The USC Trojans will find themselves in Hawaii in the early part of the new year (they leave Tuesday, January 1st), and with the island state serving as one of the most popular destinations for winter training-trip brutality by NCAA teams, they’ve found a new meet for their schedule. On January 4th in Honolulu, they will join an already-existing tri-meet with Wisconsin, Boise State (women only), and Hawaii at the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex on Hawaii’s campus. The meet will begin at 2pm local time (4pm West Coast time).
Both USC squads are undefeated in dual meet competition, and the USC women are actually undefeated period (having won the SMU Classic and topping team scoring at Winter Nationals). This will be a good test to see where the Trojans are at, as Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Boise have some good competitor on their team (though none can contend with USC’s depth in an overall team battle).
Specifically, Wisconsins sprinters, including sister Ruby and Ivy Martin, will be a good test for USC as this remains the biggest weakness for Dave Salo’s squad, as will Hawaii’s Jasmine Alkhaldi. On the men’s side, Michael Weiss, now back with the Badgers after missing parts of the fall semester, is a likely three-event NCAA top 8 finalist, and sophomore Drew Teduits is having a phenomenal season (ranked 8th in the country in the 200 back). If we get to see a Teduits-Lendrum 200 backstroke, that would be the race-of-the-meet.
Vlad Morozov and Dimitri Colupaev, a pair of All-Americans who took the fall semester off to focus on training for Worlds, will be with the Trojans; as will new spring addition Yakov Toumarkin, an Israeli and former European Championship medalist who will be making his USC debut.
USC will see the Badgers again, as Wisconsin will come to the McDonald’s Swim Center on January 12th for a dual meet.
