Great start to the session with a 7th place medley. Georgia is gonna gain some ground tonight with their 4imers and usc with their 200frees and 800relay. man, what a dogfit this is (gonna be)!

Cal was nasty. 23.0 breast, 20.0 fly. sick.

Good swim for Boris. Way to race.

Wow, great finish from Boris in the fly, finishing second in the B-final. Dude always has a great taper in that fly.

I know I'm probably going to get jumped on for this, but I definitely agree that as a fan, and not a former team member, "disappointing" is exactly the right word to describe how I feel after all of these scratches. Of course, when you're on the team, your goal is to finish as high as possible. But as a fan, it's almost better to see a 12th place team finish with all kind of finals to watch for excitement value, than an 11th place finish and only have a rooting interest in the relays. That's why I've found myself jumping on the Cal bandwagon, because then I have someone to root for.

But I definitely understand the coaches' reasoning, and totally respect their decision, because it's their duty to their swimmers to put them in position for as high of a team finish as possible. If I were the A&M coach, I'm sure I'd make the same decision. But I'm a fan, and so is Spice, and that's why we're disappointed. I'm sure you guys can sympathize with us, just as we sympathize with the coaches' position.

So just out of curiosity from those on the inside, are these decisions discussed and agreed upon with the athletes, or does the coaching staff just lay down the law, almost to protect the swimmers from themselves? I know in HS, our coach always made the call. But I'm curious about if that changes in college.

And jeeze, Tyler Clary looks like a straight up MAN in those 400 IM's. It's just amazing to watch, because that's such a grueling race.

(PS, please don't flip out at me, as I'm not saying it was a wrong decision. I'm just explaining why different people see the decisions from a different POV).

back and forth between cal and texas, sheesh this is nuts

and blastoff its all about the atmosphere that has been created on the team. its the coaches decision, but none of the guys have a problem with it because that has become the tradition. Its a GREAT thing to have on a team, believe me. It makes the guys swim faster, and it helps the program in the long run, as well as right now.

I personally dont understand your reasoning to wanting to see a bunch of exciting races. There are plenty of teams to be fans of who have bunches of "great swims" each session, but wont even sniff the top 10. As a fan, Id rather see my team throw down some awesome races to put them in the best position to succeed overall. I dont think it would be more fun to see our guys overload themselves to get a bunch of 16th place finishes worth 1pt a piece, only to give up valuable tenths in relays, to see us finish 15th or lower. Not tryin to jump on you, just presenting a little more on the other side.

But back to your question, the reason the guys have been seeing more success the past few years is because they all believe in the coaches and the program. 3-4 years ago the team was not like that, it was completely different, and that was the year that our NCAA team consisted of Eric Sehn...

I understand you guys' perspectives as fans, but you also have to realize that the coaches dont get paid to make swimming "fun to watch" for our team. But thats what message boards are for, the fans, so lets not make too big a deal about all this. Im prolly guilty myself, now.

[This message has been edited by texagg09 (edited 3/27/2010 7:12p).]

Cal is on the verge of putting texas away I think. not that texas is swimming bad or anything, but cal just has SO MANY guys in every event, A&B heats, and theyre winning relays. Texas is gonna need a heck of a day tomorrow to beat them i think.

the battle for top 10 is ridiculous also.

8th - UGA 74pts
9th - UVA 70
10 - OSU 67.5
11 - A&M 64
12 - USC 60.5
13 - Tenn 54

3rd for Grant! WHOOP!

Interesting to see Boris on the end of that 800...not a bad swim for the guys overall, but not quite as good as they were hoping for. hard to complain when thats the first time theyve fielded a competitive 800 relay at NCs in a while. 2 freshman on that relay gaining valuable experience, plus dalton on 2 other relays also. future is looking bright.

Great job today Ags, gonna need some extra special swims tomorrow to pull it off. Let's do this thing! WHOOP!

Great showing tonight! Grant is a stud. Boris really carried us tonight. Hats off to both of these guys.

Blastoff, I understand where you and Spice are coming from; you're here for the entertainment value. Which begs the question, have you ever been to a swim meet?! They're flippin boring. No no just kidding. But in all seriousness, I am programed to only understand trying to win. In college, this is a team sport. We all do whatever we can to help the team score the most amount of points possible and place AS HIGH as possible. You're looking at this through a high schooler's mentality: "Me, me, me, me, me! How fast can I swim? How high can I place? How many heat winner ribbons can I take home?" You have to make sacrifices for the team and sadly that means saving individuals for the right relays at the right time. I'd much rather see my team place in the top 10 than see Amini get 18th in the 100 breast. You get my point. Don't take this the wrong way, we're glad we have fans who care, just don't agree at all with your definition of success.

Grant is most definitely a stud. Our Australians are 4 for 4 on making A finals at NCAA's this year after being 1 for 4 a year ago. It is SO nice to see all our divers doing so well when it counts.

I'm guessing we'll put all our eggs into the diving and relay basket tomorrow? We really need that relay to step up and make top eight to have a decent shot at top 10.

Not sure what HS you went to, but mine was good, and often went with the "throw the race to win the meet" strategy.

Anyways, I guess I just overestimated the individual abilities of our swimmers. You see the guys from Cal, Texas, Stanford, Virginia, etc. swimming 14 races. Not sure why ours can't. But I guess the coaches don't have much faith in them in the individual events. Just see Boris have such a great taper every year, but they don't give the other guys that chance.

I'm not even positive that I fully agree with the strategy as far as scoring points. I think to an extent it can work, but it seems like they may have overdone it with THIS many scratches. But then again, it's impossible to disprove it, even in hindsight, so I guess we're just going to have to accept it and move on.

To me, it's kinda like the foul-timeout-foul-timeout at the end of basketball games. Sure, it's allowable in the rules. Sure, it gives the team the best chance to win, which is the goal. But everyone wishes that there was a way to do away with it, because in the sporting sense, it just seems silly to have a 40 minute game choked away by a team in the last 40 seconds. Or football teams resting their starters when they have the playoff spot locked up. Sure, it may reduce the risk of injury, but the fans feel robbed. And not just the rah-rah fans of the team, but the fans of the sport in general. As a fan of the sport, you want to see every athlete get their chance to go out there and compete to win their race. We have all this buildup all-season of Balazs getting faster and faster in the 200, and then all of a sudden, it just ends with a DFS. It's just kind of a let down.


[This message has been edited by AGBlastoff (edited 3/28/2010 12:03a).]

Michigan and Arizona lurking in the 400 free relay...Ags seeded 8th, but they need to kick it in to hold off those two squads.

Look for great things from the aggie 800 next year. Those guys will be back for blood. And to think that last year that relay was merely an afterthought! We will have at least five guys next year capable of going 1:36 or better. Look for this years freshman to start contributing individually also with enriquez sure to make the meet next year along with the other guys.

dbc, any word on what kinda times Trotsky goes in the 200?

And speaking of next year, is anything else public about next year's recruits yet?

1:52.9 SCM, 1:57.6 LCM. i would say room for improvement in that area, but i doubt he will be needed there next year. theres 5 guys on the current team that are significantly better than him in the 200 freestyle. no word on the rest of 2014, shaping up to be a good class though i will say that.

It is just my opinion, but scratching swimmers to let them rest a bit more sells them short. In particular sandbagging the 400 medley relay in finals means eliminating about 45 seconds of racing for the swimmers. Maybe it saves them the warmup/warmdown too - but I think their hard work all year prepared them for it.

These guys are elite swimmers. If I had trained an entire season for this, I would be at least midly annoyed that I didn't get to race. This is the meet where they are best prepared for, fully tapered, etc.

Even if the athletes knew this is how it would be - I can't believe they wouldn't rather be on the blocks racing.

can someone explain "tapering" to me. Is this a drawdown of intensive training before a meet?

thanks

jt2hunt - tapering is the change in training to achieve peak performance for a championship meet (or two).

Typically the taper lasts 2-3 weeks and includes a phased reduction in overall training volume (distance). It is common to increase overall rest time in training sets and increase speed. During the taper period the muscles are no longer being torn down and repairing themselves as they are during the heaviest training periods.

The result of a good taper is increased speed/strength and speed of recovery. Most athletes only can achieve peak performance once per season (swimmers typically have two seasons per year).

It is difficult to "hold on" to a taper for more than a week or so. After a 3 week reduction in training volume fitness can be lost and performance deteriorates.

At the NCAAs - many of the very best swimmers did not have to taper for their conference championships. So they can peak at the NCAAs. Others have to taper earlier just to achieve their NCAA qualifying times. So it is hard for them to improve one month later. Some athletes can taper twice in month's time.

Whelp, Texas wins barring a relay DQ. That sucks. Feigen swam the second leg in the 400 in prelims, which I thought was interesting. Gideon Louw might be the best relay swimmer in the nation, he swims REALLY fast in them. I mean, he swims fast not in them. But whereas he's not winning his individuals, he's blowing away the competition in the relays (split 41.71 this morning).

What a great way to finish of the meet for our guys. That was an awesome relay, 52.99 for Dalton, whoa! Just outside the top 10 again, but still a great season id say. Of our NCAA point scorers, the only ones we lose are Casey, Nikita, and Jason. We get Troskott to help replace Casey, but were gonna need to get a backstroker to replace nikita/jason on the medleys. Ariens had a heck of a conference meet, so maybe he can be that guy next year. The way all our freshman stepped up this year, who knows, maybe well bring in a freshman backstroker who can do it next year.

Great season guys, Congratulations!

Texas with the overall team championship, and they did it only winning one relay. Thats something you dont see too terribly often. Diving really helped them in the battle against Cal. After all the hoopla at the beginning of the meet, it was nice to see that the sickness didnt really have a huge effect over the outcome of the meet. Ya, a few guys swam sub par, and there were some scratches, but nobody can blame any success or failure on "the sickness". And we all got to see "the best guys" compete at full strength for the most part

Just like we saw in the women's meet, it was the divers who made the difference. I think our program (M&W) has the tools in place in the diving program to maintain that level of success without sacrificing on the swimming, which bodes well for us in the future of possibly competing for NC's on one side or the other.

Cal looked simply awesome the whole meet though. Heard from people at the meet that they were the most impressive team in and out of the pool. They seemed to be recovered and ready to roll again immediately after cooling down. Great program they've got there; if Staab doesn't come back, they may be able to end Stanford's Pac-10 run next year.

It's been great to see the guys in the hunt for a top 10 finish once again. As always, a few things go a little different and they are there.

As for the question of scratching swimmers to save for the relays, I can say as a former swimmer that sometimes--especially on the 3rd day of the NCAA meet--that rest is much needed. These guys suffer a tremendous amount of mental fatigue over the course of a three-day meet, especially if they are swimming every session.

I think the performance on the 400 free relay shows the strategy paying off, since they all seemed to be on point (especially when compared to the rest of the heat). Those decisions could mean the difference between 10th and 14th on any given day. Now, were we to have a swimmer who had better than a 50% chance of making it back to an A-final, the decision might be different. I trust Jay and Doug to make that call any day of the week.

As it stands, it was another great year for the program, the coaches, and most importantly the Ags putting the work in every day. Congrats guys, way to keep things moving in the right direction!

[This message has been edited by tpog (edited 3/28/2010 10:51p).]

No doubt it was a very nice job by the men overall. The 400 free relay was outstanding.

Diving has become a real strength for us this year - both men and women.

Best part about diving is all the qualifiers will be back next year...Hopefully we can get some more folks to join them.

Both swim teams lose some crucial pieces, though it has been well-documented there is some help on the way on both sides. Definitely still some holes to fill though. Hopefully the coaches are out there continually beating the pavement!

Very impressive year! If a few different things would have fell their way it looks like 10th should have been the Ags place! Great year, great to watch from start to finish!