Hoosiers face second top-10 team in as many weeks

With the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments quickly approaching, IU head coach Ray Looze is doing all he can to prepare his team – including pitting them against some of the toughest competition in the country. No. 7 IU is set to face No. 6 Tennessee on Friday in what is bound to be a difficult competition for both teams. \n“Any team that is inside the top 10 is a quality team,” junior swimmer Matt Lenton said. “Any type of racing where we can race quality competition is going to be beneficial for us. A team like Tennessee is definitely going to help the guys traveling to the (NCAA Tournament) later in the year.”\nIU most recently fell to No. 4 Michigan, 165-133. Although the Hoosiers started the meet strong, they had a hard time keeping the lead. Looze hopes that the meet versus Tennessee is more successful, for both the team and individual races.\n“We’d like to get a lot closer than the 30 points that we lost to Michigan with as many races as we lost,” Looze said. “That’s the real big key; we want to win more races, especially close ones.”\nFreshman diver Landon Marzullo posted a major win on the platforms at Michigan last weekend and IU diving coach Jeff Huber hopes Marzullo and the rest of the team are able to keep up their progress. Although the diving squad did very well overall in its last meet, Huber knows Tennessee is going to be a definite \nchallenge.\n“Tennessee is a great program and (Tennessee diving coach) Dave Parrington is a great coach,” Huber said. “They always have some great divers so we know it will be a very competitive meet this weekend.”\nLooze knew both Michigan and Tennessee were going to be superior programs this season and made sure his team would be facing them toward the end of their season. \n“Even if we lose, I’d rather go against competition that’s really going to put our feet to the fire than to have a false sense of security,” Looze said. “There’s no hiding at the end of the season, so we’re not going to hide now.”