How Did We Do? Reviewing SwimSwam's Final 2025 Men's NCAA Power Rankings

04/02/2025 02:39 PM

By James Sutherland on SwimSwam

2025 Men's NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 26-29, 2025
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center, Federal Way, Washington
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Live Results
• Final Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4

The 2025 Men’s NCAA Championships wrapped up on Saturday night with the Texas Longhorns holding off the Cal Golden Bears to win their first national title since 2021 in what was an exciting three-team battle with Indiana a close third.

Although a Longhorn victory in 2025 looked like a long shot 12 months ago, having finished 7th last season, everything has been coming up Texas since the hiring of Bob Bowman last April, so much so that they were the unanimous pick for national champions in our final edition of the power rankings.

There were a few surprises in the top 10, however, with Cal outpacing Indiana for the runner-up spot and Georgia moving into 7th, while there were a ton of changes relative to our predictions in the 10-25 spots.

2024-25 Men’s NCAA Power Rankings: 

• Pre-Season
• Pre-Invite
• Post-Invite
• Pre-Conference
• Final Edition

Below, find the top 25 teams from the championships alongside our final predictions as we take a look at what we got right, what we got wrong and what we got really wrong.

2025 MEN’S NCAA RESULTS VERSUS SWIMSWAM PICKS

WHAT WE GOT RIGHT

• Texas was the unanimous pick to win the title by SwimSwam writers, and although the race for first place might’ve ended up tighter than anticipated, we did correctly predict the Longhorns to top the field.
• We also had #4 Florida, #5 Tennessee, #6 Arizona State, #8 Stanford and #10 Virginia Tech finishing in the correct spot, with a bit of jockeying for the surrounding spots that we’ll get into in the next section.
• Outside of the top 10, the only two teams we had finishing in the right spot were 11th-place Michigan and 19th-place LSU.

WHAT WE GOT WRONG – TOP 10

• No one predicted Cal would finish 2nd in the team standings, and they weren’t even a unanimous pick for 3rd. However, the Bears showed up on incredible form in Federal Way, kicking the meet off with a stunning performance on Wednesday night in the 800 free relay, and they were in the title hunt the rest of the way. Cal had 16 individuals score, including eight with double-digit points and seven with 25 or more. They finished with 471 points, 470 of which were from swimming, which is 178 more than they were seeded for (292).
• We predicted Indiana to place 2nd ahead of Cal, and the Hoosiers were edged out by the Bears by 12 points, sitting within striking distance of them throughout the majority of the meet without being able to overtake them. Indiana was seeded for just half a point less than Cal in the pool (291.5), and their diving prowess figured to push them past the Bears. The Hoosiers did pile up 117 diving points, and despite outscoring their seed in the pool by 50.5, still couldn’t get past Cal.
• The team that moved up the most in the top 10 was Georgia, which we picked 9th and was seeded 8th based on psych sheet points. The Bulldogs grabbed 7th place with 238.5 points, moving past Stanford and NC State after monster performances from Luca Urlando (45), Jake Magahey (42), Tomas Koski (31.5) and Ruard van Renen (28) who scored all 146.5 of their individual points. They were seeded for 125 individual points, but made bigger inroads on the relays, where they scored 92 points after being seeded for 40.
• We predicted NC State to place 7th, but the Wolfpack fell to 9th, their lowest finish since 2014. NC State finished with 178 points, 19.5 less than they were seeded for (197.5), with the big difference coming individually, as they scored 56 points when they were seeded for 78. However, even if they matched their seeded points, they still would’ve been 9th, as Stanford finished 38 points clear of them in 8th and Georgia was 60.5 points up in 7th.

OTHER SURPRISES

• Texas A&M and Alabama both moved up two spots from their prediction to take 12th and 13th, respectively. The Aggies scored 57 swimming points after they were seeded for 62, but picked up 38 diving points from Jaxon Bowshire (17) and Rhett Hensley (15) to launch into 12th place. The Crimson Tide outscored their psych sheet projection in the pool by 20 points, with Charlie Hawke leading the way with 28 while they had a couple of big relay performances in the 800 free (4th) and 400 free (9th) which was worth 48 points.
• The team that exceeded expectations the most (among ranked teams) was USC, which landed in 15th place after they were picked to place 21st. A big part of the Trojans’ success was in diving, where they got 45 of their 80 total points. They were only ranked 24th on the psych sheets with 30 projected swimming points, and ended up scoring 35.
• Purdue and Yale also moved up relative to their final power ranking, with the Boilermakers shooting up three spots to 17th and the Bulldogs moving up four spots to 20th. Purdue scored 60 of their 62 points on diving, and Yale scored all 30 of their points in the pool, 24 of which came from Noah Millard.
• Finishing lower their final predictions were Louisville, Ohio State and Florida State. The Buckeyes dropped four spots, from 12th to 16th, after scoring 25 individual swimming points after they were seeded for 48. The Seminoles fell two spots to 18th after scoring just 12 individual swimming points after being seeded for 53.

MOVING UP & MOVING OUT

• Kentucky, Wisconsin, Miami (FL) and Georgia Tech all placed in the top 25 after they weren’t predicted to do so. Diving was the story for the Hurricanes and Yellow Jackets, while the Wildcats had a combined 30 points from Carson Hick and Levi Sandidge in the pool while the Badgers had 14 points apiece come from Dominik Mark Torok and their relays.
• The teams we picked to finish in the top 25 that didn’t make the cut were Auburn, Virginia, Arizona and SMU. Arizona was 29th, Auburn and Virginia tied for 32nd, and SMU placed 35th.

• Arizona was seeded for 36 swimming points, 10 individual and 26 relay, and ended up scoring 4.5 and 10, respectively, with an additional point in diving.
• Auburn was seeded to score 44 points, including 24 individually, but they ended up failing to record a single individual swimming point, scoring 14 on relays.
• Virginia had the exact same result as Auburn with all 14 of their points coming from relays. That matched their relay psych sheet projection, but they were seeded for 21 individually and didn’t hit the board.
• SMU was only seeded for three points, but many predicted Jack Hoagland to have a big performance after he scored 41 last year. The Mustangs ended up scoring zero swimming points, only getting 12 from diver Luke Sitz.

See the full NCAA Championship box score here.

FINAL SCORES

Read the full story on SwimSwam: How Did We Do? Reviewing SwimSwam’s Final 2025 Men’s NCAA Power Rankings