The Big East is the forgotten conference, but this year they are forcing the rest of the country to sit up and take notice. Louisville, especially the men, are forcing the country to sit up and take notice of what’s going on in the Big East, and the Notre Dame women are rewriting the program’s record-books.
Let’s hand out a few mid-season awards, and predict the outcome of the Conference Championship meet.
(Update: Had to change our Women’s Champion pick from Notre Dame to Louisville, after a spokesperson from ND alerted us that there were some incorrect times in the results from a meet earlier in the year).
Big East Mid-Season Awards
Men’s Swimmer of the Semester – Pedro Oliveira, Louisville – A lot of swimmers on the Lousville men’s squad have had big seasons. But the distance swimmer Oliveira has stood out above all of the rest. He leads the conference in both the 200 back (1:45.4) and 200 fly (1:47.0), as well as the 1000 free. Last year, he scratched all of his individuals aside from the 200 fly, where he placed 17th at NCAA’s. This year, Lousville might have the depth where he won’t have to spend effort in the 200 free relay (a sprinter he certainly is not), which means he should be in line for several finals at year’s end.
Honorable Mentions: Carlos Almeida, Louisville; Joao de Lucca, Louisville; Frankie Dyer, Notre Dame
Women’s Swimmer of the Semester – Tanja Kylliainen, Louisville – This should be the only conference in the country where a Swimmer of the Semester award goes to a freshman, but as much as a tried, I couldn’t find a justification for taking it anywhere else. Kylliainen leads the conference in the 100 fly, 200 fly, and 400 IM (if you include her converted times from the European SC Champs), and sits 2nd in the 200 IM. She’s part of a group of young breakout Louisville women (Gisselle Kohoyda, Abby Chin, Dani Barbiea) who could begin building the women’s program into something as special as the men’s. (Note, for the interest of interest, we won’t include Kylliainen in the Freshman awards).
Honorable Mentions: Gisselle Kohoyda, Louisville; Kelly Ryan, Notre Dame; Rachael Burnett, West Virginia
Men’s Coach of the Semester – Arthur Albiero, Louisville – Albiero has been building this Louisville program the right way. He earned recognition for being really good at something (breaststrokes), and then started to use that to build a complete program. The Cardinals’ men’s program has now matured to the point where everyone can do what they do best. Their sprinters can be sprinters, their butterfliers can be butterfliers, and their breaststrokers can be breaststrokers (and oh boy, can the breaststrokers be breaststrokers). If you look 3 or 4 deep, Louisville is right alongside programs like Florida, Cal, and Ohio State for the second-tier of the country’s best breaststroking groups (behind Arizona).
Honorable Mention: Tim Welsh, Notre Dame; Chuck Knoles, Pitt; Vic Riggs, Seton Hall
Women’s Coach of the Semester – Brian Barnes, Notre Dame – As we hinted at in the lead, the Notre Dame women are smashing school records right now. For example, freshman Emma Reaney is the first Irish swimmer under two minutes in the 200 IM, and she’s at a 1:57. Barnes has hit his stride, and it’s paid off in his recent recruiting classes. It’s such uncharted territory for the program (they used to dominate the conference with slower-than-expected times), that there should be a lot of interest surrounding how well the times will hold up at year’s end and if there are more big drops in store.
Honorable Mention: Arthur Albiero, Louisville; Vic Riggs, West Virginia
Men’s Pick to Win – Louisville – This one’s pretty easy to figure out. They’re strong everywhere: they’ve got all of the freestyles covered; the breaststrokers are a no-brainer; and Oliveira holds down the IM’s and 200 stroke distances. There’s more to this team, but those mentioned here alone are probably enough for close to a Conference title, even without tossing in a slew of low-A and B-finalists. Their current #11 rankings is probably a bit high, but a top-15 finish at NCAA’s is within reach
Women’s Pick to Win – Louisville – After Notre Dame has dominated this party for so long, Louisville broke a 14-year streak last season by taking the title. I see the Irish making this meet close, but not quite getting over the edge. The Louisville women have built a versatile-enough program (with just enough sprinters in a conference without many of them) to take the title again and start a dynasty of their own.
Men’s Freshman of the Semester – Addison Bray, Louisville – Early in the season, Bray has swum a 200 breaststroke time (1:58.71) that is only three-tenths behind that of senior teammate Carlos Almeida. There’s no guarantees that a freshman and a senior are on the same training cycle, but Almeida was 5th in the event at NCAA’s last year. That’s some scary food-for-thought.
Honorable Mentions: Patrick Olson, Notre Dame; Kourosh Ahani, Pitt
Women’s Freshman of the Semester – Emma Reaney, Notre Dame – You know that a conference is on the rise when the same swimmers are in the running for Freshman of the Year and Breakout of the Year as the swimmers in the runner for just “Semester of the Year”. Besides Reaney’s record-breaking 200 IM that we mentioned above (which would also incidentally break the Conference Championship meet record), she also ranks 2nd in both breaststrokes (behind Kohoyda) and 2nd in the 400 IM (behind Kylliainen).
Honorable Mentions: Hannah Bowen, Notre Dame; Julie Ogden, West Virginia;
Men’s Breakout Swimmer of the Semester – Riley Martin, Louisville – Martin was a huge signing for this program coming out of high school – he was a Jr. Nationals finalist in the 200 fly, a class Valedictorian, and a National Merit Finalist (read: he probably didn’t need much in the way of athletic scholarship). But after dabbling in some open water in his three previous years at Louisville, he didn’t really have the success that he’d probably counted on when committing. But this year, he’s really made some huge statement swims – his 4:18 in the 500 free is a personal best by four seconds and ranks him 4th in the country. He’s also gone a lifetime best in the mile, and is very close to one in the 200 fly, in the same session at the Tennessee Invite. He should be an NCAA qualifier in the least, and could very well be a scorer too.
Honorable Mention: Taylor Camp, West Virginia;
Women’s Breakout Swimmer of the Semester – Kelly Ryan, Notre Dame – Yes, she was the Big East Champion last year in both the 100 and 200 free, but winning conference titles (at least in this conference) doesn’t disqualify you from having a breakout the next year. She leads the conference in 4 events (50/100 free, 100/200 back) and is 2nd in another (200 free). She’s set best times in all of those events except for the 200 free (which she hasn’t swum much this year) and if history holds, she’s got another second or so drop to go in the 100’s. That means she could be looking at around a 52.6 in the 100 backstroke and NCAA points.
Women Looking for a Big Second-Half – Liz Hansson, Cincinnati – Cinci does sprinting! Hansson’s only been a 23.40 in the 50 free this year, but she is a big-time taper swimmer. For example, she was going 24’s in January last year before dropping down to a 22.9 at Big Easts. I’d put her as a favorite in the 50 free at this year’s meet (though it will be a photo-finish with Louisville’s senior Aileen Cole).
Rachael Burnett, West Virginia – Burnett has been a decent middle-distance swimmer throughout her career at West Virginia, and has made huge strides in each of her first two seasons there. This year, however, the defending co-Big East Championship Swimmer of the Meet has shown a great improvement in her speed. If she can use that speed on her 500, she’s got a big second-half coming.
(Couldn’t find a good men’s candidate, so we went with two women instead).
