In the first day of tri-meet action against Arizona and SMU (the only scored day), Texas’ Michael McBroom has hit an all-time NCAA best in the men’s 1000 free with an 8:43.48 as the Longhorns beat Arizona 166-125 at home.
That broke a Texas Swim Center pool record, and is the fastest time ever swum in NCAA competition, though putting the swim in context is a bit challenging; we usually only see it raced on its own in dual meets, because it’s not an official NCAA Championship event in Division I. That also means that it’s incredibly rare for anybody to swim this race tapered. The previous best all-time in a college meet was Michigan’s Chris Thompson at NCAA’s in 2001 where he swam an 8:44.11 en route to a then-record-setting 1650 clocking.
McBroom’s swim was really amazing, as he took the race out in a 4:21 and came back in a 4:22. Swimming back-to-back 4:20 lows like that is just unbelievable. He swam a 4:18.57 to win the regular 500 later in the meet.
The all-time best is still far from where McBroom is, with Erik Vendt having swum an 8:36 at the Toyota Grand Prix at Belmont in 2007.
That was just the beginning for a Texas team that was dialed-in at this meet (they were suited up). In their endless quest to find their top medley breaststroker for this season, Austin Surhoff is their latest attempt. He swam with great success on the 400 medley relay where he split a 53.55, just four-tenths slower than Arizona’s Kevin Cordes, Texas won that relay in 3:12.43, with SMU 2nd in 3:12.97 thanks to a splendid back-half from David Larsson (46.81 fly) and Mindaugas Sadauskas (43.00).
Arizona was not as good as we saw them against Cal last weekend and took 3rd in a 3:16.
Dax Hill took the next win with a 1:33.92 in the men’s 200 free. That’s his best time of the season and ranks him third in the country in 2012-2013. His teammate Clay Youngquist was 2nd in 1:35.7 showing a vastly different level than Hill put up – Youngquist is one of the two swimmers who has been faster than Hill this year.
Hill also took a great showdown with the aforementioned Sadauskas in the 100 free, swimming a 43.05 to Sadauskas’ 43.37. Youngquist was 3rd in 44.71.
Sadauskas’ lone individual win in the meet was a 19.91 in the 50 free.
Cordes, meanwhile, looked better in the 200 than the 100. He won the longer race in 1:57.40. In the 100, he was upset by freshman teammate Andrew Sovero 53.63-54.09.
The stars of the day for Arizona overall were their freshmen. Besides Sovero’s win, South African freshman Michael Meyer won the 200 fly in a 1:44.3. He hasn’t been heard from as much as fellow South African freshman Dylan Bosch, though the two have a similar specialty, but Meyer now moves to 5th in the country in the race. That’s just one spot behind Bosch in the Collegiate rankings.
Meyer also won the 400 IM by a whopping 14 seconds, touching in 3:46.3. That’s another top-10 ranked time for the rookie.
Texas’ men wrapped the meet with a stiff 1:18.51 win in the 200 free relay; Surhoff split 19.3 on the second leg and Madison Wenzler was a 19.3 on the anchor as well.
Suddenly, Texas doesn’t look nearly as thin as they did at the turn of the semester. This is a very good team that now just remains with a question of whether, in a 5 relay meet at NCAA’s, they have enough pieces to put everything together.
Cordes also swam 50 free second day of the meet at UT (that day was not scored). Had 21.00 seconds.
Why are we even discussing this?….the kid is a breaststroker, was recruited as a breaststroker, and will most likely continue to improve as a breaststroker. 19yrs. old, 6’5″ , 185lbs.
To return to the “proto-typical” breaststroker discussion, I think (by the naked eye) that breaststroke is the stroke with the greatest variances in body type AND style. I have thought this for a while (ie Mike Barrowman – still the greatest breaststroker ever!) and seeing an entire heat lined up of 200 scy ‘strokers in/around/under 2 at the Minn GP, my opinion was confirmed.
I do agree that there are styles that work for SC better than LC (completely different stroke, you simply MUST be efficient in LC, whereas SC you can get away with dolphin kicks, pull outs, and whatever else is borderline illegal) but I don’t think that means that an elite SC breaststroker can’t learn to be… Read more »
I don’t know how to research this, but I would be interested to learn who was the last college breaststroker that went to Olympics, while still in college. Anyone?
On us or for the whole world??
Breeja Larson
I meant USA and among men.
cordes 3rd at trials and you consider him not good at LCM? not as great as his yards but missing the olympic team by that margin is pretty damn great
Scott Spann
Ed Moses?
The McBroom, Jeagar, Gemmel (Rumor is Grodzki is in-elidgeable this semester and won’t be at nationals – not sure if its true or not though) race should be an epic battle with the likelyhood that all three go under the current American and NCAA marks. McBroom didn’t have the summer the other guys had but he is swimming with confidence and is in excellent shape; don’t discount him in the 500 or the mile at NC’s!
based on your spelling, i’m surprised you’re “elidgeable”
Everyone I’ve spoken with at Georgia says that Grodzki is eligible and ready to go for SEC’s and NCAA’s. Just makes the race that much better.
Better check your sources
How much of a taper and or rest is anybody’s guess. There is no guess work about what an awesome swim 4:21 + 4:22 = 8:43 is. It’s shaping up to be a great battle with McBroom and Grodzki at NC’s.
In case you haven’t noticed Grodzki hasn’t swum a meet all semester. I put the smart money on Jeager.
Oh I’ve noticed, so what? I assume you mean Jaeger.
Agree with Nostradamus, must be getting nervous down in Austin to rest the first of February and suit up almost all of his swimmers
Why would they be nervous? Longhorn insiders acknowledge this year is going to be tough to finish in top 3. Everyone is excited about next year. Who was rested? Clay definitely was not. McBroom has swam this good all year long – did you watch his Austin Grand Prix? The only one appearing “in great shape” was Dax, and that was puzzling. I don’t think Eddie will sacrifice his NCAA just to swim fast against Arizona. Dax also appeared as he put on a lot of muscles this year, as Eddie said he was working on. His 200 free was just 0.4 faster than his best this year. I know they were in process of “changing schedules for taper” for… Read more »
I disagree, I think some of the UT guys were rested for this meet and timing wise ,it makes sense. It’s kind of a ,”see where we are in training and how your body will respond” to rest before a meet. You can judge alot by how a swimmer responds to a little rest and its a good gauge of what they will need come taper time. Texas is lucky in that they do not have to rest at all for their conference meet so they can back off a little at the end of January, then ratchet it back up before their real taper begins.
If you watched the coverage of the meet, even Hansen said that he believes Cordes to be the future “face of U.S. swimming,” and he was very complimentary of his stroke. Don’t you think Brendan is a bit more knowledgable than you?
And we Longhorn fans know Eddie would kill to have him as his breaststroker…
Yeah, with 35+ individual points, plus relays…Cordes would at least put Texas close to top-2 contenders, if not back into the national title hunt.
Interesting to note that Cordes barely swims anything but breaststroke. He’s swum one 50 free this year, didn’t swim anything non-breaststroke all of last season.
So why did Eddie obviously rest and suit a few of his guys?
confidence boosts
Plus their competition at their conference meet is worthless so more competition at this tri-meet. We will see what happens but Eddie loves to rest his swimmers forever!
Most of the guys were suited up, and a few were rested. Eddie wanted to see where they are with Big12s coming up. Dax hasn’t swum particularly well before this meet. So he looked really good (and happy with his swims).
Since I was sarcastically proclaimed a breaststroke “expert” by some here, here is another expert remark. Kevin Cordes is built like a freestyle sprinter. He would have never swam breaststroke for Eddie Reese. He lost 100 breast to a freshman. He still has time to switch to freestyle. He is going to peak at breaststroke very soon and he is not going to be one of greats. His kick is what makes him this good. He catches water very early in kick and catches real well with feet turned outward very wide. I had to point that to my son to also destract him from Kevin’s bobbing head. I also neutralized bobbing head be getting our son to take picture… Read more »
Well he has the American record I both scy breaststrokes and he’s 19, your point is invalid
When I say “will not be one of greats” I meant on the Olympic level and long course. His SCY records have nothing to do with that.
I don’t think he’s going to be peaking anytime soon. He might not technically have the best stroke but he’s got a ton of natural talent and has a freak-of-nature build for breastroke. Next time you see him swim, watch his lower back. He’s made for breaststroke.
If you want to see some weird looking unconventional breaststroke watch Scott Weltz swim. Also Pretty sure Damir from Cal was about 6’5″ and he went kinda fast, a lot of people would say he is built like a sprinter.
Damir is still a sprinter and a SC breaststroker.. the only race he actually has a shot on LCM is the 50 breast, that is a sprint on essence
Why don’t you wait until he has a few bad swims at big meets like NCAA’s, instead of a dual meet where he is unrested before saying something like this? Oh, I guess it is because you are psycho. Fair enough then.
Well, that is an easy and cheap shot. How about explaining why/what I got wrong, similar to what Hook’em did? That is an intelligent discussion. I post here to learn something. Not sure what I can learn from you, apart from – picking nose is fun.
Sorry, I realize you are not saying you are psycho, just a crazy swim fan/dad. Nothing wrong with that, I put myself in the same boat. 🙂 As for making fun of me for my self deprecating humor on my FB profile page – I’m proud to not hide behind a wall of anonymity.
Saying:
“He lost 100 breast to a freshman. He still has time to switch to freestyle. He is going to peak at breaststroke very soon and he is not going to be one of greats.”
Based on a fast, yet ultimately meaningless in season dual meet is … well, how do I say this nicely… premature? He is the fastest 19yo American breaststroker ever,… Read more »
I will try to provide intelligent discussion.
I think you are right that Cordes could be a great freestyler; he swam a 20.0 relay split in December. But switching to freestyle (as if to leave breaststroke) is … silly? I say this because he holds the American/NCAA/US Open records in both 100 and 200 yard breast and the 17-18 LCM NAG’s in both breaststrokes. His 100 record was previously held by your hometown hero, Brendan Hansen.
But maybe he could add the 50 free as his third event?
Paul.. I Think the point is BIG meet or not.. it is still SCY… before LCM you can´t say the guy is going to be good..
Kevin Cordes is a stud – and hopefully the future of American Breaststroke. Eddie is great. But if you think Eddie could make a freestyler out of Kevin, you’ve never seen it before.
“He is going to peak at breaststroke very soon and he is not going to be one of greats.”
What makes you think this? The kid just keeps getting better and you’ve already written him off?
Cordes swam SCM worlds just six weeks ago. He tapered for that meet as anyone would expect him to. He is still in heavy training and swimming tired. All of Arizona was slow at that meet. I expect he will come back with a vengeance when it counts.
what’s up with woody joye? 49.9 fly split???
You think Eddie misses Woody? Remember I am the one who said he was bad news last year when he left. I bet Woody wasn’t Mr. Positive on the pool deck yesterday!