By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam
The first meets have been completed which means the 2024-25 NCAA season is officially underway! As such, we’ve got a bit of a grab-bag of news in this week’s NCAA digest as teams are at varying points in their seasons—some have competed, some won’t until November. Others are still setting their rosters and coaching staffs, and of course, the conference realignment train steams onward.
Let’s break it all down.
Notable Results
It’s been an offseason of change for Arizona State, but one thing is the same: they like to swim fast no matter what time of year it is. At an intrasquad scrimmage last week, sophomore Ilya Kharun dropped a 42.30 suited 100-yard freestyle, which is only .12 seconds from his lifetime best, swum at a February 2024 dual meet. At the same meet, he swam a lifetime best 45.72 in the 100-yard back and 45.00 in the 100-yard fly.
Kharun staying at ASU did a lot to staunch a massive bleed of NCAA points from the offseason departures; he was always going to have a bigger role on the team this season and these results show he is more than up to the task.
Credit: Owen Main Photography
Cal Poly hosted its annual King & Queen of the Pool Pentathlon with Cal Berkeley last week. For those unfamiliar, all swimmers at the meet compete in the 100 of each stroke, plus the 100 IM. The man and woman with the fastest add-ups are declared King and Queen of the Pool, with the crown to match. Isabelle Stadden won the women’s title for the third straight time to open her final NCAA season. She swam a 54.53 100 fly/52.86 100 back/1:04.99 100 breast/50.91 100 free/57.07 100 IM, claiming the crown by over six seconds.
Freshman Zachary Tan became King with a 50.06 100 fly/50.01 100 back/54.98 100 breast/46.33 100 free/49.97 100 IM. The backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle times are particularly intriguing as he was just over a second off his PBs in the backstroke and breaststroke, and less than a second from his 45.43 PB in the 100 free.
Tan won with a total time of 4:11.35, .55 seconds ahead of his teammate Roman Jones. Some of the biggest names on the Cal men’s roster (Destin Lasco, Jack Alexy, Bjorn Seeliger, Gabriel Jett, Dare Rose) were not at the meet.
12 meet records went down at the All-Arkansas Invite, which featured teams from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, Henderson State, Ouachita Baptist, and Harding University. Gabriella O’Neil, Daniel Meszaros, Efe Ertuzun, Colin Candebat, Patryk Dabrowski, Colton Bennett, Caitlin Romprey, and Oskar Cebula all swam individual meet records. Little Rock won the women’s meet by over 200 points, while Ouachita Baptist claimed victory on the men’s side.
Conference Realignment
The Pac-12 rebuild is underway. The conference announced it’s adding four schools from the Mountain West conference beginning July 1, 2026. A potential Pac-12 Swimming and Diving conference championship would now include Washington State, Fresno State, Colorado State, and San Diego State. WSU is the only one of these teams currently in the Pac-12, but they will get a look at their future conference rivals at this year’s Mountain West championships, where they are racing due to there being no Pac-12 championship.
Credit: FIU Athletics
All of the Power 4 conferences in college swimming have more teams than they did last season, but none have adjusted their conference championship roster limits for this season. For a refresher on which team landed in which conference, check out our conference maps.
This week, Memphis, Tulane, South Florida, and UTSA—four major targets for conferences seeking more schools—affirmed their commitment to the AAC. College football reporter Brett McMurphy added similar news, reporting that Air Force will remain in the Mountain West. Of these schools, only Tulane and Air Force sponsor swimming.
Yesterday, The Big West announced that Grand Canyon, Seattle University, and the University of San Diego swimming programs will join the conference as affiliate members in the 2025-26 season. Grand Canyon and Seattle have men’s and women’s programs, and San Diego sponsors a women’s team.
Arrivals and Departures
Macguire McDuff confirmed to SwimSwam that he is “done competing” ahead of his would-be senior season on the Florida men’s roster and declined further comment. McDuff has been a core piece of the Gators’ relays for the past two seasons as their reliable anchor—expect Florida to play around with relay lineups and order as they aim to fill McDuff’s spot on all five relays.
Also on the departure side, Delta State head coach Dan’l Murray has left the program after 14 seasons to be closer to family in North Carolina.
Ksawery Masiuk (photo: Jack Spitser)
Now to the arrivals. First, the rich get richer as Polish Olympian Ksawery Masiuk has announced he will join the Texas Longhorns in January 2025. We usually don’t talk recruiting in this digest but since this news impacts the 2024-25 season, we’re making an exception. This is a huge boost for Texas as it gives the team even more firepower as they look to vault up the NCAA standings in the first year of the Bob Bowman era.
Masiuk is a backstroke specialist, he’s won multiple world junior titles and claimed bronze in the 50-meter backstroke at the 2022 and 2024 World Championships. He was originally committed to join NC State last season; however, he first deferred his enrollment until after the 2024 Olympics, then said in April 2023 that he was going to remain in Poland and focus on LCM.
Two recent NCAA alums will be back on deck this season as coaches. 2x NCAA champion Lyle Yost graduated from Ohio State last season but will stay with the team as the first assistant diving coach in the Buckeyes’ history. Derek Maas used his fifth year of eligibility at NYU (Division III) while beginning medical school. He returns to the Violets this season as an assistant coach.
Finally, Antony Romanini was announced as an assistant coach of the Harvard women’s team, rounding out the Crimson coaching staff and FGCU added John Lynch, Antonio Nunez Alvarez, and Sara Niepelova to the staff.
Gettysburg
At least two swimmers have been suspended from the Gettysburg swim team after a racial slur was carved into a student’s body. There is an ongoing investigation into the incident, and the family of the victim has spoken out, releasing a statement to the university newspaper, The Gettysburgian.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2024-25 NCAA Digest: The First Meets Of The Season Are In The Books