Our #6 girls are taking on #8 Auburn and #19 SMU while our #22 guys will take on the defending national champ Tigers on Saturday.

These kids work their tails off and have had a lot of success in recent years...they deserve a good crowd there to watch them take on the big dogs they face this weekend! It's free and you can make it a double header with men's basketball vs. Nebraska after the meet.

What sport is this??

Swimming!

Unfortunately I've got kiddo basketball at 3PM so I can't make the drive up from H-Town. Otherwise I'd be there. I understand we can get live updates on Gametracker and I'll be logging in.

I do plan on making a day of Big 12's

Looking forward to it! I think the girls vs. Auburn should be a great matchup, to see whether the Houston Invite was just due to the rest-week or if we really are that good.

Looks like tu has Auburn this afternoon.

Any word on how the new diving coach is doing?

I've heard good things...I'm told he started coaching at the beginning of winter training.

Can't wait to see those Auburn-Texas results roll in...curious to see what kind of shape the Tigers are in...

tu v. Auburn live results

tu ahead both men and women at the break for 1M diving.

Auburn women DQ'd on their 200 MR with a slight lead at the 4th swimmer.

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 1/7/2010 3:56p).]

They would have won it too...anchor leg went 22.5 for AUB. Auburn looks a LOT better than they did last month in Austin...and I'm glad because I'd rather the Ags get some racing in and have to fight for a win than take out a beaten down Auburn group like what happened at the Texas Invite.

No way Texas loses this meet but it would have been nice to see a final score with no DQ's.

Very fast men's 100 free - 5 guys under 45 with Fiegen 1st at 44.01.

Lol Spice, it's funny how things change in a year. This time last year, 44.01 only would've gotten Feigen 3rd at this meet about the same time of year.

http://www.texassports.com/sports/m-swim/stats/2008-2009/texas-auburnresultsm.html

Partially due to the suits. Although the depth of having than many sub 45's is still impressive.

Agblastoff - that is a very interesting comparison. Targett's 42.4 is damned fast for that time of year. I assume Fiegen didn't wear a fast suit last year at a dual meet and he swam 45.5. This year he goes 44.01.

Some guys have shown - like Nathan Adrian at SC Nationals - that they are very fast without the suits.

Based on the times of the tu-Auburn meet I'd say the Aggie women should win in a close meet. Not sure about the divers though.

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 1/8/2010 8:39a).]

I can't find any live results. I see the streaming video but I'm looking for the times.

??

who won?!?

The women won over Auburn and SMU, but no results to be found.

I assume the men lost, but no results either.

nice! thanks spice!

nothing on collegeswimming.com yet.

Results are on aggieathletics.com

I wonder if they could have hidden them any better?

Nothing earth shattering to see in the results.

I noticed Jaele Patrick didn't dive. Where was she?

Sick? Hurt? I would assume she would have to come back for Winter training camp??? Were the other international divers competing?

From what I've seen on her facebook, she was there in spirit, but is still back home in Australia. She spent her day lounging on the beach.

From what I gather, her diving coaches in Australia are REALLY good, so she's probably getting some good work in. The funny thing about diving coaches are that different ones are good at teaching different aspects, and it's extremely rare for a coach to be a really good teacher of everything. Even the famed UofH diving coach sends them to another coach to clean up certain aspects of their dives, even if it's an inferior coach, because the other coaches are better at that.

So regardless of how good of coaching she's getting here, working with another coach for a while will probably allow her to work on something else for a few weeks, which can only be a positive thing. I'd argue that all of our divers would benefit from a big winter break like that, assuming they have truly quality coaching at their home clubs.

Now that you guys have me snooping on her FB, I also noticed that Laura Wilkinson was in town with the Woodlands coach, and now seems to be converting from the dark side to Aggiedom. Jaele swears that she heard Laura whoop the other day. Gig 'em!

The boys had a pretty impressive showing against a really good Auburn squad. Nice to see some of the new guys contribute a few wins. Enriquez ran away with the 1650 in 15:33, snuck into 1st on the 200 fly (1:50.56), and second in the 500 free at 4:29.92. Those distance events are something where we saw little-to-no contributions last year.

The 1650 is a B-cut, the 500 is very close, and the 200fly is about 2 seconds off. Those kinda times at this point in the season is great.

I agree that Enriquez was impressive. His 500 time compares well with Wilcox at Texas right now. Wilcox is a sub 4:20 guy. I'm anxious to see just how fast Enriquez is when tapered.

It is great to see us (finally) with a serious distance swimmer.

That is some serious snooping you are doing on Jaele Patrick...

However, I do agree that you can get different coaching techniques from various coaches in any sport. However, Jay Lerew has a great reputation and he has just started in as head diving coach. I think she should have given him a chance to work with her during winter training considering it is mid-season for this team.

I do agree all divers would benefit from outside opinions as well. I think that would be very beneficial. Don't you think that should be done during the summer or some other time though? It appears that the rest of the squad is training in College Station and only seems fair that everyone should have to be required to be there to train as well.

A lot of fast swims though for the Ags against Auburn! Looks like it is going to be an exciting conference meet and NCAAs.

On a side note, Jaele opted not to compete at conference last year for the Aggies, will she be there this year to help the team? I don't understand how she is missing so many crucial meets and events.

Liz Nelson and Maureen McLaine really stepped up at this meet as well. It is great to see 2 freshman step up and race in their first year. This program is going to stay a top team for many years and has the chance at doing some great things.

Swim4Ags, diving training works a little differently from swimming, or football, or basketball, etc. Learning new things in the winter is worth just as much as learning new things in the summer. They're not learning major new skills, (although of course they do learn new dives), but it's a lot more just cleaning up of technique.

Lerew IS a great coach. But Patrick's coach in Australia is probably also a great coach. I doubt it was any sort of slight against the coaches here, more of an issue that Australia is a very, very long way away, and so athletes from there have to make the decision to stay for the whole break and have their family come here, or to go there for 3 or 4 weeks. If it were a swimmer, I'd say it's a no brainer to stay (if you have a good coach here). But for a diver, I think it's not necessarily the end of the world to go home for a few weeks.

And as for Conference last year, she had some big national/international competition to dive at. Something she couldn't pass up. Unfortunately, unlike American competitions, they don't schedule Australian comps. around the NCAA schedule so as to allow athletes to compete in both. I assume that when she agreed to come in at the semester, it was agreed upon that there would not be a problem with her missing conference. The alternative probably would've been we wouldn't have her at all last season. Not sure if it's going to conflict again. I'd imagine that the same agreement was in place for winter training, and the coaches wouldnt've made the agreement unless they felt that it would be not detrimental, or even beneficial, to her training.

Just my 2 cents.

swim4, I didn't mean to slight Lerew in any way, and I doubt she did either.

Most of the coaching mid-season in diving is cleaning up technique, and different coaches excel at cleaning up different parts. Some might be great at teaching entry, some might be great at smoothing out twists. After working with her own coach, who might be better at some aspect of this, she'll go back to Lerew who will work on whatever his forte is, and then sort of put all of the details together. That is what the best head coaches do. They take what the divers have learned from other coaches (most divers you'll find have had MANY coaches) and put it all together to get the best overall dive. This cleanup of technique is exactly what they need 2 months before NCAA's, and likely what she's still getting in Australia.

As an example of what I met, a guy I went to highschool with named Ryan Cook was coaching UH's USA-Diving team while in school. He was just an average diver in highschool, often was a regional finalist, but wasn't necessarily anything special. The UH diving coach is renowned as one of the best coaches in the world, and trains Nastia [RussianLastName], who is probably one of the top 3 or 4 divers in the world. Despite that, it's been reported that her coach claims that this Ryan Cook guy is one of the best callers that he has ever seen. Basically, he calls out to the divers when to break from their twists and flips to hit the water at the perfect angle/entry point.

One of the greatest coaches in the world abdicating to a guy whose been coaching for under 5 years, does it part time, and is NOT one of the greatest coaches to the world? I think that shows a little insight into the unique coaching of diving.

[Disclaimer: I am a former swimmer, and swim coach. I apologize to any divers who might read here if I have *******ized any of the terminology or theories and concepts of diving. I try to learn as much as I can about diving, because I think it's an underrated and underappreciated part of a S&D team, but I still don't claim to know everything.]

That all makes sense. I understand the need for outside coaching. I still don't understand diving too much LOL! I am trying to learn!

My point was more the fact that there are 30 other women and 30 other men that are required to be here for Winter Training, and though she may live in Australia (there seems to be many international team members) who would also like "extra time at home", however, Texas A&M Swimming is their priority.

I do not mean this against Jaele Patrick but just in general, shouldn't everyone have the same commitment and responsibility to the team? Talented athletes obviously sometimes get to "bend" the rules, but what does that teach the others who are also swimming on the same team? They are less valuable and if they want to spend time with their families and coaches at home it doesn't matter?

I imagine her teammates understand. For her, there's more issues at play than wanting to spend more time at home. There's a cost issue, and the fact that she might only see her family once between September and May, because of the cost and amount of time it takes to fly to Australia. She doesn't get to drive back to Houston over Thanksgiving, or fly back to Wyoming for a week after NCAA's, or have her parents come in for a weekend meet. I'd bet she'd trade situations with any of her teammates in a heartbeat.

Of course, some of the swimmers are from Europe, and might be in the same situation, but they're in a different situation. Some of the European countries won't provide the coaching or facilities that these guys need to stay in top condition. Jaele won't have that problem in Australia. And with swimming, staying on the same training routine, the same buildup and taper, and making sure your coach can oversee your training is really important, especially with the amount of weight training our guys do.

I can see where WE might think it's frustrating to the other athletes (although, should the guys have a say? It's not like highschool, they're clearly separate teams), but I'd be curious to hear the opinion on this of any of the former college swimmers that lurk around here. Would it bother you guys that she goes home for 3 weeks over the break?


[This message has been edited by AGBlastoff (edited 1/10/2010 5:41p).]

I have been watching this post and have never felt the need to register to be able to reply. But, I wanted to comment on this topic.

I do NOT think any of her teammates should post anything about the situation, I can only imagine the backlash from something like that. I am sure there are those who care and those who do not.

I looked at the results from this past weekend, and yes other divers from Australia are competing currently, so they obviously chose to train at A&M versus Australia or their respective countries.

I am sure her family is very happy to have her home, I can't imagine my daughter being that far away. With that said, these girls are a family and a TEAM and I think to be a part of that you should have to follow the rules and requirements just like everyone else. I know she lives far away, but she knew that when she decided to represent Texas A&M. She seems very talented so I am sure she is also on a scholarship which is even more reason to have to chose your school and team here over international meets that conflict with that schedule.

Conference is a HUGE meet for these swimmers and for someone to be getting paid to be at A&M should have to be there to score points for his/her team. I understand maybe having to miss dual meets, but I think Championship meets should take priority.

That is just my two cents as well.

But look at it the other way around. A&M knew when she came here that she wanted to be able to spend several weeks at home, and yet they still recruited her and offered her a scholarship. And they knew she would miss conference, but still recruited her.

I didn't know that the girls team had any other divers from Australia. Grant is not a fair comparison, because again, the boys team and the girls team are not the same team, with the same coaches, personality, culture, etc.

And who are we kidding, do you think the swimmers REALLY care that much about the divers for it to bother them if she spends the break at home? If it was a swimmer, they'd probably go apes***, and rightfully so, but as a diver, they're likely not all that worried about it, especially since they won anyways. Swimmers have a bad tendency to only care about divers as far as they contribute to winning/losing efforts.

I have to side with swimmom on this. Both teams sans Jaele have been here for weeks busting their tail. They would all love to be home whether its Brenham or Budapest. It cannot sit well with them that a key element of their team is missing. Saying the boys team is that much different than the girls team, and PARTICULARLY that only swimmers are the ones that would feel slighted, is a complete load of crap. That is an insult to the divers that are here now.

I can understand that an agreement was likely made for her to miss Big 12's of 2009 when she signed but that was a year ago (not to mention under a former coach) You can't continually ask out of things and not have it dent team chemistry eventually. Missing weeks of workouts with your team that is in-season doesn't fly with other teams on this campus and it shouldn't fly with this one.

That said, this team has always had a very strong character and will let it go once she returns. They should be commended for pantsing a swimming & diving dynasty like Auburn without arguably the best diver in school history but to beat back even greater challenges in February and March they will most definitely need her in the mix.

I honestly hope Patrick gets back as soon as she can for the sake of her diving because it certainly looks like the others on her team have already benefited from the new coach despite him only being here since the start of the winter brak. This was truly an outstanding hire and it is already paying dividends. Janie Potvin in particular has improved by leaps and bounds from just two months ago. I can't wait to see what he does with Jaele.

[This message has been edited by Look Out Below (edited 1/10/2010 7:46p).]

GoBlue....there goes more of your BS about swimmers and what they do or do not care about, when you have NO idea about anything internal in that program I would guess. Did you compete in ANYTHING in college and have ANY idea what a TEAM goes through?

It seems you are so goshdarn intelligent that you perhaps should allow Bill Byrne to let you coach some teams....then maybe the aggies would win more huh?

All fair points LOB. If she were to miss another Big 12's, I would be as up in arms as the rest of you guys are about it. But as we're repeatedly reminded on here, they only care about NCAA's, so I don't know that missing this meet was a big chemistry breaker.

Maybe there's more to it than we know, some other reason for her to be home for so long. All I'm saying is that on the surface, I don't think her being gone is all that big of an issue.

Anyways, I can't figure out whether we're supposed to believe that the swimmers are mentally made out of steel, where nothing can bother them, or if a diver being gone for 3 weeks is going to ruin the team chemistry and therefore their entire seasons? If the girls' and boys' teams are the same and react the same to things, or if the girls need a training trip every other year and the boys need to sack up or GTFO? Full of paradoxes!