By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
2026 NCAA DIVISION I MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Dates: Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28 Location: McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA Defending Champions: Texas (1x) SwimSwam Preview Index Psych Sheets Preview Index Live Stream Live Results Live Recaps Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Finals: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3With the prelims session of day 4 at the men’s 2026 NCAA championships now on the books, there will be an unfamiliar sight in the finals session tonight – or rather, the lack of a familiar one.
Cal put no swimmers through to the finals today, albeit with no ‘B’ finals being swum. With just two scoring swimmers today in Casper Puggaard and Keaton Jones, the aura of inevitability that accompanied a Cal title charge on the final day seems to have been shattered.
The new schedule plays no small part in that. The mile is now swam on the first day and the 200 breast on day 3, while the 200 IM has moved from day 2 to day 4. While there are schedule considerations to be considered due to that – the 200 back/200 IM double was a reasonably common one for Cal’s swimmers – the remaining events were ones in which the Golden Bears had historically been strong.
None more so than the 200 back, which as recently as last year was a bastion of strength. They put three swimmers into the top four in 2025, with a further two in the ‘B’ final, as 31.25% of the scorers hailed from Berkeley. This year, they had just one swimmer score as Keaton Jones finished 9th in prelims for the third year in a row.
That made for the first 200 back NCAA ‘A’ final without a Cal swimmer for 15 years. Not since 2011, when Cal’s highest finisher was Guy Barnea in 15th, has that been the case.
As Cal’s backstroke goes, so has the USA’s over the last few years. Ryan Murphy, Jacob Pebley, Daniel Carr, Bryce Mefford, Destin Lasco, and Keaton Jones have all competed internationally for the U.S. in the last decade, and all of them have scored at NCAAs for Cal in the 200 back.
Last summer saw the weakest domestic backstroke field for years, with no swimmer cracking 53 seconds in the 100 at U.S. nationals. The weakness became more apparent later in the summer as neither U.S. swimmer made it through to the semi-finals, Tommy Janton finishing 18th in 53.87 and a clearly-ill Jack Aikins placing 44th in 56.54. Daniel Diehl and Will Modglin broke 53 seconds to go 1-2 at the World University Games however, to finish as the top two Americans in the 2024-2025 season.
Cal’s dramatic drop off in day 4 scoring is apparent when comparing to the previous decade. The 10 individual points they scored is 56 fewer than any other NCAA championship in the last decade, and 146 points fewer than their best result of 156 individual day 4 points from 2021.
Cal’s Day 4 Individual Scoring, 2016-2026
Looking only at the 200 back paints a starker picture. Not since 2011 have they scored fewer points than this year, and the last time they had only a single swimmer score was 2017, however that was title-winner Ryan Murphy. Cal scored 61 points in the event in 2025, 52 more than this year.
The vacancy left by Cal in the finals tonight will not be noticed in the pool. Cal is often one of the best fan sections, thanks to their strong alumni links, and the atmosphere they bring will be missed tonight.
Jack Alexy, Trend Frandson and Ziyad Saleem have been in attendance from the 2025 squad (Frandson was an NCAA qualifier in 2024 and Saleem missed the meet last year by just 0.05 seconds in the 200 back), and Claire Weinstein and Teagan O’Dell have remained in Atlanta after swimming at the women’s championships last week.
The men’s performance comes as a contrast to the strong performance the women put up last week to finish 4th, despite a DQ on the 200 medley relay. They moved up from seed to score X more points than they were seeded for – in contrast, the men will end the meet at least 15 points below their projection.
Having historically been a split program, the men’s and women’s squads at Cal were combined under Dave Durden in 2024. Since then the women have been on the upswing, with swimmers like Claire Weinstein, Mary-Amber Moluh, and Mia West making their mark.
The men’s squad was expected to be weaker this year, with the Golden Bears effectively losing two classes in the summer as their top swimmers made use of the bonus 5th year of eligibility. Destin Lasco, Dare Rose, Gabriel Jett, Jack Alexy, Matt Hensen, Robin Hanson, Lucas Henveaux, Tyler Koop, and Bjorn Seeliger all graduated in the summer having scored in 2025.
In fact there were only two returning NCAA scorers on the roster in Keaton Jones and Yamato Okadome, who has swept the breaststroke events this year. With no real blue-chip recruits beyond Ryan Erisman over the last couple of years it may take some time for Cal to restock. Lucca Battaglini is possibly their top domestic swimmer behind Jones and Erisman and has pushed on this year to set best times in sprint freestyle, but set his best times at midseason and missed scoring in the 100 today.
While there was significant turnover in the swimming roster last summer, this summer the biggest changes will come in the coaching staff. David Marsh, Cals assistant coach since 2022, has announced he will leave Cal this summer.
The picture for next season in the pool does however look rosier. With a bumper recruiting class coming in including Baylor Stanton, Tim Wu, Jordan Ragland, and Albert Smelzer, they should be a more dangerous prospect next season. Look forward another year to the 2027 class and they have Jackson Davis, who was 1:39.26 in the 200 back just two weeks ago. With Stanton a 1:39.79 200 backstroker as well, they are strengthening well in the event – but for now the final day of NCAA is not the phenomenon it was for the Golden Bears.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Cal’s Day 4 Domination Is Nowhere To Be Seen This Year
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