year. Focusing in on the 200-yard races has been a good switch for him.
• A couple key redshirts are going to extend the battle in this class: Florida’s Trey Freeman and Indiana’s Michael Brinegar.

Unranked Recruits

• Unranked Braden Vines and Mitchell Whyte were both seeded to score top-level points. And a huge group of 11 new unranked sophomores were projected to score their first NCAA points this year.

International Recruits

• Two big Olympic gap years here who should come back and return a lot of points down the road – though that’s all in flux now with an Olympic postponement.

Freshmen (HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2019, COLLEGE CLASS OF 2023)

Ranked Recruits

Unranked Recruits

International Recruits

2020 NCAA PSYCH SHEET SCORING – INDIVIDUALS