The NCAA championship season is quick approaching, and as evidenced by all the most important contenders on the lads’s facet making last-minute, high-impact roster additions, the main target has shifted totally to the NCAA Championships in March.
So, to get an early have a look at the place issues stand forward of conferences and the lower strains being revealed, we’ve scored the 2025 NCAA Championships based mostly on occasions swum earlier than Jan. 21, 2025. These outcomes have some key limitations—primarily that they don’t embrace diving, which is the place the Indiana males will decide up main floor towards their opponents —so they’re much less predictive and extra a have a look at the state of play in January. We’ll talk about the opposite limitations beneath, however these outcomes largely affirm what we’ve seen all through this season. The Virginia girls are on their option to a five-peat at girls’s NCAAs and the Texas males’s quick early season outcomes have put them within the driver’s seat of a aggressive males’s race.
Girls
| Staff | Rating | |
| 1 | Virginia | 491 |
| 2 | Texas | 407 |
| 3 | Stanford | 358 |
| 4 | Tennessee | 282 |
| 5 | Florida | 278 |
| 6 | California | 226 |
| 7 | NC State | 206 |
| 8 | Michigan | 180 |
| 9 | Indiana | 148 |
| 10 | Louisville | 132 |
| 11 | Alabama | 110 |
| 12 | Wisconsin | 109 |
| 13 | Ohio St | 94 |
| 14 | Georgia | 92 |
| 15 | Duke | 87 |
| 16 | UNC | 78 |
| 17 | Southern Cali | 62 |
| 18 | Arizona St | 36 |
| 19 | Florida St | 34 |
| 20 | Miami (FL) | 21 |
| 21 | Virginia Tech | 20 |
| 22 | Auburn | 18 |
| 23 | Texas A&M | 14 |
| 24 | Washington St. | 11 |
| 25 | Pittsburgh | 7 |
| 25 | Houston | 7 |
| 27 | Princeton | 6 |
| 27 | Notre Dame | 6 |
| 29 | Cincinnati | 5 |
| 30 | South Carolina | 4 |
| 30 | LSU | 4 |
| 32 | Penn | 3 |
| 32 | SIUC (W) | 3 |
Males
| 1 | Texas | 465 |
| 2 | Indiana | 319 |
| 3 | Tennessee | 312 |
| 4 | California | 309 |
| 5 | Florida | 307 |
| 6 | Arizona St | 283 |
| 7 | NC State | 205 |
| 8 | Stanford | 170 |
| 9 | Georgia | 139 |
| 10 | Virginia | 117 |
| 11 | Louisville | 107 |
| 12 | Virginia Tech | 103 |
| 13 | UNC | 81 |
| 13 | Alabama | 81 |
| 15 | Michigan | 71 |
| 16 | Arizona | 66 |
| 17 | LSU | 55 |
| 18 | Ohio St | 50 |
| 19 | Auburn | 46 |
| 19 | Florida St | 46 |
| 21 | Texas A&M | 34 |
| 21 | Yale | 34 |
| 23 | SMU | 31 |
| 24 | Southern Cali | 28 |
| 25 | Military | 16 |
| 25 | Penn | 16 |
| 27 | Kentucky | 15 |
| 28 | Georgia Tech | 14 |
| 29 | Princeton | 12 |
| 30 | Hawaii | 7 |
| 30 | Brown | 7 |
| 32 | Wisconsin | 5 |
| 33 | Harvard | 3 |
| 33 | Minnesota | 3 |
Earlier than we go any additional, let’s talk about how we arrived at these numbers. Our information is sourced from USA Swimming, and we chosen the highest 21 swimmers in every occasion based mostly on occasions recorded earlier than January 21, 2025. USA Swimming accepts transformed occasions, so these rankings embrace occasions from the 2024 Quick Course World Championships.
To simulate an NCAA Championships, we scored the highest 16 and restricted every swimmer to a few particular person occasions. Some swimmers are ranked to attain in additional than three occasions, which required us to make judgment calls on which occasions they might compete in. We determined to make use of every swimmer’s three highest-ranked occasions and tried to maintain them to 1 occasion per day when potential. Swimmers will undoubtedly make totally different selections than we did as March approaches. Most notably, utilizing the very best rank because the deciding issue retains Josh Liendo within the 200 fly as a substitute of the 100 freestyle, the place he’s the defending NCAA champion.
We scored relays however weeded out any groups that didn’t have a qualifying normal in at the least one occasion, which is how most groups qualify relays for the championships. So, there aren’t 16 scoring groups in every relay, although there will probably be for conferences. It’s additionally necessary to bear in mind Virginia doesn’t swim the 800 free relay till conferences, so though the ladies have a commanding lead on this simulation, there are nonetheless factors on the board for them. Lastly, we didn’t break any ties.
Once more, diving will not be included in these scores.
With these limitations in thoughts, what can these simulated NCAA Championship outcomes inform us?
Girls
As anticipated, Virginia is in management on the ladies’s facet, with Texas wanting like a stable alternative for one more runner-up end. The Longhorns are the one girls’s staff aside from Virginia to amass greater than 400 factors from this train. Stanford sits on a little bit of an island in third place with 358 factors after confidence-boosting first-semester outcomes from Torri Huske, Lucy Bell, Caroline Bricker, and Aurora Roghair.
Tennessee and Florida are in a decent race for the fourth-place trophy. The Volunteers simply received Mona McSharry again after the Olympic medalist took the primary semester off, and McSharry ought to enhance her staff not solely in her particular person occasions but additionally the relays. Florida hasn’t made an addition like that, however they’ll deploy Bella Sims in a variety of occasions. It is going to be onerous for Sims to slender down to a few, however choosing the right three may assist the Gators push previous Tennessee.
Mary-Ambre Moluh’s sturdy freshman marketing campaign has launched Cal as much as sixth, which might transfer them up 5 spots from their Eleventh-place end in 2024. These rankings present that Arizona State could possibly be one other huge riser; they’d earn 18th based mostly on their mid-season outcomes, which might be a giant leap from twenty fourth final season. A big a part of that rise can be because of the progress their relays have made. On the flip facet, USC’s outcomes land them in seventeenth, effectively beneath the eighth place end they achieved final season.
Males
The lads’s NCAA Championships have the potential to be probably the most aggressive meets we’ve seen in a very long time. These simulated outcomes don’t make it appear that manner, because the Longhorns would win by 146 factors over Indiana by this information. Nevertheless, the shortage of diving on this simulation hurts the Hoosiers. Final 12 months, Indiana scored 121 factors on the boards, which makes up a majority of the bottom to Texas.
The Longhorns have been swimming quick all season and Cal, a perennial contender within the staff trophy race, solely focuses on the large present in March. The Golden Bears haven’t proven all their playing cards but, which retains them additional down the rankings each time we do an train like this one. This information accounts for the arrival of mid-season additions like Lucas Henveaux and Mewen Tomac, however a twin meet in January isn’t the very best show of their capabilities. That goes for all of the mid-season additions groups have made, like Caspar Corbeau, Chris Guiliano, Rafael Miroslaw, and Matt King.
Tennessee seems extremely sturdy this season, highlighted by Jordan Crooks and Gui Caribe’s performances to this point. Final 12 months, the Volunteers completed sixth, the staff’s finest end since 2001. May they rise greater than that this 12 months? Their 800 freestyle relay has reached new heights, which was one of many obstacles to them getting concerned within the high 5 race final season.
On this tight of a staff race, relays, like diving, are going to play an enormous position. Tennessee’s rise within the relays may play spoiler for different groups. The Vols are peaking on the proper time, whereas we’ve lately gotten affirmation that neither Macguire McDuff nor Adam Chaney will race for the Gators this season, which is a large blow to Florida’s relays and aspirations within the general standings. In the meantime, Arizona State, the defending champions, will probably be hoping to make use of their relays to keep up their place in high 5 after shedding numerous particular person factors within the offseason.
