2012 Big Ten Men's Championship Preview

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This year’s Big Ten Championship meet will be noted as much for who isn’t there as much as for who is.

Two of the conference’s biggest individual stars, Eric Ress of Indiana and Tim Phillips of Ohio State, are both taking redshirts to focus on Olympic training.

With those guys on campus, last year’s runner-ups Indiana or last year’s third-place team Ohio State could both take a run at the dominance of Michigan.

But as things sit, it will be a huge challenge to take on the extremely young Wolverines. They have a huge sophomore class that, as a group, is well-known. Coach Mike Bottom brought in a class that was unlike one we’ve ever seen in size and scope. This seems like the year, however, when they become well-known as individual names. When you dig deeper into how well these guys swim as very young guys, it’s almost a surprising level of talent.

Michigan returned almost all of their scoring from last year’s squad, but despite that they are still a decidedly young team (with only five seniors among their 28 athletes). Young doesn’t translate to “untalented,” however.

Dan Madwed, the biggest name of those seniors, has the potential to be a triple medalist at NCAA’s, except that the 100 fly and 200 free are back-to-back (he was the fastest 200 freestyler in the Big Ten last year, without having swum the race at NCAA’s).

But the younger swimmers include sophomore Kyle Whitaker, who was a monster high school swimmer before making a seamless transition into a monster college swimmer last season. He is the favorite this year in both the 200 and 400 IM’s, his two best races, and last year finished 2^nd behind Madwed in the 200 fly as well. Whitaker also showed nerves of steel in his first year with an emotional come-from-behind swim on the Wolverines’ Big Ten Championship 800 free relay last year.

They’ve also got great sprinters in the Ortiz brothers (Miguel and Bruno), and though the breaststrokes were the area hardest hit by graduation after last season, they’ve come back better than before. Freshmen Bruno Ortiz and Richard Funk rank 3^rd and 4^th in the conference in the 100 this year, and senior Casey Sreenan is in A-final territory as well.

Middle-distance freestyler Connor Jaeger has been incredibly impressive as a sophomore as well – with a 4:15.94 in the 500 free from December. These Wolverines pulled off a monster upset early this year by knocking off Texas.

This year’s Wolverines will be held back by the fact that they have to be resting for NCAA’s, rather than Big Ten’s. Last year’s team peaked in February instead of March, which made sense then. They were trying to reestablish themselves as the top program in the Big Ten, and with such a young team, the goal of the conference rather than the national level made sense. This year, they have an opportunity to place very high at the National level, so that will be a focus for them.

Indiana was a big surprise as the runners-up last year. They will be without Eric Ress, the cog of the entire wheel last season, though luckily they won’t have the same issue with redshirted divers as the girls had (Zach Nees has been having a great season on the springboards – though without psych sheets we won’t know for sure who is/is not diving).

In Ress’ absence, other Hoosiers have stepped up. Specifically, in his backstroke races, James Wells has been a monster in the 100 backstroke (and he’ll have to continue to be – there’s nothing in the way of a plan-B in the 100 in Bloomington); and freshman Steve Schmuhl has been one of the best revelations of the college season, having already been a 1:44.5 in the 200.

The Hoosiers are similar to Michigan, in that they need to peak at NCAA’s, rather than Big Ten’s.

Ohio State is without Tim Phillips, but there’s still a scenario where they sneak in and take this Big Ten title. They have improved their depth big-time since last season, and it feels as though the Buckeyes are a better candidate than the two aforementioned teams to put their focus on Big Ten’s.

As a part of that depth, they’ve got freshman like Tyler Stevenson filling important roles (Stevenson is the 2nd-best 100 breaststroker in the conference). They’ve also got a lot of veterans. Most importantly, they’ve got experienced sprinters who are swimming very well – junior Jason Schnur and senior Lincoln Fahrbach – and if there’s one area where experience pays off, it’s in sprints.

They’ve also got a great story in sophomore Ryan Bubb. He came to Columbus as a sprinter, and has since been converted into one of the Big Ten’s top 200 butterfliers, which is a strange, but intriguing, transformation.

The Buckeyes’ potential 800 free relay is extremely exciting as well, with 4 of the top 6 200 freestylers in the conference this year. That will be a great matchup with Michigan (foreshadowing).

Throughout the end of this season, the Minnesota Gophers and Iowa Hawkeyes will be linked in the minds of most fans of college swimming. That’s because one of the biggest stories early on in this college season was the Hawkeyes’ monster upset of Minnesota in Iowa City – their first win in the series in 14 years. Iowa has built one of their better seasons in recent memory by taking a page out of Minnesota’s book – with great freestylers.

Ryan Phelan is pure speed. He’s got a 19.77 in the 50, and is gassed even by the end of those two lengths. His 100 isn’t totally terrible, but his 44.86 is nowhere near as strong as his 50 time.

Paul Gordon, on the other hand, ranges from the 50 to the 200, and is one of the most undervalued freestylers in the country. Don’t be surprised if he busts out a very special 100 freestyle – 42 something – at this meet.

Minnesota lost a lot of their freestylers, but they do return Zach Bolin.

Purdue has been slammed by diving losses. They’ve lost well over a third of their Big Ten Championship points from last season to graduated/turned-pro divers. Their swimmers have not been having great seasons either, especially when juxtaposed against the awesome season that the Boilermaker women are having. Chuck Destro is a very good relay swimmer, but individually won’t do much. They have had two bright spots, though: their breaststrokers (Albert Miller 54.5 in the 100 and Lyam Dias 1:57.6 in the 200); as well as freshman IM’er Guillermo Blanco, who broke the program’s 18-year old freshman record in the 400 IM earlier this season (3:52).

For Northwestern, Charlie Rimkus will again be a great individual scorer, especially in the 400 IM where he’s looking to finally turn the corner into All-American status. Finnish freshman Uula Auren has had a great season for the Wildcats, and didn’t lose the 100 breaststroke until their final regular-season meet against Missouri. The Wildcats have been up and down this year – including a nailbiting regular season finale victory over Mizzou – so they need to show up at this meet.

Last year’s Penn State team was pretty impressive at NCAA’s, but at Big Ten’s they were only a distant 6th. They returned a large bulk of their top swimmers, and are performing well. Scott Marino will be one of the top IM’ers in the conference at this year meet, and has a good shot at playing second-fiddle to Whitaker in both distances.

Wisconsin had an ugly loss early in the season against Wisconsin-Milwaukee. New coach Whitney Hite has the program on the right path, but he was left with a very bare-bones setup on the men’s side when he took over in Madison. They, like Michigan State, will have one great swimmer who will lead the way for the scoring. For Wisconsin, it’s Daniel Lester, and for Michigan State, it’s Jacob Jarzen.

Here’s some top races to watch at this meet:

Men’s 800 Free Relay

This 800 free relay from last year’s meet was one of the best races from the 2011 conference championship season. On the anchor legs, freshman Kyle Whitaker of Michigan was matched up with Ohio State sophomore Zach Holmes, with the Buckeyes holding a big lead.

Whitaker chipped away at the lead for 150 yards, before exploding on his final 50 to outpace Holmes by two seconds and mark an awesome 1:33 anchor leg to give Michigan a comfortable victory.

This year, Holmes has stepped his game up big, however. He’s already blown away his best 200 time from last season. All but one swimmer (Michigan’s Hassan Abdel-Khalik) has returned to fight it out again, but with the explosion of sophomore Michael Wynalda (1:35.88) this season, they should hardly miss him. This is going to be another amazing race.

Men’s 100 Fly

A Michigan Wolverine will take the top seed into this men’s 100 fly, but it’s not the one you’d expect. Sophomore John Wojciechowski’s 46.61 is the fastest time in the Big Ten this season, with defending champion Sean Fletcher well down the rankings at 49.00. Keep in mind that Wojciechowski was only in the B-Final last year. Mike Bottom, who is always creative with his lineups, has been pushing Fletcher a lot in the 100 back this year instead. Dan Madwed is another Wolverine who could make a surprise appearance in this race and challenge for a victory.

Will Fletcher make a big comeback in this race? We’ll have to wait and find out. If so, it could be a great battle. Michigan State and Wisconsin will also see their best swimmers (Jacob Jarzen and Daniel Lester, respectively) among the top 5 in this race.

Unlike most of the races in this meet, there will be little in the way of a freshman challenge in this event. Not a single rookie is ranked in the top 20 of the race this season.

Men’s 200 Medley Relay

This is always one of the more fun relays in the Big Ten Conference championship meet. Michigan’s top squad this year only matches one leg from last year’s meet (Miguel Ortiz), but the relay is just as good thanks to Bottom’s aforementioned creativity. But the best so far doesn’t necessarily lo0k anything like what the best will be at this meet.

Ohio State is similarly placed. They’re replacing two legs of their medley relay, but might have come out even better for it. Penn State returns largely intact, and will be surprisingly competitive in the race (and are about a 50/50 to pull off a big upset).

Predictions

Michigan’s huge depth is going to be too much to overcome, and though they might bet raining through, I think they still win the points battle pretty handily. Ohio State will make for some outstanding races, though.

Indiana has had some swimmers step up, but are lacking that hammer that Ress was last season who could step in and give them huge points. Great diving will hold them up for 3rd, however.

The Nittany Lions are building for the long term, and a top-4 placing at this meet is the next step in their evolution, while waiting for a huge recruiting class to come in next fall.

Iowa has the horses to again jump Minnesota at this meet – when you get towards the bottom of these conferences, those one or two big-time finishers can make a big impact on standings. Purdue slips with a down year for their divers. There’s a temptation to move Northwestern ahead of Wisconsin, but I think that Hite will have the Badgers ready for this meet, and they’ll swim much better than they have all season.

1. Michigan
2. Ohio State
3. Indiana
4. Penn State
5. Iowa
6. Minnesota
7. Purdue
8. Wisconsin
9. Northwestern
10. Michigan State