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 3 | Day 4Swimmer of the Year: Josh Liendo, Florida
At the fourth attempt, Josh Liendo finally set his first NCAA record, lowering Caeleb Dressel‘s mark of 42.80 in the 100 fly. Liendo did so twice, going 42.54 in prelims before taking his third consecutive NCAA title in the event in 42.49.
It was a fitting way to bring a gilded NCAA career to a close. Liendo has been one of the best swimmers in the NCAA through all four years at Florida, but before his final NCAA championships he was yet to set an individual or even an SEC record. He only owned a single school record, that in the 200 fly, as Caeleb Dressel remained on the record books in Liendo’s primary events.
As he exceeded Dressel on one front, he matched him on another. On the final day at 2026 NCAAs Liendo won the 100 free in 39.91, his third title of the meet and ninth overall. He swept his individual events for the second time after doing so in 2024, matching Dressel’s sweeps in 2017 and 2018, and moved the joint-third on the overall individual titles rankings, also matching Dressel there. Liendo’s 100 free title made him just the 16th swimmer this century to sweep an event across all four years – again, matching Dressel’s record in the 50 free.
Liendo set best times in all three individual events, going 18.06 in the 50 free, 42.49 in the 100 fly, and 39.91 in the 100 free, as well as swimming some incredible relay splits. He was the only swimmer this year to win three events, scoring a perfect 60 points, and has taken 231 out of a possible 240 in his career. His graduation will leave a huge hole for the Gators, but he has certainly signed off in style.
Josh Liendo’s Results:
50 free: 1st, 18.06 (#3 in history) 100 free: 1st, 39.91 (#3 in history) 100 fly: 1st, 42.59 (#1 in history) 200 free relay: 2nd, 1:13.30 – 18.27 leadoff split 200 medley relay: 2nd, 1:20.16 – 17.58 flying free split 400 free relay: 3rd, 2:44.38 – 40.38 flying split 400 medley relay: 3rd, 2:57.54 – 42.41 flying fly splitHonorable Mentions:
Hubert Kos, Texas: Kos was the only swimmer in the NCAA this year to set national records in more than one event, doing so in both backstroke distances, and swam the #2 time in history in the 100 fly to take second behind Liendo. He was key on relays for Texas as well, splitting 19.30/42.52 on the fly legs of their medley relays, 18.22 on the 200 free relay, and leading off the 400 free relay in 41.15. He defended his title in the 200 back, and ended his college career with five individual NCAA titles, and as the fastest in history in both backstroke events, and in the 200 by more than a second. His 57 points was the second-highest from a swimmer at the meet, and he has taken the NCAA records in backstroke to a point they may remain for another decade or more. Yamato Okadome, Cal: Okadome was a double ‘A’ finalist in the breaststrokes last year, and moved up to take the title in both the 100 and 200 this year, upsetting favorite Nate Germonprez in the former. He is the star at Cal, and set a new ACC records in both events after going 49.90 in the 100 and 1:48.61 in the 200, scoring 40 points and being one of just four swimmers to win more than one title. Coupling his individual performances with top-ten splits in history on both the 200 medley relay (22.35) and 400 medley relay (49.98), the Japanese sophomore looks to have the run of the NCAA for the next couple of years.Coach of the Year: Anthony Nesty, Florida
A year ago Florida were rueing a potential missed opportunity, with the Gators not managing to get involved in what turned out to be a three-way title fight between Texas, Cal, and Indiana. This year, Florida had moved up for their joint-highest finish since winning the NCAA title in 1984, matching their 1985 performance..
That came even with the loss of Jake Mitchell and breakout star Julian Smith. Nesty has gotten the best out of Josh Liendo this season, coaching him to an NCAA record in the 100 fly and another sub-40 swim in the 100 free, and the Gators set an NCAA record in the 200 medley relay at SECs. Ahmed Jaouadi came in after winning a pair of world titles last summer and broke Bobby Finke‘s NCAA record in the mile, and Ahmed Hafnaoui looked back near his best after more than two years away from the top of the sport.
Florida placed 2nd at SECs behind Texas, the same 1-2 as at NCAAs, but made the title race far closer in March than it was in February. Florida moved up 23.5 points against their psych sheets projections, scoring big points in distance freestyle as they finished just 29.5 points behind the Longhorns.
That was far more than one would have expected after the performance at NCAAs last year. Gio Linscheer had a fine senior season with three All-American finishes, Jonny Marshall placed 2nd in the 200 back despite looking off in the 100, and Charlie Hutchison (9 points) and Scotty Buff (13 points) moved up to set best times and score some important points. Nesty may not have won the title this season but he has taken Florida to their highest level for a while, and the Gators exceeded expectations this season to give us what we all crave at NCAAs – a title race.
Honorable Mentions:
Ray Looze, Indiana: Similarly to Nesty at Florida, Looze led Indiana to exceed their points projections and move up above ASU, as the Hoosiers placed 3rd this year despite graduating a whole raft of swimmers last summer and only getting four points on the boards at 2026 NCAAs. Pretty much every one of Indiana’s top swimmers improved this year – Aaron Shackell was an ‘A’ finalist at his first NCAAs, Josh Bey and Noah Cakir made four ‘A’ finals between them as freshmen, Zalan Sarkany was better than ever despite losing his throne in the mile, Owen McDonald improved again as he made two ‘A’ finals, and Kai Van Westering and Mikkel Lee both set best times to score at NCAAs. Indiana went +47 against the psych sheets at NCAAs, and unlike last year will return pretty much all of their top swimmers. Looze’s work is perhaps best reflected in the breaststroke – after losing six scorers last year, they had five brand new ones at NCAAs. Sergio Lopez, Virginia Tech: Returning just 1.5 individual points and losing three-quarters of their relay legs, Virginia Tech’s stay near the top of the NCAA looked likely to end this year, and we did not have the Hokies ranked in our top-25 at the beginning of the season. Brendan Whitfield was their key man this season, as would have been expected six months ago, but the Hokies had Oscar Bilbao, Levente Balogh and Eli Martin all score individually as well as taking 44 points from four relays. Two of those scorers – Bilbao and Martin – did so in the 200 breast, an event Lopez has made a habit of churning out top swimmers in, and Martin progressed from no invite in 2025 to an ‘A’ finalist in 2026. Lopez always seems to turn out a team that is more than the sum of its parts. Todd DeSorbo, Virginia: Recruiting can almost be as large a part of the job as coaching, and DeSorbo’s efforts for the freshman class this year have paid off in spades. Getting Thomas Heilman and Maximus Williamson was a coup in itself, but both swimmers have improved under his tutelage and they scored 72 individual points between them at NCAAs – 58 more than Virginia as a whole managed in 2025. Jack Aikins and David King made the 200 back ‘A’ final at NCAAs too, with King scoring in the 200 free to boot, and Virginia broke multiple school relay records as they soared to a top-ten finish with 192 points. The Cavaliers look on the up, and have three more years of their dynamic duo. Given DeSorbo’s record this year, and his successful adaption after Virginia added fairly badly at NCAAs last year, the sky could end up as the limit.Breakout Swimmer of the Year: Julian Koch, Pittsburgh
Koch had a solid freshman season, scoring at ACCs in the 50 free and 100 free and establishing himself as a key piece on the Panther’s relays, but has ramped up his performances immensely this season after some underrated long course performances last summer.
He had demolished his personal best in the 100 free by midseason, going 41.15 at the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational. More best times and school records rained down at 2026 ACCs, where he was 18.87/41.00/1:32.79 on free and 44.56 in the 100 fly, all four of them program records.
Having not qualified for NCAAs 12 months before, he came away from the championships with a pair of ‘A’ final appearances in the 100 free (40.43, 4th) and 100 fly (43.85 in prelims), along with program records in the 200 free (1:31.95) and 50 free (18.65), the latter of which would have made the ‘A’ final.
Koch scored 28 points individually, and was an integral part of the 20 relay points Pitt scored. He heads into his junior season as not just an ‘A’ final favorite next year, but a potential title winner in the 100 free. It is a long way to come in 12 months.
Julian Koch’s Results:
50 free: 15th, 18.85 100 free: 4th,40.43 100 fly: 8th, 44.28 (43.85 in prelims) 200 free relay: 21st, 1:16.20 – 18.65 leadoff split 400 free relay: 10th, 2:47.17 – 40.71 leadoff split 800 free relay: 14th, 6:11.87 – 1:31.95 leadoff splitHonorable Mentions:
Remi Fabiani, ASU: Fabiani was a scorer in the 100 free last year while at Cal Baptist, but his transfer to ASU this offseason gave him a new lease of life in the pool. Despite their prowess as a sprint school right now, it was in the 200 free that Fabiani really exploded this year. He was 1:31.23 at midseason and 1:31.24 to win the event at Big 12s, where he also split 40.00 on the ASU’s 400 free relay to make him the 6th-fastest performer in history – the five ahead of him are continental medalists at a minimum. The momentum kept on to NCAAs, going 1:30.81 in the 200 free for his first NCAA ‘A’ final appearance. Another followed in the 50 free, and he played a key part on a trio of championship-winning relays. Fabiani dropped 0.28 seconds in the 50 free, 0.56 seconds in the 100 free and 2.91 seconds in the 200 free. Those kind of drops in your final year of college are not the norm, and if his swimming career is to end this summer, he is certainly ending on a high. Mitchell Schott, Princeton: It had been three years since Princeton’s last All-American, Raunak Khosla in 2023, and a whopping 18 years since their last ‘A’ finalist in Doug Lennox in 2008. In his senior season, Schott made not one but two ‘A’ finals, placing 8th in both the 200 fly and 200 free, his first NCAA points. Not since Charles Campbell in 1972 – when only six lanes were swum in finals – have the Tigers had a swimmer make two ‘A’ finals, and Schott ends the season as the owner of program records in the 200 free, 200 fly, and 200 IM, as well as multiple relays. Eli Martin, Virginia Tech: Martin snuck into the ‘B’ final of the 200 breast in 16th at the ACC championships last year, and ended his freshman season with best times of 53.12 in the 100 breast and 1:54.67 in the 200 breast. Fast forward a year and he is an NCAA ‘A’ finalist after placing 8th in the 200 breast, and has lowered his PBs to 51.29 in the 100 and 1:51.08 in the 200. As mentioned in Sergio Lopez‘s HM above, Virginia Tech seems a great place to develop in the 200 breast, and Martin holds a LCM best of 2:12.07 – long course breakout could be due very, very soon.Freshman Swimmer of the Year: Maximus Williamson, Virginia
Williamson came into his first season Virginia with plenty of questions hanging over him. He was an elite swimmer – there was no question about that – but since his breakout 2022-2023 season he had struggled in his signature IM events and hadn’t hit the same highs in long course. His final meet before joining the Cavaliers was a forgettable U.S. Nationals, where he finished 22nd in the 100 free. Nearing his best times in the 200 free (1:30.46) and 200 IM (1:40.81) would have been an acceptable return as a freshman – any additional fireworks at ACCs or NCAAs would be a bonus.
He certainly saved the biggest bang for the end of the college season. Williamson had been 1:31.46 in the 200 free and 1:40.78 in the 200 IM at ACCs, enough to comfortable qualify for NCAAs but not times that would win a championship. However, the first day in Atlanta brought a welcome sight for our #2-ranked recruit in the form of a best time of 1:30.43, set while leading off Virginia’s 4th-place 800 free relay.
He only got better from that point. He won the 200 free from lane 8 in 1:30.03, becoming the #1 U.S. freshman in history and the first freshman 200 free champ since Townley Haas, before running down Owen McDonald in the 200 IM to take the win in 1:38.48. Williamson was one of only two freshman to win an event at men’s NCAAs this year, and the first one to win two since Leon Marchand in 2022.
Maximus Williamson’s Results:
200 free: 1st, 1:30.03 200 IM: 1st, 1:38,48 200 free relay: 10th, 1:15.17 – 18.44 flying split 400 free relay: 9th, 2:46.73 – 41.02 flying split 400 medley relay: 8th, 3:00.55 – 40.66 flying free split 800 free relay: 4th, 6:06.85 – 1:30.43 leadoff splitHonorable Mentions:
Ahmed Jaouadi, Florida: Jaouadi came into the year as a double world champion, and certainly lived up to the hype at NCAAs. The Tunisian broke Bobby Finke‘s NCAA record in the mile thanks to a blazing final 50 of 22.73, before placing 2nd in the 500 free behind countryman Ahmed Hafnaoui, scoring 37 points in his freshman season. He matched his performance in each event from SECs, and alongside Williamson was the only freshman to win an individual event this year. Thomas Heilman, Virginia: Heilman lived up to his billing as the #1 recruit last summer with a pair of top-four finishes on fly, placing 4th in the 100 in 43.58 and 2nd in the 200 in 1:38.16. Both of those were personal bests, and he split a blistering 42.97 on Virginia’s 400 medley relay, one of the four he swam on that placed in the top ten. He was one of only four freshmen who made multiple ‘A finals, as he scored 32 points for Virginia and set three personal bests – the two mentioned above and the 100 free (41.74) on the leadoff leg of the 400 free relay. Josh Bey, Indiana: Bey set a Big Ten record in the 400 IM at Big Tens in February, and then made three ‘A’ finals as he scored 41 points at NCAAs. That was the most of any freshman this year, and he set huge best times in all three of the 200 IM (1:41.17), 200 breast (1:48.79) and 400 IM (3:34.90). In the latter two he is the #2 freshman in history, behind only a chap named Leon Marchand. Wonder what he’s up to now.Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2026 NCAA Swammy Awards: Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving
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