Love Cal's aquatic dominance- Swimming/Diving, Water Polo, and Rowing! Excited about the improvement of the previously neglected diving program. First diving points in 15 years, and the guy is a freshman, so presumably he will get even better. Cal men's swimming/diving have been first or second for the last 10 years running. If they can …
Love Cal's aquatic dominance- Swimming/Diving, Water Polo, and Rowing! Excited about the improvement of the previously neglected diving program. First diving points in 15 years, and the guy is a freshman, so presumably he will get even better. Cal men's swimming/diving have been first or second for the last 10 years running. If they can develop diving into an elite program, Cal could CRUSH everyone virtually ever year.
It's actually been first or second since 2010! 2013 was the only year where Texas wasn't also in the top two until this year. In any case, it's about time Cal develops a strong diving program and this year has at least shown that it is viable and there's a good foundation with Pei Lin (coach) and Joshua Thai (freshman diver). I don't think they would crush everyone virtually every year, though. The swimming talent continues to grow, and be spread out across a number of teams instead of just 2. It's evident by the fact that this was the closest 1-6 have been in a really long time (maybe even ever). So just by adding diving talent, it's not guaranteed that Cal would dominate because 1) there's a roster limit to the number of athletes you can bring to the NCAA Championships (18 athletes w/ individual swimmers counting as 1 and divers as 0.5) so if we start having more divers, it could mean fewer swimmers (this was a problem for Texas for much of 2016-2021); 2) top recruits are choosing the other schools more than ever. If we just use SwimSwam's recruiting rankings, Cal hasn't brought in the top recruit since Reece Whitley (HS Class of 2018). Since then, it's been Indiana (Brendan Burns), Texas (Carson Foster), NC State (Aiden Hayes), Texas A&M (Baylor Nelson), and Florida (Scotty Buff). In fact, since the HS class of 2017 (perhaps one of the greatest recruiting classes in recent memory), Cal hasn't had the #1 or #2 recruiting class in the country, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because that's already 1 full student cycle and they're still winning national championships due to the development of unranked athletes (SwimSwam only ranks 20 domestic recruits), international swimmers, and transfers. It's not a worrying downward recruiting trend (Cal's HS Class of 2024 recruits is shaping up to be quite amazing), but it should at least indicate that the other schools are getting really good swimming talent, which is why these meets will continue to be very close.
I had no idea that your divers could cut into the number of swimmers that you have. That nixes the whole idea of using a bunch of divers to pile up free points. My love of Cal swimming is deep, going back to the days of Mary T. Meagher and Matt Biondi (who also played water polo), but my knowledge of the sport is shallow. With those numbers limits, it'd be hard for any school to completely dominate every year, but boy, Cal's sure got a good run going.
Love Cal's aquatic dominance- Swimming/Diving, Water Polo, and Rowing! Excited about the improvement of the previously neglected diving program. First diving points in 15 years, and the guy is a freshman, so presumably he will get even better. Cal men's swimming/diving have been first or second for the last 10 years running. If they can develop diving into an elite program, Cal could CRUSH everyone virtually ever year.
It's actually been first or second since 2010! 2013 was the only year where Texas wasn't also in the top two until this year. In any case, it's about time Cal develops a strong diving program and this year has at least shown that it is viable and there's a good foundation with Pei Lin (coach) and Joshua Thai (freshman diver). I don't think they would crush everyone virtually every year, though. The swimming talent continues to grow, and be spread out across a number of teams instead of just 2. It's evident by the fact that this was the closest 1-6 have been in a really long time (maybe even ever). So just by adding diving talent, it's not guaranteed that Cal would dominate because 1) there's a roster limit to the number of athletes you can bring to the NCAA Championships (18 athletes w/ individual swimmers counting as 1 and divers as 0.5) so if we start having more divers, it could mean fewer swimmers (this was a problem for Texas for much of 2016-2021); 2) top recruits are choosing the other schools more than ever. If we just use SwimSwam's recruiting rankings, Cal hasn't brought in the top recruit since Reece Whitley (HS Class of 2018). Since then, it's been Indiana (Brendan Burns), Texas (Carson Foster), NC State (Aiden Hayes), Texas A&M (Baylor Nelson), and Florida (Scotty Buff). In fact, since the HS class of 2017 (perhaps one of the greatest recruiting classes in recent memory), Cal hasn't had the #1 or #2 recruiting class in the country, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because that's already 1 full student cycle and they're still winning national championships due to the development of unranked athletes (SwimSwam only ranks 20 domestic recruits), international swimmers, and transfers. It's not a worrying downward recruiting trend (Cal's HS Class of 2024 recruits is shaping up to be quite amazing), but it should at least indicate that the other schools are getting really good swimming talent, which is why these meets will continue to be very close.
I had no idea that your divers could cut into the number of swimmers that you have. That nixes the whole idea of using a bunch of divers to pile up free points. My love of Cal swimming is deep, going back to the days of Mary T. Meagher and Matt Biondi (who also played water polo), but my knowledge of the sport is shallow. With those numbers limits, it'd be hard for any school to completely dominate every year, but boy, Cal's sure got a good run going.