IU Coach Ray Looze said he wants the men’s swimming and diving team to improve its national ranking and compete for the Big Ten title this year.
IU, which finished last season ninth in the final CSCAA Coaches Poll with a second-place finish in the Big Ten and ninth-place finish at the NCAA championships, expects everyone to improve.
“Nobody needs to wave a magic wand and do something substantially better than they’ve ever been,” Looze said. “If everybody just gets better, we get some contribution from our freshmen, transfers, then I think we’ll have a successful year.”
IU will be getting some major reinforcements in the diving department from senior Michael Hixon, a silver medalist in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and junior James Connor. Hixon and Connor took Olympic redshirt years.
Diving coach Dave Johansen said the entire team is excited to be competing together again and believes they are as good as any team out there.
Hixon said he had similar sentiments coming off his Olympic appearance.
“It’s a lot of fun being back with the team, training with the team and having common goals together,” Hixon said. “It was a great for the experience, but I’m really excited for this, too.”
Another Hoosier to watch on the diving side is senior Josh Arndt. Arndt’s coming off a career year in which he placed fourth in the 3-meter dive at the NCAA Championships, won the 3-meter dive three times in dual meets and was recognized as an All-American in the event.
Hixon said it was awesome to see Arndt have his breakout year last year and definitely expects big things from him as the season progresses.
From a swimming perspective, the Hoosiers, led by veteran juniors Blake Pieroni and Ali Khalafalla and senior Anze Tavcar, will also be deep.
Pieroni, a gold medalist at the Olympics in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay and five-time All-American at the NCAA Championships last year, said first and foremost he wants the team to win a Big Ten title, while he defends his conference titles in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Khalafalla and Tavcar, who competed for the Egyptian and Slovenian Olympic teams respectively, will help anchor the swimming contingent of IU’s team, particularly in freestyle and backstroke events.
If last year was any indication, Khalafalla in particular will look to be a huge complement to Pieroni in the freestyle events as he earned four All-American honors at the NCAA Championships. Three of those were in freestyle events, and the fourth was as the freestyle leg of the 200-yard medley relay. Khalafalla also broke the IU record for the 50-yard freestyle event seven times last season.
“We’ve got a veteran men’s team,” Looze said. “I think we can challenge for a conference title ... And then I’d like to see our national ranking go someplace it hasn’t gone in 40-some-odd years, which would be a top-five finish.”
The IU men’s swimming and diving team has not finished in the top five nationally since 1977. IU finished fourth at the NCAA championships that season when legendary coaches Hobie Billingsley and Doc Counsilman roamed the pool deck in Bloomington.
However, this year’s team seems poised for a run at not only a Big Ten championship but a national title as well.
“It would be nice to do things that we haven’t done in a long time here at Indiana,” Looze said. “Ninth was nice, but, man, top-five would be really cool.”
IU will open its season Saturday at the Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center against Texas, the defending national champion, and Florida, which placed fifth at the NCAA championship last year.
