Three Razorbacks on men’s Bowerman watch list, debuts for Jaydon Hibbert & Carey McLeod

NEW ORLEANS – The Bowerman watch list features three Razorbacks following the NCAA Indoor Championships, including the debuts of Jaydon Hibbert and Carey McLeod along with 2022 finalist Ayden Owens-Delerme.

This marks the first time the Arkansas men have had three athletes among the top 10 on a single watch list. The Razorbacks become the first men’s program to have four athletes listed on the watch list at any point in a single season with Wayne Pinnock previously on the preseason watch list.

Overall, Arkansas has had 11 men all-time on the watch list, with only Florida (14) and Texas A&M (12) having more.

Combined with the women’s watch list, there are a total of five Razorbacks on the post NCAA Indoor watch lists this week.

A total of seven SEC athletes are among the men’s top 10. Georgia has a pair of Bulldogs in Kyle Garland and Elija Godwin among the top 10 this week. Tennessee is represented by Dylan Jacobs while LSU has Sean Burrell.

The rest of the group includes Mykolas Alekna of California, Drew Bosley of Northern Arizona, and Sondre Guttormsen of Princeton.

Eighteen-year-old Hibbert had three competitions during his debut indoor season as a Razorback freshman and totaled six total jumps.

During an early February meet in Albuquerque, Hibbert opened with identical marks of 54-10.75 (16.73) on two consecutive attempts from a short approach of eight steps to establish a collegiate leading mark. Competing in the SEC Indoor, a leap of 56-1.25 (17.10) from 12 steps in round two secured victory and improved his collegiate leading mark.

As the eighth jumper and only freshman among a field of 16 at the NCAA Indoor meet, the leading mark prior to Hibbert’s first attempt was 54-2 (16.51).

Bounding down the runway with his longest approach of the season, Hibbert’s hop, step, and jump measured an astounding 57-6.5 (17.54) to end the competition for the winning mark. The second-best mark of 55-1 (16.79) was from Salif Mane of Farleigh Dickinson.

Multiple records were toppled by Hibbert, including the indoor collegiate record set in 1985 by Razorback Mike Conley (57-1|) and the meet record of 57-0 (17.37) set by Florida’s Marquis Dendy in 2015. Hibbert also equaled Conley’s outdoor Arkansas school record as both Razorbacks are now equal No. 2 on the all-time outdoor collegiate list behind the 57-7.75 (17.57) set by SMU’s Keith Connor at the 1982 NCAA Outdoor meet held at altitude in Provo, Utah.

Already the youngest jumper to surpass 17 meters, Hibbert bettered the indoor World U20 record of 56-5.25 (17.20) set by Melvin Raffin of France in 2017 along with the outdoor mark of 57-5 (17.50) set by Germany’s Volker Mai from 1985. The Jamaican indoor record of 56-4.75 (17.19) set in 2017 by Razorback alum Clive Pullen was taken down as well.

Triple Jump | Collegiate Indoor All-Time List

 Triple Jump | Collegiate Absolute All-Time List

While Hibbert used a first round monster leap for his win, McLeod used a final round leap to secure victory by a quarter of an inch.

In third place after the first three rounds with a 26-11.75 (8.22) mark, McLeod was stationed in fourth place going into the sixth and final stanza. SEC champion Cameron Crump moved from seventh to first in the fourth round with a 27-6.5 (8.39) effort.

McLeod reached a distance of 27-6.75 (8.40) to claim the lead and ultimately the victory after watching an improvement by Florida State’s Jeremiah Davis to 27-5.5 (8.37) while teammate Wayne Pinnock, the early leader with a 27-4 (8.33), repeated his career best leap.

McLeod’s performance bettered the facility record of 27-6.5 (8.39) set by Razorback Jarrion Lawson in 2014 while coming up short of the 27-10 (8.48) NCAA Indoor meet record established by Carl Lewis with Houston in 1981.

The winning leap by McLeod also equaled the Jamaican national record set by James Beckford in 1996 and ranks No. 5 on the all-time collegiate list and No. 2 on the UA all-time list, only behind the 27-8 (8.43) school record set by Erick Walder in 1994.

Joining Hibbert in the triple jump field, McLeod placed sixth for three more team points, totaling 13 for the meet.

Long Jump | Collegiate Indoor All-Time List

It took a collegiate record performance to defeat Ayden Owens-Delerme, the defending NCAA Indoor heptathlon champion. With the 1,000m the final event, Owens-Delerme broke the previous collegiate record of 6,499 held by Ashton Eaton with a score of 6,518 to improve his Puerto Rican national record.

However, Owens-Delerme only had the collegiate record for 8.22 seconds until Georgia’s Kyle Garland finished the 1,000m race to produce a score of 6,639. Garland and Owens-Delerme rank second and third on the all-time world list behind Eaton’s world record of 6,645.

Owens-Delerme becomes only the third person to ever score 6,500-plus points in the heptathlon as he improved his previous best of 6,272 points from 2022.

Within the heptathlon, Owens-Delerme set a heptathlon all-time best of 7.73 in the 60m hurdles to better the previous mark of 7.74 set by Jangy Addy of Tennessee at the 2008 SEC Indoor.

Following the completion of the heptathlon, Owens-Delerme finished the NCAA Indoor meet by running third leg of the Razorbacks winning 4 x 400m relay, splitting 46.55 as Arkansas produced a 3:02.09 victory, one full second behind the world-leading 3:01.09 they produced in Albuquerque during an early February meet.

Heptathlon | World Indoor All-Time List