TSC Men's Power Rankings: Round 1 Sees Texas as Favorites

And now, it’s time for round 1 of our 2011-2012 Men’s College Swimming Power Rankings.

For a complete rundown of our reasoning behind the rankings, check out our women’s round 1 list. The cliff’s notes is this: these are not a poll, rather are reached after much internal debate and discussion. They are based heavily on expected NCAA finish, though in-season performance is obviously relevant and factored-in.

These first set of rankings are a true NCAA prediction, based on pre-season (and very early-season) expectations. We’re also including, in round 1, a key swimmer for each team. Placing high at NCAA’s takes a full-team effort, but every team has one swimmer who will really need to perform well for his team to reach maximum scoring potential.

Men’s Power Rankings Week 1

1. Texas Longhorns – Key Swimmer: Jimmy Feigen

As we mentioned in our Texas season preview, the Longhorns are the early-season favorite to win NCAA’s. They kept things close last year, despite Cal’s dominance on paper, and did so with crazy-good balance. Texas has the top returning swimmer in every freestyle except the 500 free (where Jackson Wilcox is number two). If you don’t have a particular rooting interest at the top of the pile at NCAA’s, seeing a historic sweep is enough of a reason to pull for him in that race. It seems obvious, but Jimmy Feigen is truly the key to this team’s success. With his Olympic waiver, he’s really proclaiming the focus he’s putting on the Olympic Trials, but the Longhorns need him to not look too far past NCAA’s, either. Their sprinters aren’t at the same level of depth where Cal’s were last year. They’ve got a good shot at winning both medleys, but the 200 and 400 free relays could be a hitching point if they’re not careful.

2. Stanford Cardinal – Key Swimmer: Jonathan Edwards

This ranking is, and will continue to be, the most in flux given that it’s so heavily dependent on a freshman class. That’s not to say that they don’t have some great returning swimmers, not the least of which are National Teamers Bobby Bollier and Chad La Tourette. David Nolan is a freshman in age only, as he’s already going to score upperclassman points during his first year in Palo Alto. Stanford has competed early and often this year, and the swimmer who’s really been a surprise is Jonathan Edwards. At a quick invite a few weeks ago, he took out Nolan in both the 100 back and 200 IM, which are both swimmers’ star events. Given that they’re both doing the same training, that’s very encouraging for the Cardinal. If Edwards can put up a few A-finals (or even high B-finals) as well, they’ll be in very good shape. Stanford was fortuitous to have their big rebuilding class this season, given that the country is in a bit of a lull overall on the men’s side. They’ve also brought in a spectacular, instant-impact diver, in Kristian Ipsen, who won a silver medal at the Pan Am Games. That’s something that stands out amongst the top teams (other than Texas).

3. Arizona Wildcats – Key Swimmer: Cameron Owen

It would be easy to sleep on Arizona. They have a brand-new coach, and  a lot of great swimmers who fly under the radar. They really need Cory Chitwood to put together a complete set of three big swims at NCAA’s this year (which we haven’t seen from him yet), and Tennessee transfer Giles Smith will be huge to this team’s success given what he did this summer. My key, though, is senior Cameron Owen, as he will be counted on to pick up a lot of the slack for Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or, who is back in Israel training for the Olympics this year.

4. Cal Golden Bears – Key Swimmer: Tom Shields

Cal is the defending National Champion, but they lost way more than anybody else in the top 5 (including almost all of their sprint relay swimmers). They’ve brought in a freshman class, too, that is almost as good as their rivals Stanfords, though they didn’t plug quite as many holes as the Cardinal did (another backstroker would’ve been huge). Tom Shields is going to be awesome this year; there’s little doubt about that. Pre-season, he’s the Swimmer of the Year pick. But this year, he’s going to have to do his best to elevate and lead his young teammates.

5. USC Trojans – Key Swimmer: Dimirti Colupaev

There seems to be a huge gap between the country’s top 4 teams and the next 4 teams this year. USC lands atop the “best of the rest” category. With Vlad Morozov leading their sprint free relays, the Trojans are going to be very good. The top-end talent is not their issue; they’ve got enough to score some very high relays. USC’s problem is depth, as they’re fairly top-heavy as a program (at least until their recruits and transfers arrive next year). Dimitri Colupaev will not only have to do big things for USC in the 200 free, his best event, this year, but he will be counted on to be a lot more versatile. That includes him possibly having to stand in as the team’s top medley breaststroker this season, depending on the development of the freshman Sergion Lujan Rivera.

6. Auburn Tigers – Key Swimmer: Marcelo Chierighini

Even after Adam Brown’s graduation, this Auburn squad might be the most balanced and deepest that we’ve seen since their National Championship in 2009. The minor concern of the squad is the team’s mental status, given two recent transfers, including NCAA scorer Tony Cox. Kohlton Norys is ready for a big season in the sprints. Marcelo Chierighini, after coming in mid-season last year, seems committed to Auburn this year (despite a probable Olympic bid for Brazil). He’s already skipped the Jose Finkel Trophy and Pan Am Games to focus on training with coach Brett Hawke, and could be top-3 in both the 50 and the 100 at NCAA’s.

7. Michigan Wolverines – Key Swimmer: Dan Madwed

Despite only graduating two swimmers off of last year’s team, this Michigan squad is still a “young squad”, with 20-something sophomores. Their big-time senior Dan Madwed didn’t have a great NCAA Championship last year (it wasn’t bad either), but he’s not the type of swimmer who would expect to repeat a performance like that. He still has one more season as the leader of this team before the likes of Kyle Whitaker and Sean Fletcher have to take over. The young squad picked up a whole lot more experience over the summer though, with Syan Ryan and Ryan Feeley both competed as parts of the USA Swimming National Team program.The question-marks are the breaststrokers and the sprint freestylers.

8. Florida Gators – Key Swimmer: Marcin Cieslak

The Gators got slammed by graduations, and it wasn’t just Conor Dwyer. Marco Loughran, Brett Fraser, and Balaz Gercsak all scored double-digit NCAA points last year and are all now gone. Marcin Cieslak is only a sophomore, but the Polish National has huge potential for the Gators. Gregg Troy has his freshman class swimming unusually well early in the season, and if the times they’ve shown so far are analogous to what we usually see in a taper from this group, then look out.

9. Georgia Bulldogs – Key Swimmer: Jameson Hill

Another four teams down, and another pretty significant drop-off. Georgia graduated their two individual National Champions after last year, who accounted for the majority of their team scoring. The good news is that neither was extremely vital to the Georgia relays, which didn’t do much last year. The combination of a good freshman class, along with Jameson Hill aiming his taper for NCAA’s, they’ll make up huge point improvements in the relays. Getting Andrew Gemmell back from a redshirt year will help replace a heck of a lot of the lost individual points, too.

10. Texas A&M Aggies – Key Swimmer: Kyle Troskot

Last year was a tough year for A&M, aside for Balazs Makany’s great performance at NCAA’s, but he’s gone now. A botched season-plan left the Aggies struggling to put together NCAA relays with pieces that didn’t really fit very well. The return of two-time Big 12 Co-Swimmer of the Year Boris Loncaric should have a huge impact. They have a young, two-headed monster in the sprint freestyles (John Dalton and Kyle Troskot), with Troskot being the one who needs to step up the most this season. If they can get the right relay swimmers qualified for NCAA’s, then they must finish higher than the 14th they were last year. Grant Nel also has multi-title potential in diving, and should get them about halfway to a top-10 finish.

11. Ohio State Buckeyes – Key Swimmer: Backup Butterflier

I was really pumped about this Ohio State program. I think they were at least a top-9 worthy team, until Tim Phillips decided to redshirt this year. They brought in a 21-strong, Michigan-esque freshman class, and the most important thing for them to find in that class is the stopgap butterflier (their second-best, Quincy Lee, also graduated). Ohio State could justifiably place higher at NCAA’s this year than they did last year (11th), but the size of that freshman class is so overwhelming that it’s hard to really peg out who’s going to do what until they get a few meets under their belts.

12. Virginia Cavaliers – Key Swimmer: Peter Geissenger

Virginia is hurting after the losses of their two National Teamers Matt McLean and Scot Robinson. They good news is that they did have a lot of young swimmers who were waiting in the wings to step up into the starring roles. Looking purely at numbers, it would be easy to bump Virginia even lower than that this year, but there’s definitely plenty of horses in this stable.

13. Tennessee Volunteers – Key Swimmer: Ryan Harrison

Tennessee had a very young team last year, and Ryan Harrison showed flashes of being one of the country’s best swimmers early in the season. They’ve added a butterflier (Mans Hjelms) which they badly needed, and should be very good again this year. They’re in a tight-knit group that could do a lot of shuffling at NCAA’s.

14. Indiana Hoosiers – Key Swimmer: Cody Miller

So you might think to yourself  “ok, Indiana is losing the points of Eric Ress, how are they going to move up four spots in the standings?” But this team is a whole lot more than one swimmer. Sophomore-to-be Cody Miller has a chance to make a big splash at NCAA’s this year. He was the dual Big Ten Champion in the breaststrokes last year, but clearly had his taper focused on that meet. If he hits it a little later this year, those points will help a lot. As a tell-tale sign of how well this team is doing without one of their captains, they’ve already won a dual meet against Tennessee on the road. That’s huge for their confidence. James Wells has been swimming exceedingly well early this season, and should fill in very well for Ress.

15. North Carolina Tar Heels- Key Swimmer: Thomas Luchsinger

The Tar Heels lost a lot, including the ever-important Tyler Harris and Tommy Wyher. They kept more in-tact that people realize, including three legs of their 7th-place 800 free relay, and Tom Luchsinger, who was awesome over the summer. His improvements help to mitigate the damage from the losses.

16. Louisville Cardinals – Key Swimmer: Carlos Almeida

This Louisville program is making huge improvements. They’ve got a great facility, and despite flying well under the radar, have some big-time swimmers. Take Portugese senior Carlos Almeida. Did you know that he was 3rd at NCAA’s in the 100 breaststroke last year? Without much fanfare, he will be a 40-point scorer at NCAA’s.  They have better relays than most people realize as well, I think.

 17. Arizona State Sun Devils- Key Diver: Constantin Blaha

 Arizona State will be this year’s version of Purdue. They should be expecting huge points from their divers, and not much elsewhere. They have three good ones in Constantin Blaha, Riley McCormick, and Cameron Bradshaw, which will get them at least 6 top-16 placings. That, especially on the men’s side, is good enough for a top-20 finish at NCAA’s.

18. UNLV Runnin’ Rebels – Key Swimmer: Cody Roberts

This UNLV team had a lot of hype last year, and for good reason. They didn’t however, perform their best when they needed to, or they would have been closer to top-15 at NCAA’s instead of 19th. Still, they didn’t lose their most important piece (Cody Roberts, who’s a legitimate top-3 fly contender as a junior this year). David Sieler was the most important relay piece graduated, but he was never a natural fit as their backstroker anyways. Freshman Allen Coleman should come in and help stabilize right away (backstroker/freestyler), but the Runnin’ Rebels’ success is almost entirely based on whether or not they can perfect their tapers.

19. Penn State Nittany Lions – Key Swimmer: Pick-a-Sprinter

The Penn State men are shockingly congruous to their female counterparts. Last year, they put a ton of relays into NCAA’s (four) but didn’t get many points out of them. There was not a single senior on any one of those relays, however, so the potential for improvements is big. Especially look out for the 200 medley that placed 10th last year.

20. Missouri Tigers – Key Diver: David Bonuchi

The Tigers have a great start with a great diver in David Bonuchi, who was easily the top freshman diver in the country last year with two A-finals. Divers were their only NCAA qualifiers last year, but Missouri has brought in a very good freshman class. If they can muster together a scoring relay or two, the Tigers could vault a few spots up the rankings.