Reviewing SwimSwam's 2025 NCAA Event Predictions – Women's Edition

03/25/2025 04:25 PM

By James Sutherland on SwimSwam

2025 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 19-22, 2025
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center — Federal Way, Washington
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Meet Central
• Official Psych Sheets
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Live Results
• Full Results (PDF)

The NCAA Championships are arguably the most unpredictable meets of the year, but we do our best to forecast what's to come in each event before chaos takes over on two Wednesday nights every March.

In last week’s women’s meet, we correctly picked six of the eight ‘A’ finalists (or top eight finishers) in eight of the 18 swimming events, while we picked all eight ‘A’ finalists correctly once (200 IM) and had our worst showings come in the 500 free and 200 breast, going four-for-eight.

Overall, in our previews, we picked 107 out of 144 ‘A’ finalists or top eight finishers correctly (74.31%).

Below, find our top eight picks in each event, along with where the swimmer/relay team ended up finishing. We've also included who finished in the top eight we didn't predict under "Moving In," and the number in the bottom right of each event indicates how well we did in picking the top eight.

• See all of our picks at the SwimSwam Preview Index here.

200 Medley Relay

800 Free Relay

500 Free

200 IM

50 Free

200 Free Relay

100 Fly

400 IM

200 Free

100 Breast

100 Back

400 Medley Relay

1650 Free

200 Back

100 Free

200 Breast

200 Fly

400 Free Relay

TAKEAWAYS

• Louisville and Indiana both had four ‘A’ final appearances/top-eight finishes that we didn’t predict, leading all teams. The Cardinals had Gabi Albiero make two ‘A’ finals in the 50 free and 100 fly, while the Cardinals also finished in the top eight in the 200 and 400 medley relays after we didn’t pick them to do so. For Indiana, they had Brearna Crawford (200 breast), Ching Gan (500 free) and Miranda Grana (100 back) all step up and make ‘A’ finals when they weren’t predicted to, and the Hoosiers also earned a top-eight finish in the 200 free relay.
• In addition to Albiero, three other swimmers had two ‘A’ final appearances in events they weren’t picked for: BYU’s Mackenzie Miller in the 100 and 200 breast, Ohio State’s Mila Nikanorov in the 500 and 1650 free, and Virginia Tech’s Carmen Weiler Sastre in the 100 and 200 back.
• USC notably finished in the top eight in three relays after they weren’t predicted to do so in any.
• Five swimmers, all well-established names, finished outside of the top 16 in an event after they were predicted to finish in the top eight: Florida’s Bella Sims and Emma Weyant in the 500 free, Tennessee’s Camille Spink in the 200 free, NC State’s Kennedy Noble in the 200 back, and USC’s Kaitlyn Dobler in the 200 breast.
• In addition to Sims and Weyant, their freshman teammate Julie Brousseau and Tennessee first-year Ella Jansen also missed the ‘A’ final in the 500 free, resulting in the SwimSwam picks only going 4/8 in the event.
• In the 200 breast, Dobler, McKenzie Siroky, Avery Wiseman and Emma Weber all missed the ‘A’ final after they were predicted to make it, though Wiseman, Siroky and Weber finished 9th, 10th and 12th, respectively, while Dobler fell to 30th.
• Looking strictly at event champions, we picked 13 of the 18 correct.
• The events we missed on were the 800 free relay, where Stanford steamrolled the competition, the 500 and 1650 free, where Longhorn Jillian Cox was victorious, and both IM events, with Stanford’s Torri Huske topping Alex Walsh in the 200 IM and her Cardinal teammate Caroline Bricker winning the 400 IM. Virginia’s Katie Grimes was picked to win both the 1650 free and 400 IM, but ended up placing 13th and 4th, respectively.

Read the full story on SwimSwam: Reviewing SwimSwam’s 2025 NCAA Event Predictions – Women’s Edition