After a successful 4-0 regular season, the No. 8 IU men’s swimming team is set to compete at the Big Ten Men’s Swimming Championships from March 2-6 at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio.
The IU men’s diving team competed in its conference championships last week at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center at Purdue University.
The Hoosiers have compiled a 40-3 record since the 2016-17 season, with a 14-1 mark in Big Ten play across the same span.
The program also won three straight team conference titles in 2017, 2018 and 2019 before finishing in third place at the 2020 Big Ten Championships behind Michigan and Ohio State.
The IU men’s swim and dive program has won 27 conference titles, the second-highest number in conference history. IU has finished inside the top 3 at the Big Ten Championships in 10 straight seasons.
Although the trip to the Big Ten Championships may be an annual occurrence for the IU team, after coming off a season that was as far from usual as possible, it would be easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal.
However, the team is taking everything one day at a time, sophomore swimmer Brendan Burns said.
“We’re just focusing on what we can control and executing our races to the best of our ability,” Burns said.
The Berwyn, Pennsylvania, native had wins in the 100 and 200 backstroke and the 100 and 200 butterfly during the regular season. Burns also garnered a personal best in the 200 backstroke in a dual-meet competition against No. 17 Ohio State on Jan. 22.
Other Hoosier contenders for individual titles include senior Brock Brown and sophomore Michael Brinegar. Brown had top ten conference times of 53.49 and 1:57.54 in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes this season. Brinegar also fell in the conference top ten in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:25.64.
IU will match up against all of their regular season opponents again in Big Ten Championship competition as well as Wisconsin, Iowa, Penn State, Michigan State and Minnesota.
