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Reviewing SwimSwam’s 2024 NCAA Event Predictions – Men’s Edition

2024 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The NCAA Championships are arguably the most unpredictable meets of the year, but we do our best to forecast what’s to come in each event before chaos takes over on two Wednesday nights every March.

At the men’s meet, we went 7/8 in picking ‘A’ finalists (or top eight finishers) in eight of 18 events, while we went 6/8 in three events.

We didn’t do quite as well as we did at the women’s meet (though it was close), with there being five events where we were 5/8 and another at a tough 4/8.

There was one where we were perfect, which was the 800 free relay.

On two occasions, one of our top-eight picks was disqualified, but in both instances, another one of our picks was bumped up to ‘A’ final status, so it didn’t affect our % of correct picks.

Below, find our top eight picks in each event, along with where the swimmer/relay team ended up finishing. We’ve also included who finished in the top eight we didn’t predict under “Moving In,” and the number in the bottom right of each event indicates how well we did in picking the top eight.

200 Medley Relay

PICKS FINISH
1 Arizona State 2nd
2 Florida 1st
3 Cal 4th
4 Indiana 6th
5 Tennessee 5th
6 NC State 3rd
7 Texas 9th
8 Auburn 8th
Moving In Stanford (7th) 7/8

800 Free Relay

PICKS FINISH
1 Arizona State 2nd
2 Cal 1st
3 Texas 3rd
4 Florida 4th
5 Georgia 5th
6 Stanford 8th
7 Indiana 6th
8 Louisville 7th
Moving In 8/8

500 Free

PICKS FINISH
1 Leon Marchand 1st
2 Jake Magahey 3rd
3 Luke Hobson 2nd
4 Gabriel Jett 4th
5 Zalan Sarkany 12th
6 Jake Mitchell 9th
7 Mason Mathias 8th
8 Rex Maurer 31st
Moving In Charlie Hawke (5th), Jack Hoagland (6th), Coby Carrozza (7th) 5/8

200 IM

PICKS FINISH
1 Hubert Kos 3rd
2 Destin Lasco 1st
3 Owen McDonald 2nd
4 Arsenio Bustos 4th
5 Carles Coll Marti
DQ (time would’ve made ‘A’ final)
6 Will Modglin 29th
7 Gal Cohen Groumi 5th
8 Baylor Nelson 8th
Moving In David Schlicht (6th), Nate Germonprez (7th) 6/8

50 Free

PICKS FINISH
1 Jordan Crooks 2nd
2 Jack Alexy 3rd
3 Jack Dolan 7th
4 Josh Liendo 1st
5 Bjorn Seeliger 5th
6 Chris Guiliano 4th
7 Abdelrahman Elaraby 18th
8 Gui Caribe 6th
Moving In Jonny Kulow (8th) 7/8

200 Free Relay

PICKS FINISH
1 Cal 2nd
2 Florida 1st
3 NC State 4th
4 Arizona State 3rd
5 Tennessee 5th
6 Virginia 13th
7 Virginia Tech 7th
8 Notre Dame 8th
Moving In Auburn (6th) 7/8

400 IM

PICKS FINISH
1 Leon Marchand 1st
2 Baylor Nelson 3rd
3 David Schlicht 2nd
4 Ian Grum 12th
5 Zalan Sarkany 17th
6 Rex Maurer 30th
7 Tristan Jankovics 8th
8 Jake Magahey 5th
Moving In Jack Hoagland (4th), Mason Laur (6th), Gio Linscheer (7th) 5/8

100 Fly

PICKS FINISH
1 Josh Liendo 1st
2 Youssef Ramadan 4th
3 Ilya Kharun 5th
4 Andrei Minakov 20th
5 Tomer Frankel 2nd
6 Dare Rose 7th
7 Aiden Hayes 6th
8 Scotty Buff 12th
Moving In Luke Miller (3rd), Gal Cohen Groumi (7th) 6/8

200 Free

PICKS FINISH
1 Luke Hobson 1st
2 Gabriel Jett 7th
3 Chris Guiliano 3rd
4 Macguire McDuff 10th
5 Jordan Crooks 6th
6 Charlie Hawke 4th
7 Patrick Sammon 14th
8 Coby Carrozza 22nd
Moving In Jack Alexy (2nd), Rafael Miroslaw (5th), Murilo Sartori (8th) 5/8

100 Breast

PICKS FINISH
1 Liam Bell 1st
2 Jake Foster 16th
3 Denis Petrashov 3rd
4 Noah Nichols 4th
5 Carles Coll Marti 5th
6 Josh Matheny 6th
7 Peter Varjasi 13th
8 Brian Benzing 2nd
Moving In Julian Smith (7th), Ron Polonsky (8th) 6/8

100 Back

PICKS FINISH
1 Hubert Kos 4th
2 Destin Lasco 5th
3 Brendan Burns 1st
4 Kacper Stokowski 2nd
5 Will Modglin 9th
6 Jonny Marshall 8th
7 Ruard van Renen 7th
8 Owen McDonald 6th
Moving In Adam Chaney (3rd) 7/8

400 Medley Relay

PICKS FINISH
1 Arizona State 1st
2 Florida
DQ (time would be 2nd)
3 Indiana 4th
4 Cal 2nd
5 NC State 3rd
6 Tennessee 5th
7 Texas 8th
8 Virginia Tech 7th
Moving In Stanford (5th) 7/8

1650 Free

PICKS FINISH
1 Zalan Sarkany 1st
2 Ross Dant 15th
3 Gio Linscheer 2nd
4 Owen Lloyd 5th
5 Charlie Clark 9th
6 Krzysztof Chmielewski 4th
7 Levi Sandidge 24th
8 Jack Hoagland 6th
Moving In Andrew Taylor (3rd), Bar Soloveychik (7th), Ilia Sibirtsev (8th) 5/8

200 Back

PICKS FINISH
1 Hubert Kos 2nd
2 Destin Lasco 1st
3 Jonny Marshall 4th
4 Owen McDonald 3rd
5 Bradley Dunham 6th
6 Ian Grum 12th
7 Will Modglin 16th
8 Aidan Stoffle 9th
Moving In Kacper Stokowski (5th), Brendan Burns (7th), Tommy Janton (8th) 5/8

100 Free

PICKS FINISH
1 Jack Alexy 3rd
2 Josh Liendo 1st
3 Jordan Crooks 4th
4 Bjorn Seeliger 8th
5 Chris Guiliano 5th
6 Macguire McDuff 16th
7 Gui Caribe 2nd
8 Jack Dolan 6th
Moving In Matt Brownstead (6th) 7/8

200 Breast

PICKS FINISH
1 Leon Marchand 1st
2 Matt Fallon 2nd
3 Carles Coll Marti 3rd
4 Josh Matheny
DQ (time would make ‘B’ final)
5 Aleksas Savickas 15th
6 Alex Sanchez 10th
7 Jassen Yep 7th
8 Denis Petrashov 17th
Moving In Liam Bell (4th), David Schlicht (5th), Noah Nichols (6th), Jack Kelly (8th) 4/8

200 Fly

PICKS FINISH
1 Ilya Kharun 1st
2 Andrei Minakov 9th
3 Dare Rose 2nd
4 Aiden Hayes 3rd
5 Brendan Burns 8th
6 Gal Cohen Groumi 7th
7 Gabriel Jett 5th
8 Tomer Frankel 4th
Moving In Noah Bowers (6th) 7/8

400 Free Relay

PICKS FINISH
1 Arizona State 1st
2 Cal 3rd
3 Florida 2nd
4 Notre Dame 8th
5 NC State 4th
6 Tennessee 5th
7 Virginia Tech 6th
8 Texas 12th
Moving In Stanford (7th) 7/8

TAKEAWAYS

  • The 1650 free was the toughest event to predict on the women’s side, and it remained one of the most difficult for the men. We went 5/8, and two of the swimmers we missed, Bar Soloveychik and Ilia Sibirtsev, sat down in 13th and 17th, respectively, on the psych sheets and hit big lifetime bests to earn their top eight spots.
  • Our worst showing came in the 200 breast, where we only picked half of the ‘A’ final correctly after three of the top seeds were off just a tocuh in the prelims and missed, and another, Josh Matheny, was DQed but his time would’ve only made the ‘B’ final regardless. Liam BellNoah Nichols and David Schlicht all had standout meets and qualified, as did Brown’s Jack Kelly.
  • We were only 10/18 in picking winners (compared to 15/18 for the women), with most of the success coming from backing ASU. Leon Marchand‘s three wins were clear-cut selections, and we also correctly picked Ilya Kharun in the 200 fly, Zalan Sarkany in the 1650 free, and the Sun Devil 400 medley and 400 free relays.
  • The winners we missed were primarily either Cal or Florida: Destin Lasco in the 200 IM and 200 back, Josh Liendo in the 50 free and 100 free, Brendan Burns in the 100 back, and the Gators (200 free and 200 medley) and Bears (800 free) in the relays.
  • Florida proved to be the team we underestimated the most, as five of their swimmers made ‘A’ finals in events we didn’t predict: Mason LaurGio LinscheerJulian SmithAdam Chaney and Andrew Taylor.
  • We also missed three Stanford relays that placed in the top eight, and both Jack Hoagland (SMU) and Schlicht (ASU) were First Team All-Americans in two events we didn’t predict.
  • Some of our predictions that missed included two Texas relays, and multiple events for Longhorn Will Modglin, Stanford’s Andrei Minakov and Rex Maurer, Georgia’s Ian Grum, Florida’s Macguire McDuff and ASU’s Sarkany.
  • Overall, we went 111/144 in picking top-eight finishers (77.08%), a small downtick relative to the 114 (79.16%) we picked for the women’s meet.

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Last night of 2024 NCAAs / day after
7 months ago

Good work. Fun.

About James Sutherland

James Sutherland

James swam five years at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, specializing in the 200 free, back and IM. He finished up his collegiate swimming career in 2018, graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 2019 he completed his graduate degree in sports journalism. Prior to going to Laurentian, James swam …

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