3Cats4CAL said:
What ratings for the recruits for the 2024 and 2025 men's team?
If you look at SwimSwams' re-ranking of the 2024 men's recruiting class (
https://swimswam.com/re-rank-top-20-ncaa-swimming-recruits-in-the-boys-high-school-class-of-2024/), Cal's class appears a bit light, featuring only one swimmer (#3 Lucca Battaglini) in their top 20. By comparison, Texas, NC State, Virginia, and even Harvard feaure more top 20 prospects.
However, if you take into account international recruits, a different picture emerges. Cal's 2024 recruiting class includes verbal commitments from three highly regarded international swimmers, French Olympian backstroker Mewen Tomac, and rising stars Nans Mazellier a French sprinter and Japan's breaststroker Yamato Okadome. Cal also has a verbal commitment from Nick Mahabir, a breaststroker who competes internationally for Singapore, but he has serious health issues which may keep him from competitive swimming in the future.
I believe one of the factors why SwimSwam doesn't focus on international recruits in their initial recruiting class rankings, is the uncertainty of foreign swimmers clearing various hurdles (language, college credits, international team responsibilities, etc.) that favor a "wait until they are enrolled in classes", before factoring in their impact on the recruiting class.
SWimSwam will likely publish their "final" ranking of the 2024 recruiting class in early October.
Even if all of the Bears' international recruits enroll this fall, once transfers are taken into account, I have little doubt that Bob Bowman's Texas Longhorns will be judged as having the top 2024 recruiting class. In addition to several top freshmen, they have added two Olympians Hubert Kos (transfer from ASU) and Aaron Shackell (former Bear), as well as Rex Maurer, the #1 from the class of 2023 (transfer from Stanford).
As for the 2025 men's recruiting rankings:
https://swimswam.com/way-too-early-recruit-ranks-boys-high-school-class-of-2025/
