I agree that having a tougher schedule would be nice. But being pessismistic here,let's say the guys start swimming a Cal, Stanford and Arizona every year and lost, we'd be blowing this board up talking how they shouldn't swim teams they can't compete in season with. Also if I remember right last year they dueled #1 Texas and #2 Auburn

i would suspect the boys are looking right past this weekend, and thinking about UT in two wks.(which will guage how well they might do at big12)
LSU will be a little more focused and catch our boys off guard --it'll be a smaller margin of victory this time.

well it will be exciting, but keep in mind, SMU came to the rec in december with some pretty highly touted newcomers, and we all know how that turned out for the ponies...

GET READY TO BEAT THE HELL OUT OF LSU MEN"S AND WOMEN"S SWIMMING! FAVRE GOT HIS AG TAG

That must be a sign from god. Expect a 50-point Aggie victory with exhibition swims.

WHOOP!

BOOM! GAME OVER.

As usual, no live results.

400 Medley Relay was a heck of a race. Ags pulled out the narrow win.

the ags looked great today, balazs was amazing as always and everyone else stepped up as well.

looks like both sides had some great swims. good to see the ags could come through where it counts for the impressive win

Great meet, looks like the best race was the first race then a somewhat boring meet afterwards. Ag's win the 400 Medley, 1000 free, 1-2-3-4 the 200 free, lose the 100 back, come back for the 100 breast win. 200 fly got 1-2'd, lost the 50, Diving was a strength as always going 1-2 and 1-3 respectively in 1 meter and 3 meter. Came back after the break and 1-2-3'd the 100 freestyle. Lost the 200 back, went 1-3-4 in the 200 breast, took the 500 with Enriquez but LSU took 2-3-4. The LSU 100 flyer was a little too much for Lindau, lost the 200 IM, but was also Enriquez's 3rd even after the 1000 and 500. Then it was complete domination in the 400 free relay. Overall looks like a good meet for the Ag's. Demonstrated some huge strengths the Ag's have and weaknesses. Overall it seems like a good meet for the first meet after a grueling Christmas training. Looking forward to the meet against t.u. in a couple weeks.
Thoughts?

@Favre - I think Omar got 2nd in the 200 IM, which makes it all the more impressive!

Anyways, overall I thought it was a good meet for both man and womens teams...

Was happy to see the guys walk away with a win in a meet that they didn't seem to get any lucky breaks on or anything of that nature. If anything, LSU overall swam a little above expectation, their depth was certainly helped by a few rested and suited guys...

Thought Troskots freestyle was a little underwhelming, but that could just be those early "Taper Blues" that swimmers seem to hit from time to time. Lets hope so!!!

Dalton looked really good, time and stroke wise he seems to be hitting it all right now...

It's a pity Lindau couldn't walk away with a win in that 100 fly, it wasn't a bad swim, I don't think his stroke has fully adapted to yards yet, the timing into his walls appears to be a little off.

Snowden picked up a really nice pair of wins, and Wagner really showed up in the 200 Breast, maybe an extra event for him at conference this year??

On the diving, it was nice to see Cam Mclean back up there and doing well!

The woman of course walked through and did what they do best!!!

A special look at Breeja's 100 breast, a freshman girl going a 60.8 right now is pretty impressive (to me at least)

Cammile Adams really seems to be notching up some quality 200 fly's and 500's, it'll be interesting to see how she tapers into conference.

Tess Simpson is having a great year, and just keeps on doing well. Nice to see it after last year when she seemed to struggle a little.

Nice wins for Potvin, although little competition to compare against...

I heard that Jaele is looking at a medical redshirt due to an injury, can anyone confirm this??

sorry bullet that was *event* not even! But yeah crazy impressive day for him

Boys swam VERY well...several season-best times put up! As favre said above, despite a pretty close score on the boys side, it was a little bit of a dull meet, in that there weren't many tight races. The score wasn't a total romp, but not close in a way that LSU could've pulled an upset.

How about Larson...no better than a 1:02.6 in HS, and is now already blasting out multiple 1:00's? That's darn impressive. Showed up strongly in the 100 free...still not super-fast times, but definitely getting more encouraging for those sprint relays.

Onward to Big 12's!

agree with aquabullet on Dalton, the dude is going to have an all-star year in those freestyle events. distance guys looked to be running on fumes a little bit, i expect to see them get much better over the next month as we head towards the big meets. out depth in the breaststroke and freestyle is definitely a huge plus as well. the sky is the limit for all the relays, especially that 400 freestyle which is shaping up to be very strong. lots of things to look forward to with a couple trips to austin coming up.

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1-2-3-4 the 200 free...1-2-3'd the 100 freestyle.

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400/800 FrRelays anyone?! Top 8 big boy points comin from those at NCAAs this year, you heard it here first. i know lsu isnt exactly high quality competition, but those are gonna be some solid relays come march

Come February and march if they taper the way they have in the past this should be a scary good team even without loncaric, crazy to think what they would be with him

After transferring from tu, Caroline McElhany swam in the first couple of meets this season but lately it appears she hasn't been entered although still listed on the roster. Anyone know what's up?

injury maybe? who knows

injury would make sense, it's hard to believe they would sit her for anything else, especially with her talent

Looks like the Aggies climbed back up one spot in the polls after the LSU win!

Also the girls fell one spot...

favre delivering the bad news...

Haha. If it pads the landing a little, the A&M women only fell because the Auburn women trashed Texas by nearly 70 points.

AvidaSports Rankings are out...A&M Men ranked 3rd!

http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2011/jan/26/avidasports-performance-rankings-january-26-2011/

Still think that these things are useless as "rankings," though the data is still quite interesting in terms of projecting performances, predicting training cycles, etc. I know the college coaches are probably not willing to give up their secrets, but I'd love to see some sort of graph charting training cycles, rest days, workout intensities, etc. versus the data on these rankings. There's a potential to come to some pretty powerful conclusions about swimming training here...

WOW! what is that? Aggies ranked first in improvement!

that's interesting...i've never seen the rankings done based on team improvement over the season. I'd be curious to see how accurate their projections are at the end of the season

My feeling is that they aren't very accurate. The boys rank #1 in team improvement because they're one of the few teams that didn't have a mid-season taper meet...so it's logical that they would be improving off of their season-best times 2 weeks after holiday training ends. The girls ranked #1 a few months ago right after their taper at the Georgia Tech invite.

For example, the Florida men, who didn't have a midseason taper, are also ranked very high.

It's supposed to be a measure of a snapshot in time how well a team is performing/improving. You can take the time to read the vague methodology, but I wouldn't bother. It will mostly frustrate you with all of the logical holes, most of which it ignores the fact that teams don't swim on the exact same training cycles.

[This message has been edited by AGBlastoff (edited 1/26/2011 12:12p).]

Those "improvement" rankings are nearly worthless. They are over-thinking it. Unlike foorball or basketball where athletes perform at near-peak levels throughout the season, swimmers performance is highly variable and at the mercy of coaching and the particular dates of competition.

The only rankings that make sense to me would be based on season best times in each event.

As much glee as I get out of tu's girls getting spanked by Auburn, we would have been spanked too based on our likely performance at the same meet.

It's not fully developed but it is a nice try on their part to consider the fact that some teams always end up doing way better at the end of the season. But I still think the only rankings that matter are the end of the year at NCAA's. But given that many sports play at a peak level all year as Blastoff said, the need for rankings trickles down to the sports that only have a meet or 2 to swim at their very best. But it will be impossible to get a rankings out that shows the different training cycles and where teams should be at what times

i agree with favre. by the end of march, nothing that happened between october and january matters anymore

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by the end of march, nothing that happened between october and january matters anymore

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Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!!

Isn't it funny how many topics we have all beat to death on this board? Don't get me wrong, I love all the good discussion, its great for the sport and the team. But I find it very amusing how whatever topic we get started on always ends up being directed into another topic that we've covered super thoroughly already.

That being said, its interesting to find a poll that takes other things into account when they do rankings. The standard "Coach's Polls" can get messy and boring at times, with all the politics and such, so to see things like "improvement" on their is a nice change, even if it isn't the most accurate thing in the world. As we've said before, accuracy isn't why we have them, its just to give us something else to talk and speculate about.

Good point favre about the guys not having Bo-Bo (aka Loncaric), thats going to raise some eyebrows come NCAA time when he's a no-show, especially if the guys step up like they're capable. If (when) they make some noise at NCs WITHOUT Bo-Bo, it'll draw even more eyes towards the lovely little town of College Station. Gonna be time for some fishies (and everyone else for that matter) to really step up their game come the end of February (and March)...

Totally agree on the different training cycles/avida rankings...one thing it does do is compare you with teams that don't do a fall taper though...nice to see we seem to be outperforming a team like Florida...still one more dual to go too (for the guys)