Can the Texas Men’s Swimming and Diving Team Win Another NCAA Team Title?

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Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Jason Tillotson, Swimming World College Intern. 

We all know the legacy of the University of Texas men’s swimming and diving team. They are a dominant name and force in the swimming and rightfully so. The UT men have won the NCAA championships each of the past three years and have earned a total of 13 national championships over the course of the program’s history.

Beyond the team titles head coach Eddie Reese has produced numerous individual champions and some of the most impressive NCAA performances in history including Brendan Hansen’s four-year long winning streak in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, Ian Crocker’s butterfly dominance and Clark Smith’s perseverance through injury to win two NCAA titles last year.

What about this season? Will the graduation of superstar seniors like Smith, Will Licon and Jack Conger hurt the Longhorns? The quick answer is no, because of the attitude we, as spectators, have towards the Texas men’s team. Their recent and past dominance in the sport has been expected now and many see them as unbeatable, but when the numbers are looked at, this year doesn’t look like their best.

Reese graduated eight seniors last year, with five of those seniors being NCAA qualifiers and four of those seniors scored at least relay points at NCAA’s. On top of that, Reese has lost his go-to guys for many of the strokes and distances, which is a hardship most felt in duel meets, when people are needed to step up and swim fast.

For example, with the absence of Licon, the Longhorns no longer have a go-to breaststroker and have had to resort to using butterfly specialist Joseph Schooling as a replacement in relay situations. Using Schooling for breaststroke is not only not a suitable permanent alternative to a natural breaststroker, but it also pulls him away from his butterfly duties, an area he cannot be replaced in, in the absence of Conger.

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Joseph Schooling – Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

UT’s fastest breaststroker now is Casey Melzer, who was able to post a 56.96 and 2:02.86 in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes this weekend, which fails to rank any higher than 93rd and 36th, respectively, in the nation so far this season. Melzer’s best times are only 53.67 and 1:58.42, which are significantly slower than Licon’s duel meet performances, let alone lifetime bests. Even West Virginia University, a much smaller and less successful program within the Big 12 conference has a faster breaststroker than Melzer (Nate Carr, who has been 56.86 this season). Needless to say, the Longhorns have a huge gap to fill in the breaststroke department.

Moving on to butterfly, behind Schooling Texas has nobody noteworthy. Schooling as been 46.57 so far this season and has not swum the 200 yet. Right after Schooling Texas has NCAP grad Sam Pomajevich, who has not broken 50 seconds yet this season and has a best time of 47.77, a time that would likely not make NCAA’s. Of course, Schooling can handle the relay duties but without a dense group of skilled butterflies, gone are the days we would watch the A Final of the 100 butterfly at NCAAs and see six out of eight swimmers with Texas caps on.

The backstroke field is probably the most successful group of swimmers Texas still has. Not only is their backstroke crew deep, it’s also very well decorated. With John Shebat, Austin Katz, Ryan Harty and Jonathan Roberts, all having some sort of national or international experience, Texas should have no problem securing backstroke victories this season.

Both sprint and distance freestyle are areas where the Longhorns could use some work. Not a single man on the roster has broken 20 seconds in the 50 freestyle so far this season and, while it is still October, a 19-second 50 freestyle isn’t a lot to ask for when you’re one of the nation’s most decorated programs in history.

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Townley Haas – Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Beyond the 50, Texas’ most experienced freestyler, Townley Haas, has not posted anything special yet this season. Haas hasn’t been better than 45 seconds in the 100 freestyle and no better than 1:38 in the 200 distance. In the distance freestyle events, no one on the roster has broke 9:00 in the 1000, which was a commonality amongst the distance crew at Texas during most in-season meets.

The relays will probably take the biggest hit and will do the most damage to the team’s point total at each duel meet and, if not filled, these gaping holes in their roster could mean no NCAA title this season. Of course, the season is still young and the tides could turn but the statistics point towards a new NCAA champion.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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DG
DG
6 years ago

The writer, Jason Tillotson, ignored the results of Texas’ Intrasquad Orange vs. White Swim Meet. I assume because it was not sanctioned and hence the times were unofficial. However, ignoring those results makes the article misleading because every Texas swimmer swam much faster at that meet than they did last weekend in the Indiana, Florida Tri Meet that he refers to due to the heavy training Texas (and Florida) is doing now. If you include the Orange White results, which Tillotson didn’t, Texas probably would rank #1 in the College Swimming ranking based on results so far this season. For example, Schooling went 1:41.77 200 Fly which is the fastest NCAA time so far this year and much better than the 1:45.47 that he did at NCAAs last year.
With that said, this is way too early to make any predictions about NCAA performance because different teams are training very differently now. Cal hasn’t had a meet where they were focusing on fast swimming yet, (except for those who went to the USA College Challenge and they were quick). It will be a close NCAAs this year for sure. On paper, I think Cal is the favorite, with Texas second, but Florida and NC State have a good shot at winning as well. Texas will have to have relatively unknown swimmers , like Melzer, swim brilliantly to win it again. Below are the Orange/White results: https://s3.amazonaws.com/texassports_com/documents/2017/9/29/mens_orange_white_results.pdf

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