The 2024 Texas Invite saw lots of drops, and even a few American records. One of the biggest group wide drops was seen in the men’s 200 butterfly group with 9 of 10 athletes dropping time, some for the first time in more than a year. The biggest change this particular group has seen this season? Bob Bowman’s training.
Bob Bowman took over the Texas head coach position from Eddie Reese this season, and he has been the primary coach behind four of the last six 200m butterfly Olympic Gold medalists. Three of those medals came from Michael Phelps (2004, 2008, 2016), and one came from former ASU swimmer and 2024 NCAA champion Leon Marchand (2024).
Ten Texas men swam the 200 fly at this year’s Texas Invite. Nine of them saw new best times.
| Name | 2024 Texas Invite Time | Pre-Season Best Time | Date of Best Time | Difference |
| Logan Walker | 1:41.01 | 1:45.04 | 11/17/23 | -4.03 |
| Ryan Branon | 1:41.52 | 1:42.79 | 02/26/24 | -1.27 |
| Coby Carrozza | 1:42.10 | 1:42.96 | 02/03/22 | -0.86 |
| Cooper Lucas | 1:42.72 | 1:43.44 | 03/03/23 | -0.72 |
| Holden Smith | 1:43.15 | 1:44.25 | 03/01/23 | -1.10 |
| Alec Filipovic | 1:43.40 | 1:43.43 | 02/29/24 | -0.03 |
| Landon D’Ariano | 1:44.76 | 1:45.05 | 03/22/24 | -0.29 |
| Luke Stibrich | 1:45.85 | 1:46.28 | 12/08/23 | -0.43 |
| Spencer Aurnou-Rhees | 1:46.86 | 1:45.90 | 02/24/23 | +0.96 |
| George Flanders | 1:47.84 | 1:48.91 | 11/17/23 | -1.07 |
Logan Walker, a sophomore, had the largest drop coming in at just over 4 seconds faster than his pre-season best time. He swam the event at Texas last year, going his best time at last year’s Invite, and adding time to go 1:45.77 at last year’s Big 12s. He went 1:41.70 at the Texas vs IU meet about a month prior to the Texas Invite, dropping the first 3.3 seconds of his total 4 second drop so far under Bowman.
Walker is no stranger to enormous time drops over a season. His Junior year of high school, he went from 1:51.76 to 1:48.39 in less than a month from October 15 to November 6th of 2021. He ended that season at his pre-college best of 1:46.51 in March. He only swam one 200 butterfly his senior year of high school, in September of 2022, and went 1:49.64.
Ryan Branon, Holden Smith, both juniors, and George Flanders, a sophomore, also all dropped over a second from their previous bests, and all three swam the event in college last season, though Smith’s best time came from his pre-college days.
Texas also had a trio of freshmen in the event who dropped. Cooper Lucas, Landon D’Ariano, and Luke Stibrich dropped 7 tenths, 3 tenths, and 4 tenths respectively in their first ever college midseason meet.
The one outlier in the data was junior Spencer Aurnou-Rhees. Aurnou-Rhees had a very good freshman season back in 2022-2023, and swam the event at the 2023 Big 12 Championships, going his current best time of 1:46.86. He did not swim the event a single time last season, opting to swim the 100 free on the final day of the Texas Invite instead.
What did he do differently from a previous coaches?
Seeing the success Bowman had at AZ state and with what seems like all the swimmers he’s coached in the last 5 years, it makes me wonder why he wasn’t more successful at Michigan. Did he make some change or figure something out after he left Michigan? Has he ever talked about why the current run starting at AZ St has been so much more successful?
Focused too much on Phelps maybe
Agree