The calendars have flipped to September, which means that Division I NCAA programs are gearing up for the start of the 2024-25 season. As always, we’ll rank in reverse order from #16 to #1. But before we get started, we’ve got a few honorable mentions.
A few important notes on our rankings:
- The rankings listed are based on our Class of 2024 Re-Rank. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our Best of the Rest section for top-tier recruits.
- Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our team ranks on a number of factors: prospects’ incoming times are by far the main factor, but we also consider potential upside in the class, class size, relay impact, and team needs. Greater weight is placed on known success in short course yards, so foreign swimmers are slightly devalued based on the difficulty in converting long course times to short course production.
- Transfers are included, though they are weighed less than recruits who arrive with four seasons of eligibility.
- For the full list of all verbally committed athletes, click here. A big thank you to SwimSwam’s own Anne Lepesant for compiling that index – without it, rankings like these would be far less comprehensive.
- Some teams had not released a finalized 2024-25 team roster at the time these articles were published, meaning it’s possible we missed some names. Let us know in the comments below.
Best NCAA Swimming and Diving Recruiting Classes: Men’s Class of 2024
Michigan: This class should end up being a valuable one for the Wolverines, though as it’s a majority international group, it’s hard to gauge exactly how impactful, given their limited experience in yards. Canadian Olympian Lorne Wigginton is a freestyler/IM’er and seems to have swum exactly one SCY meet in his career. And while the 1:38.69 200 free/4:23.40 500 free/3:49.15 400 IM from February 2023 gives a baseline, it’s only that rather than a full picture of his potential. The Wolverines have also picked up Norwegian Olympian Jon Jontvedt, European Juniors finalist Inbar Danziger, and Brit Henry Gray joins a butterfly group that’s made significant strides under now second-year head coach Matt Bowe. Ireland’s Matthew Walsh Hussey rounds out the international contingent and is joined by Rian Herrmann, William Savarese, Thomas Farney, and Tyler Tannenberger. Open water Worlds swimmer Joshua Brown has joined Michigan after taking an Olympic redshirt year and training at the Sandpipers of Nevada. Brown spent two years at Notre Dame, scoring for them in the 1650 free at 2023 ACCs.
Georgia: Georgia’s getting a big boost this season from the return of Luca Urlando, though the list of new swimmers they’re bringing in is on the smaller side. They snagged #5 Drew Hitchcock, the best 200 IMer in the class with a 1:43.48. Additionally, his 400 IM best (3:41.81) would’ve snuck into the 2024 NCAA ‘B’ final and is the second-best in the class. He’s joined in the class by British breaststroke specialist Elliot Woodburn, sprinter Will Gavin, and distance freestyler Kyler Heffner. With Hitchcock as a flyer/IMer, the Bulldogs have brought in a well-balanced class under head coach Neil Versfeld for the program’s second year as a single-gender team, even if it is on the smaller side of recruiting classes.
Yale: The Bulldogs also have a small but mighty incoming men’s class of 2024. We know of only two swimmers slated to join Yale this fall, which makes it hard to move them any higher than the honorable mentions section of this list, but Jake Wang and Elliot Lee will pack a punch, especially combined with their heavy-hitting group of incoming sophomores. Wang debuted on our top 20 list of recruits in the re-rank at #13, thanks to improving his 100 breast time from 53.92 to 52.36, the best in the class. The time is within 1% of an NCAA qualification bid and would’ve been 3rd at 2024 Ivies, key for Yale as they’re looking to break into the top two in the conference. Lee also made big improvements in his senior season and like Wang is a highly versatile swimmer that Yale can deploy in a number of different ways for both individual and relay events.
Princeton: While Yale looks to dethrone Harvard and Princeton at the top of the conference, both schools have brought in strong recruiting classes of their own. BOTR Logan Noguchi highlights the Tigers’ class. He’s a well-rounded swimmer that boasts a 46.12 100 fly/1:45.32 200 fly/1:46.79 200 IM slash line and his 100 fly would’ve won 2024 Ivies. He’s joined by breaststroker Andrew Zou, freestyler Patrick Dinu, freestyler Santiago Gutierrez, freestyler Max Marcus, IMer Devyn Caples, Tomaz Chevres, breaststroker Conan Chen, breaststroker Curan Palmer, and diver Ben Romig. It’s a strong class that will help the Tigers in their quest to fend off challengers and remain in the top two of the conference.
