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Arizona State University turned the 2026 Big 12 Swimming & Diving Championship into a statement performance, sweeping the men’s and women’s team titles and closing the meet with an NCAA record in the men’s 400-yard freestyle relay. Over five days at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Sun Devils piled up points and records, underscoring their status as one of college swimming’s premier programs heading into NCAA championship season.
The Arizona State University women finished with 1,660.5 points, while the men totaled 1,898.5, both comfortably ahead of Arizona in second place to secure back-to-back Big 12 team championships. Those lopsided margins reflected not only star power at the top of the lineup but also the kind of depth that wins conference titles in a format that scores through 24th place.
Hosted by the Big 12 and presented by Allstate, the championship also extended Arizona State’s rapid rise in its new conference. The No. 2-ranked men’s team and No. 17-ranked women’s squad, as listed by the program, each repeated as league champions after sweeping the Big 12 crowns in 2025. For the men, the win marked a fourth straight conference title, stretching back to their final two Pac-12 championships before realignment.
Head coach Herbie Behm, a former Sun Devil swimmer, has wasted no time building on Arizona State’s national profile. In just his first two seasons at the helm, Behm has guided the program to four conference championships, with both men’s and women’s teams now owning back-to-back Big 12 titles. Those wins also feed into a broader athletic department surge, as the swim and dive sweep contributed to seven Big 12 championships won by Sun Devil programs since joining the league in 2024.
For prospective student-athletes and families evaluating Arizona State University, that consistency at the conference level matters. Sustained success usually signals stability in coaching, training environment, and recruiting, all of which influence how a swimmer or diver might develop over four or five collegiate seasons.
The exclamation point in Greensboro came in the final event of the championship: the men’s 400-yard freestyle relay. Arizona State’s quartet of junior Ilya Kharun, graduate students Adam Chaney and Remi Fabiani, and senior Jonny Kulow delivered a time of 2:42.15, breaking the NCAA record of 2:42.30 that Tennessee set at the 2025 NCAA Championships.
By shaving fifteen hundredths of a second off the national mark, the relay also established new Big 12 conference, Big 12 Championship, and school records. The Sun Devils finished well clear of Arizona and Utah to secure the relay title and officially clinch the overall men’s team crown.
The race showed how complete this ASU squad has become from top to bottom:
For context, elite NCAA-level 100-yard freestyle splits in the low-40-second range are typically seen on national title or Olympic-level relays. According to historical performance standards tracked by outlets like SwimSwam, a mid-2:42 range is firmly in national-champion territory, underscoring how dangerous this relay will be at the NCAA Championships.
The women’s 400-yard freestyle relay brought its own drama and another highlight for the Sun Devils. Arizona grabbed the early lead, but Arizona State’s lineup of senior Gerda Szilagyi, sophomore Julia Ullmann, junior Grace Lindberg, and freshman sensation Albane Cachot surged in the second half of the race.
Ullmann’s 48.22 split moved ASU into striking distance, setting the stage for Cachot on the anchor leg. The freshman produced the fastest split in the field at 46.60, overtaking Arizona in the final 50 yards. Arizona State touched in 3:12.86, a school record that secured the Big 12 title in the event and punctuated the women’s overall team victory.
For recruits, seeing a freshman trusted to anchor a title-sealing relay at a major conference meet is a powerful signal. It suggests that athletes who perform in training can earn meaningful roles quickly, even in a deep, top-20 program.
Across the week, Arizona State leaned heavily on its top performers, and few were more impactful than junior butterfly standout Ilya Kharun. He was named Men’s Swimmer of the Meet after winning every race he contested and rewriting the Big 12 Championship record book in the process.
Kharun’s highlights included:
Times in the 1:37 range for the 200 butterfly and sub-44 in the 100 butterfly are firmly within NCAA-title contention, according to historical NCAA results archived on NCAA.com. For high school and club athletes, those benchmarks offer a glimpse into the level required to star at an elite Division I program like ASU.
On the women’s side, senior distance specialist Deniz Ertan earned Women’s Swimmer of the Meet honors with a dominant distance triple. She swept the 500- and 1,650-yard freestyle events and added a win in the 200 butterfly, where she led a one-two finish with teammate Ullmann.
Ertan’s versatility across distance and mid-distance butterfly reinforced Arizona State’s strength in events that often decide team titles. Distance races carry big point swings, and winning both the 500 and 1,650, while contributing in another event, gave the Sun Devils a large scoring cushion.
Freshman sprinter Albane Cachot announced herself as one of the Big 12’s rising stars. She was recognized as Women’s Swimming Newcomer of the Meet after:
For recruits, a freshman earning conference newcomer honors and breaking championship meet records is a strong indicator that ASU’s developmental pipeline is working. It also signals that the program can attract international or domestic standouts who are ready to contribute immediately.
Beyond the stars, the defining feature of Arizona State’s performance was event depth, particularly in breaststroke and backstroke. Those strokes delivered massive point hauls on both the men’s and women’s sides and were key to the runaway team scores.
In the men’s 100-yard breaststroke, Arizona State swept the podium:
Dobrzanski returned on the final night to defend his conference title in the 200-yard breaststroke, leading another one-two-three finish. He won in 1:51.92 ahead of Brayden Taivassalo and Vergnes. Two event sweeps in a championship meet translate into a huge points advantage and reflect exceptional training and recruiting in a single stroke group.
In the sprint backstroke, graduate transfer Adam Chaney added another key title by winning the men’s 100-yard backstroke in 44.13. Chaney then joined forces with Dobrzanski, Kharun, and Fabiani to win the 400-yard medley relay in 2:57.48, a time that broke both the Big 12 meet and conference records.
Arizona State also reset the Big 12 records in the men’s 200 freestyle relay midway through the championship, further extending the team’s lead. In modern college swimming, medley and sprint free relays are often the best snapshot of a program’s overall speed and depth, and ASU’s dominance there is a good sign ahead of NCAAs.
On the women’s side, Arizona State’s distance crew and ability to place multiple swimmers in A, B, and C finals proved just as important as its top-end sprinting. In the 1,650-yard freestyle, Ertan and junior teammate Alexa Reyna finished first and second, combining for 37 points in that event alone.
Head coach Behm emphasized how critical those depth points were. With the Big 12 scoring structure awarding points all the way through 24th place, Arizona State’s wide distribution of scorers made the final margins essentially out of reach for the competition before the last session even began.
By the end of the week, the Sun Devils owned:
For prospective student-athletes, that depth has two sides. On one hand, it signals a highly competitive training group in almost every stroke and distance. On the other, it means that cracking the scoring roster requires steady progression, consistent training, and comfort in a high-performance environment.
Diving was one of the few areas where other programs broke through ASU’s dominance, but the Sun Devils still earned important points when it mattered. Houston’s Michelle McLeod won the women’s platform title with 319.75 points, while junior diver Kayden Hayes delivered for Arizona State with a silver-medal performance.
Hayes improved from a challenging preliminary round to score 254.10 points in the final, taking second place and securing valuable points for the team total. Houston’s Maisy Woloszyn collected women’s diving newcomer honors, and Arizona’s Luke Hernandez swept the men’s diving awards, highlighting the depth of field ASU had to overcome in building its overall lead.
For swimmers and divers considering Big 12 programs, the results in Greensboro reinforce that the conference remains a deep and competitive environment, even after recent realignment reshaped the league’s membership.
With the Big 12 titles and an NCAA relay record secured, Arizona State now shifts its focus to the NCAA Division I Championships at Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta.
According to the official 2026 NCAA winter championship schedule, the women’s national meet will run from March 18–21, followed by the men’s championships from March 25–28 at the same venue.
The Sun Devil men enter as the defending NCAA champions, carrying both the confidence of last year’s national title and the momentum of their Big 12 sweep in Greensboro. With Kharun, Kulow, Chaney, Fabiani, and a deep supporting cast, Arizona State projects to be in the team-title conversation again, particularly with relays that can challenge for national records.
The women, meanwhile, are aiming to convert consecutive conference titles and growing depth in both sprint and distance events into a higher NCAA finish. With leaders like Ertan and rising stars such as Cachot and Ullmann, Arizona State’s women have the kind of balance that can move programs steadily up the national rankings over multiple seasons.
For high school swimmers, divers, and their families, results like these are more than headlines. They are real-world evidence of where a program stands and what kind of environment a recruit might join. A few key takeaways from Arizona State’s 2026 Big 12 performance:
If you are trying to gauge whether a program like Arizona State matches your goals, it helps to look at:
Navigating the recruiting process for a powerhouse program can feel overwhelming, especially when you are balancing academics, training, and travel. Tools like Pathley are designed to make that process clearer and more efficient.
You can start by browsing the full landscape of colleges and athletic programs in the Pathley College Directory, then narrow your choices using filters for division, location, and size. If you are specifically interested in college swimming, the Swimming Pathley Hub brings together best-fit programs, comparison tools, and helpful resources in one place.
To get personalized guidance, you can also use Pathley Chat as your AI recruiting assistant. It can help you understand how your current times stack up, suggest realistic target schools, and outline next steps such as emailing coaches, planning visits, or building your athletic resume.
As Arizona State heads to Atlanta with Big 12 trophies and an NCAA relay record in hand, the Sun Devils are a prime example of what a fully developed Division I swim and dive program looks like at the highest level. Whether you aim for a national contender like ASU or a smaller program where you can grow into a leadership role, having clear data and smart tools at your side can make all the difference in finding the right collegiate home.
