NCAA Basketball

It did not take long for Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving to earn their first national title of the week (and Cal Athletics’ first of the 2024-25 school year).

The 2025 NCAA Championships opened on Wednesday Night with a dramatic 200y Medley Relay that saw Florida’s “win” wiped away by a false start DQ via replay. Texas got promoted to first place (and got those valuable bonus points) while the Cal’s quartet of Bjorn Seeliger, Yamato Okadome, Dare Rose, and Jack Alexy placed 3rd with an impressive time of 1:20.76 (shaving 0.8 seconds off the seed time).

If the California Golden Bears are going to take this team title, they would need to outrace the Texas Longhorns. The second event of this championship, the 800y Free relay, was precisely that.

For the Cal fans in the US who missed it, the full race (around 6 minutes) is well worth your time.

Jack Alexy, Gabriel Jett, Destin Lasco, and Lucas Henveaux set a brand new NCAA record by swimming this 800y Freestyle Relay in under six minutes (5:59.75 to be precise)!

The race was a Cal vs. Texas showdown. Although Texas’ Luke Hobson had a slight edge on USA Calympian Jack Alexy (more of a sprinter, 1:30.02 split), Gabriel Jett (1:29.16 split) pulled the Bears ahead. Any concern that I had about multiple NCAA-title-winner Destin Lasco (he was not that fast at the ACC Championship a month ago) was dissolved by his 1:29.10 split. Although Belgium Calympian Lucas Henveaux (1:31.47 split had an odd entry into the pool, he managed to hold off Texas’ Coby Carrozza for the big win.

jackspitser

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This was just the huge statement and emotional lift that the Cal Bears needed. We still have a long way (19 more events to go) to decide the team national championship. Texas ended night 1 with a slim 74-72 edge over Cal. Indiana (also outscoring the psych sheet) currently ties Georgia with 54 points in 3rd place. Florida, who would have been a dark horse in the team race, is way back in 11th with just 22 points after that costly DQ.

While it was expected that Cal would outperform their seed time, it was still very comforting to see the Golden Bears getting that 20-point jump on Night 1 of the four-day affair.

The NCAA Championships continues today with 500y Free (Lucas Henveaux, Gabriel Jett, Tyler Kopp, Keaton Jones), 200y IM (Destin Lasco - defending NCAA champ, French Calympian Mewen Tomac, Humberto Najera), 50y Free (Jack Alexy, Bjorn Seeliger, Robin Hanson, Evan Petty, Nans Mazelliere, Matthew Jensen), 1m Springboard Diving, and 200y Free Relay (Cal will likely do better than their 8th seed).

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!