The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
N.C. State
No. 2 Men’s Swimming and Diving Preview: No. 3 N.C. State
11.01.2016 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Two-time defending national champion Longhorns welcome third-ranked Wolfpack in home opener Friday evening.
WHAT: Defending NCAA champion No. 2 Texas (2-2) welcomes No. 3 N.C. State for its home opener Friday evening in Austin.
WHEN/WHERE
#3 N.C. State at #2 Texas (and #4 N.C. State women at #7 Texas women)
Friday, Nov. 4 – 5 p.m. CT
Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center – Austin, Texas
RESULTS LINK: Available at TexasSports.com prior to the meets
LAST MEETING
No. 1 Texas held off No. 5 N.C. State by a 154-136 count on Nov. 14, 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
LAST TIME OUT
Texas split its season-opening meets in Bloomington, Indiana (Oct. 21-22) against Indiana and Florida. The Horns defeated the eighth-ranked Gators in both the long course (185-96) and short course (182-99) contests and fell to the top-ranked host Hoosiers in both meets.
CONGER, SMITH POST TOP NATIONAL MARKS
Texas seniors and Olympic gold medalists Jack Conger and Clark Smith posted top national times in their respective events two weeks ago in the Longhorns' meets against Indiana and Florida.
Conger's 100m butterfly mark at Indiana and Florida converts to 46.91 in short course yards and leads all swimmers across the country. Conger is a two-time All-American in the event and the American record holder at 200 yards.
Smith, the 2015 NCAA champion in the 500-yard freestyle, clocked a top national mark of 4:20.33 in the event against the Hoosiers and Gators. Smith and UT sophomore Townley Haas have delivered Texas two consecutive NCAA titles in the 500 freestyle. Smith's performances against Indiana and Florida warranted his selection as CollegeSwimming.com's National Swimmer of the Week last week.
PRE-SEASON NOTES
TEXAS QUARTET STRIKES GOLD IN RIO
Returning Longhorns Townley Haas, Jack Conger, Clark Smith and Joseph Schooling followed up on their tremendous individual 2015-16 college seasons with gold medals at the Rio Olympics.
Schooling won Singapore's first Olympic swimming medal and broke Michael Phelps' Olympic record on his way to gold in the 100m butterfly in Rio de Janeiro. Schooling, the 2016 Co-National Swimmer of the Year, won the event in 50.39, well under Phelps' Olympic mark of 50.58 from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Phelps joined South Africa's Chad Le Clos and Hungary's Laszlo Cseh in a tie for silver well behind Schooling at 51.14. Schooling became the first current or former Longhorn to win an individual Olympic gold medal since 2008 when Aaron Peirsol won gold in the 100m backstroke.
Haas, who posted a pair of unprecedented swims as a freshman at the 2016 NCAA Championships, joined Smith and Conger in winning gold for the U.S. in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
Haas joined Conor Dwyer, Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps in the event's final and clocked a staggering 1:44.14 on the relay's second split, by far the fastest split among the 32 relay legs swum in the final. In fact, only James Guy of Great Britain joined Haas under 1:45 in the final. The Americans took the gold in 7:00.66 while Great Britain and Japan settled for silver and bronze, respectively.
Conger and Smith earned gold medals by competing in the event's preliminary round in Rio. Conger swam the relay's fastest split in the preliminary round at 1:45.73. With the three Longhorns in the relay pool, it marked the eighth consecutive Olympic Games in which at least one Texas men's swimmer represented the United States in the 4x200m freestyle relay. UT swimmers have helped the U.S. win four consecutive gold medals in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay.
With the four gold medals from current Longhorns in Rio, coupled with Texas-Ex Jimmy Feigen's gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay, the UT men account for 47 gold medals, 16 silver medals and nine bronze medals at the Olympic Games.
WIRE-TO-WIRE, BACK-TO-BACK
The 2015-16 Longhorns unleashed a dominant run through the NCAA Championships and led from start to finish en route to their second consecutive and 12th overall NCAA team title last March in Atlanta.
Texas, who won the NCAA title by a massive margin of nearly 200 points, tied Michigan for No. 1 all-time at 12 titles, and Eddie Reese passed former Ohio State coach Mike Peppe as the sport's most decorated coach with 12 NCAA crowns. Joseph Schooling joined California's Ryan Murphy and Florida's Caeleb Dressel as the CSCAA Co-Swimmers of the Meet while Reese took home is second straight CSCAA National Coach of the Meet award.
Texas' nine NCAA individual and relay titles were the most for the Longhorns at an NCAA Championship since 2001, when UT won an NCAA record 11 events.
The Horns opened the 2016 NCAA Championships by winning the meet's first four events for the first time in school history. Its victories in the first three events marked the first time Texas had completed that feat, as well. UT led off the meet by winning its NCAA-leading 13th national title in the 800-yard freestyle relay, as Jack Conger, Clark Smith, Townley Haas and Joseph Schooling set NCAA, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school and Big 12 records in 6:08.03.
Texas won its second straight NCAA title in the 200 freestyle relay and sixth in program history. Brett Ringgold, Schooling, Conger and John Murray took the win in 1:14.88, good for school, Big 12 and pool records. Haas delivered UT's second consecutive NCAA title in the 500 freestyle and became the first Texas freshman to win the event in 4:09.00.
Will Licon captured the national crown in the 200 IM and became the first Longhorn ever to win NCAA titles in both the 200 and 400 individual medleys. John Shebat joined Licon, Schooling and Conger to lower UT's NCAA, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet records in the 400 medley relay en route to victory in 3:00.68.
Haas made a clean sweep of the record book with his historic swim in the 200 freestyle. He set NCAA, American, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records at 1:30.46 and became the first swimmer ever to clear the 1:31 mark in the event.
Schooling set NCAA, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records in the 100 butterfly in 44.01. The swim eclipsed the seven-year-old record swim of 44.18 produced by Austin Staab of Stanford.
Licon snagged his second individual crown of the meet and broke all seven records available – most notably the NCAA and American records – on his way to victory in the 200 breaststroke at 1:48.12. Schooling matched all of his records in the 100 butterfly and did the same in the 200 butterfly, where he edged Conger in 1:37.97. Conger lowered his American record in the same race at 1:38.06.
MORE ON THE LONGHORNS
Texas returns 24 swimmers and divers, including 11 All-Americans, from the 2016 NCAA champion squad. Senior diver Mark Anderson, the two-time reigning Big 12 Diver of the Year, earned All-America honors on all three boards at the 2016 NCAA Championships and was a finalist at the U.S. Olympic Diving Trials. Will Glass brings multiple individual All-America honors into his final season with the Horns. Swimmer P.J. Dunne and diver Sean O'Brien return for their senior seasons after qualifying for the NCAA Championships as juniors.
Junior swimmer Jonathan Roberts has earned All-America honors in each of his first two seasons with the Longhorns, and the Southlake native reached the finals of the 200m freestyle last summer at the U.S. Olympic Trials. His former club teammate Brett Ringgold takes ownership of the sprint freestyle group this season after earning All-America honors last season.
Sophomores Tate Jackson and Ryan Harty joined their aforementioned classmates Haas and Shebat at the NCAA Championships as true freshmen. Harty earned All-America honors in all three of his individual events at the NCAA meet.
Players Mentioned
