The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Auburn
No. 2 Men’s Swimming and Diving Preview: No. 12 Auburn and No. 7 Georgia
01.10.2017 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Two-time defending national champion Longhorns resume dual-meet competition with annual meets against the Tigers and Bulldogs.
WHAT: Defending NCAA champion No. 2 Texas resumes dual-meet competition this week with its annual contests against Southeastern Conferences foes No. 12 Auburn and No. 7 Georgia.
WHEN/WHERE:
No. 2 Texas at No. 12 Auburn
Thursday, Jan. 12 – 2 p.m. CT
James E. Martin Aquatic Center – Auburn, Alabama
LIVE VIDEO: SEC Network Plus (available to SEC Network subscribers on ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN mobile app)
No. 2 Texas at No. 7 Georgia
Saturday, Jan. 14 – 11 a.m. ET
Gabrielsen Natatorium – Athens, Georgia
LIVE VIDEO: SEC Network Plus (available to SEC Network subscribers on ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN mobile app)
LAST MEETINGS
Texas defeated Auburn and Georgia last season on its way to a perfect 10-0 regular season record, a Big 12 Conference title and the program's 12th NCAA team title. UT knocked off Auburn by a 156-136 count on Jan. 7, 2016 in Austin and defeated Georgia by a 170-125 margin two days later.
Texas also won the most recent meetings on the road against the Tigers and Bulldogs. The Longhorns posted a 156-135 win on Jan. 8, 2015 at Auburn and notched a 158-142 victory at Georgia on Jan. 10, 2015.
Of note, Texas head coach Eddie Reese served as Auburn's head coach for six seasons (1972-78) before taking over the Texas men's program after the 1977-78 season. In his 38-plus seasons at Texas, Reese has become the most decorated coach in the sport's history. He ranks No. 1 all-time with 12 NCAA team titles, all at UT, which ranks Texas alongside Michigan as the winningest programs ever (12 titles each). In addition, Reese's Longhorns have posted 11 NCAA runner-up team finishes. Texas has registered 30 top-three NCAA Championship team finishes in Reese's 38 seasons on the Forty Acres.
CONGER, SMITH & LICON POST TOP NATIONAL MARKS AT TEXAS INVITE
Texas seniors Jack Conger, Clark Smith and Will Licon posted top national times last month at the annual four-day Texas Invitational in Austin.
Smith, a former NCAA champion in the 500 freestyle, clocked the nation's top time in that event in 4:11.20. He added a mark of 14:32.77 for the nation's top mark in the 1,650 freestyle. The American record holder at 1,000 yards, Smith holds the nation's No. 6 time in the 1000 at 9:02.29.
Conger wrapped the Texas Invite with a top national mark of 1:40.24 in the 200 butterfly, an event in which he holds the American record. He also boasts the nation's No. 3 time in the 100 butterfly at 44.94.
Licon, the two-time defending NCAA champion in the 200 breaststroke, holds the top national time in that event at 1:50.76, over two seconds ahead of the nation's second-fastest swim in the event. The El Paso native set NCAA, American and U.S. Open records in the 200 breaststroke at the 2016 NCAA Championships.
Below is a listing of the Longhorns' top-25 national times midway through the season:
TOP NATIONAL TIMES
50 Freestyle
10. Jack Conger, 19.45
13. Brett Ringgold, 19.49
100 Freestyle
6. Brett Ringgold, 42.45
12. Tate Jackson, 42.79
200 Freestyle
5. Townley Haas, 1:33.72
11. Clark Smith, 1:34.22
15. Jack Conger, 1:34.44
500 Freestyle
1 Clark Smith, 4:11.20
7. Townley Haas, 4:14.36
1000 Freestyle
6. Clark Smith, 9:02.29
1,650 Freestyle
1. Clark Smith, 14:32.77
100 Backstroke
14. John Shebat, 46.26
200 Backstroke
12. Jonathan Roberts, 1:41.80
16. John Shebat, 1:42.56
17. Josh Artmann, 1:42.75
200 Breaststroke
1. Will Licon, 1:50.76
100 Butterfly
3. Jack Conger, 44.94
22. Will Glass, 46.70
23. Tate Jackson, 46.78
25. Brett Ringgold, 46.82
200 Butterfly
1. Jack Conger, 1:40.24
16. Max Holter, 1:44.00
400 IM
6. Jonathan Roberts, 3:41.65
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
