Texas won four of seven events and set NCAA records in each of them as the Longhorns punctuated their third consecutive national team title and NCAA-leading 13th national crown with authoritySaturday evening at the 2017 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
The Longhorns won the national title with 542 points and tied their own NCAA record with 11 victories among the meet’s 21 events. Already the winningest coach in the sport’s history, Texas head coach Eddie Reese boasts NCAA team titles across one-third of his 39-year tenure in Austin. He was selected as the CSCAA Coach of the Year for a third consecutive season.
The Longhorns shattered seven NCAA records and three American records in their four-day romp through the championships. The win moves the Longhorns out of a tie with Michigan and into No. 1 all-time with their 13 NCAA men’s swimming and diving titles.
Texas won the meet by 193 points over second-place California. Florida took third with 294.5 points while N.C. State placed fourth with 272.5 points. Stanford rounded out the top-five with 242 points.
Smith kicked off an explosive final night for the Longhorns with a gutsy swim that yielded all of the records in the book. Smith, the son of former Texas NCAA champion swimmers John and Tori Smith, held off three formidable challengers in a race for the ages in Saturday’s 1,650 freestyle final.
Smith engaged with Michigan’s Felix Auboeck, South Carolina’s Akaram Mahmoud and Northwestern’s Jordan Wilimovsky in a furious fight to the finish through the final 200 yards. Behind his trademark kick in the final 50 yards, Smith won the event in 14:22.41, good for NCAA, American, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet records.
Smith now holds American records in the 500, 1,000 and 1,650-yard freestyle events. He finishes his Longhorns career with two additional NCAA titles in the 500 freestyle and a national championship in the 800 freestyle relay from a year ago.
Junior Jonathan Roberts broke Aaron Peirsol’s 14-year-old school record in the 200 backstroke, but his teammate re-set that record less than five minutes later. Roberts initially broke Peirsol’s school mark of 1:39.16 with a 1:39.05 in the 200 backstroke preliminary round. However, sophomore John Shebat eclipsed Roberts’ brand-new record with a 1:38.67 in the very next heat. Shebat broke the record once more on his way to a runner-up finish in the 200 backstroke championship final (1:37.24) while Roberts placed eighth (1:41.35).
All-America junior Brett Ringgold posted a career-best fifth-place finish in the 100 freestyle final at 41.77. All-America sophomore Townley Haas won the event’s consolation final in 41.96.
Senior Will Licon became the first Longhorn to win three individual events at a single NCAA Championship meet. With titles in the 200 IM and 100 breast already to his credit, Licon completed the feat with his third consecutive national title in the 200 breaststroke. He rewrote his own NCAA, American, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet records in 1:47.91.
Senior Jack Conger won his first NCAA individual title in the final individual swim of his college career. Conger gave Texas its third straight NCAA title in the 200 butterfly at 1:37.35 good for NCAA, NCAA Championship meet, American and U.S. Open records.
Texas ended the meet by setting NCAA, NCAA Championship meet and U.S. Open records in the 400 freestyle relay, where Ringgold, Conger, Haas and Joseph Schooling were victorious in 2:45.39. The relay broke the NCAA and U.S. Open records of 2:46.03 set by Auburn in 2009 plus the NCAA Championship meet record of 2:46.56 set by Auburn at the 2009 NCAA Championships. Texas has held the American record in the relay since 2009.
Additional NCAA Championships Post-Meet Notes
- Texas passes Michigan for No. 1 all-time with 13 NCAA men’s swimming and diving team titles (1981, ’88, ’89, 1990, ’91, ’96, 2000, ’01, ’02, 2010, ’15, ’16, ’17).
- Texas head coach Eddie Reese has won all 13 NCAA men’s swimming and diving team titles for the Longhorns. Texas has posted 24 NCAA top-two finishes and 31 top-three finishes at the NCAA Championships in Reese’s 39 seasons with the Longhorns. He is the only coach in the sport’s history to win national titles in four different decades.
- Texas’ 11 titles this week in Indianapolis ties the Longhorns’ own NCAA record of 11 event championships set back in 2001.
- The Longhorns won their third straight national title in the 200 freestyle relay and seventh in school history, as Brett Ringgold, Jack Conger, Tate Jackson and Joseph Schooling took the win in 1:14.59, good for school, Big 12 and pool records.
- Clark Smith delivered UT’s third consecutive NCAA title in the 500 freestyle in 4:08.42, good for NCAA, American, NCAA Championship and U.S. Open records. Texas had yet to win an NCAA title in the 500 freestyle prior to the 2014-15 season, but UT now has the last three to their credit.
- Will Licon became UT’s first two-time NCAA champion in the 200 IM, as he tied with Florida’s Mark Szaranek for the title in 1:40.67.
- Texas set NCAA, NCAA Championship meet and U.S. Open records for a third year in a row in the 400 medley relay, as UT won its third straight national title and 14th overall (No. 1 all-time). John Shebat led off the relay with a school-record 44.58 100 backstroke leadoff, and Licon, Joseph Schooling and Jack Conger joined him to win in 2:59.22, which marked the first 400 medley relay to break the three-minute barrier.
- Townley Haas became the first Longhorn to win back-to-back NCAA titles in the 200 freestyle. He joins Doug Gjertsen (1988, ’90) as the only Longhorns to win two national titles in the event.
- On Friday, Will Licon became only the fourth man in college swimming history and the first Longhorn ever to win four separate individual events throughout his career at the NCAA Championships. The El Paso native entered the meet with NCAA individual titles in the 200 IM (2016), 400 IM (2015) and the 200 breaststroke (2015-16), and he added a fourth event Friday when he won the national title in the 100 breaststroke in 50.68 seconds. Licon is UT’s first NCAA champion in the event since Brendan Hansen in 2004.
- Texas shattered the NCAA, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet records in the 200 medley relay, as Shebat, Licon, Schooling and Ringgold won it in 1:21.54. The swim eclipsed the previous record of 1:22.27 set by Michigan at the 2013 NCAA Championships in Indianapolis. It marked UT’s fifth NCAA title in the event and first since 2003.
Men - Team Rankings - Through Event 21
1. Texas 542 2. California 349
3. Florida 294.5 4. NC State 272.5
5. Stanford 242 6. Southern Cali 237
7. Indiana 229.5 8. Univ of Georgia 183
9. Missouri 179.5 10. Alabama 153.5
11. Louisville 143.5 12. Auburn 127.5
13. Purdue 106.5 14. Arizona State 100
15. South Carolina 99 16. Texas A&M 87
17. Michigan 82 18. Wisconsin 63
19. Ohio St 58.5 20. Tennessee 55
21. University of Miami 51 22. Virginia Tech 48
23. Minnesota 43 24. Arizona 36.5
25. Notre Dame 29 26. Lsu 28
27. Harvard 24 28. Penn St 23
28. Northwestern 23 30. Denver 19
31. Florida State 16 32. Duke 12
33. George Washington 9 34. Pittsburgh 8
35. Cornell 7 36. UNC 6
37. Kentucky 4 38. University of Wyoming 3
39. Hawaii 2 39. Penn 2
39. Missouri State 2 42. Towson 1
42. Yale 1
