It’s been inevitable every year that the California Golden Bears would thrive in the NCAA Championships until 2026. After all, they’ve either finished first or second at the last fifteen meets, but couldn’t quite do it this year despite Yamato Okadome’s standout performance. The sophomore entered the meet as the favourite and left as an NCAA champion, but now a Texas star has publicly questioned the legality of that performance.
That’s because Longhorn swimmer Campbell McKean has insinuated that Okadome performed an illegal move during their 100-yard breaststroke race.
“I was, I was first going out to the twenty-five, first of the fifty,” McKean said on his YouTube channel. “I felt really good. First of the seventy-five, and then I kinda just died at the end. I’ll put a clip of the finish and the underwater angle. You guys tell me what you guys see. Maybe I’ll circle it and tell me what you guys see.”
In the clip, Campbell McKean posted in the video, he circles Okadome performing what he, and other fans across X and YouTube, believe is a butterfly kick. For the unversed, the key difference between the breaststroke and butterfly kick is in the movement of the legs. In the latter, swimmers use a dolphin-style kick in which both legs remain together and move in a wave-like motion.
Whereas in the breaststroke, swimmers use a frog-like kick, where the legs bend, separate, and sweep outward before snapping back together. Thus, the butterfly kick tends to provide a slight advantage over the breaststroke kick and would help a swimmer make up the difference.
Texas All-American Campbell McKean breaks his silence on NCAA Champion Yamato Okadome’s finish in the 100 SCY Breast at NCAAs:
“I’ll put up a clip of the finish and the underwater angle. You guys tell me what you guys see. Maybe I’ll circle it.”#HookEm #GoBears pic.twitter.com/4qkpy647hg
— Swim Updates (@swimupdates) April 5, 2026
In the end, though, McKean ended his NCAA debut in second place with Nate Germonprez in third despite the two Texas stars fighting for pole position for most of the race. McKean finished 0.35 seconds behind NCAA champion Okadome (49.90) while Germonprez finished 0.13 seconds behind his Texas teammate.
“I finished second, which is really good for my first NCAAs,” McKean added. “Uh, I was fifty point two five, which from what I’ve seen is the fastest freshman ever, which is… I’m really proud of that. Um, can’t be mad about that at all.”
Yet while the Texas Longhorns missed out on a win in the NCAA 100-yard breaststroke, the fact that Campbell McKean, Germonprez and Will Modglin finished inside the top eight earned them key points in the race for the team title.
Texas Men win second consecutive NCAA Championship
That was despite expectations for Florida, or even a weakened Cal State, to take the title, but the Texas Longhorns entered the 2026 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships with a fine squad. And that paid off, as they scored consistently across multiple disciplines, thanks to standout performances, albeit fueled by Hubert Kós’ standout performance.
The Hungarian led the way with a record-breaking swim in the 200-yard backstroke, breaking his NCAA, US Open, program, and meet records along the way. Not only that, he won his second consecutive title in both the 100 and 200 yard backstrokes to help seal the deal. Baylor Nelson only added on to that by finishing in third, alongside McKean, Germonprez and Modglin’s performances in the 100 yard breaststroke.
However, Florida refused to give up, keeping pace with the Longhorns throughout the four-day meet until the final day when a surge of points by Texas saw them finish comfortably ahead. By the end of the meet, the Longhorns had 445.5 points to their name which helped them win their second consecutive championship and the 17th in their program’s history.
It also marked their 65th NCAA crown across different programs and the 11th straight season that Texas has won at least one NCAA Championship, even as the meet remained overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Okadome’s win.
