KNOXVILLE, Tenn. --- The Texas A&M women's swimming and diving team and the Aggie men's diving squad will get a "sneak peek" at the Southeastern Conference at the Tennessee Invitational Wednesday through Friday on the UT campus.
The three-day prelims and finals meet will feature swimmers and divers from four SEC schools - host Tennessee, Kentucky, LSU and Arkansas - along with Texas A&M, Louisville and Southern Illinois. Texas A&M announced it was joining the Southeastern Conference effective July 1, 2012, with competition to begin in all sports for the 2012-13 academic year.
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"There will definitely been some good teams and talented swimmers and divers there," Aggie head coach Steve Bultman said. "It will be a great challenge for our team. There will be some competition for everybody, plus we'll be swimming against some folks that we don't compete against on a regular basis...although, starting next year, we will be swimming several of them."
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Bultman has given his team a bit of rest prior to the UT Invitational in an effort to allow his swimmers to achieve their NCAA qualifying cuts early in the season. Last year at the team's fall invitational, the Aggies posted over 80 NCAA "A" or "B" qualifying cuts and broke a pair of school records. It paid off for the Aggies, who took an NCAA-best 17 swimmers and divers to the national meet last year.
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"We've been doing this for the last eight or 10 years, and we've been very successful with just a little rest," Bultman said. "Like we did four years ago, we wanted to find a meet that would have long course prelims and short course finals since this is an Olympic year. We want to give them the chance to pick up some Olympic Trials cuts or just gain more experience swimming long course. But at the same time we want to go short course in the evening finals so we have a chance to pick up some NCAA cuts and get those out of the way. A number of girls have been able to get them in years past, so we'd like to see that happen."
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In addition, Aggie diving coach Jay Lerew will take his men's and women's diving crews to Knoxville, including both of last week's Big 12 Divers of the Week. Senior Grant Nel won the men's honor after shining at the Southwest Collegiate Plunge, while fellow senior Jaele Patrick took the women's award after sweeping both springboard dives in duals against Missouri and Texas.
The three-day prelims and finals meet will feature swimmers and divers from four SEC schools - host Tennessee, Kentucky, LSU and Arkansas - along with Texas A&M, Louisville and Southern Illinois. Texas A&M announced it was joining the Southeastern Conference effective July 1, 2012, with competition to begin in all sports for the 2012-13 academic year.
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"There will definitely been some good teams and talented swimmers and divers there," Aggie head coach Steve Bultman said. "It will be a great challenge for our team. There will be some competition for everybody, plus we'll be swimming against some folks that we don't compete against on a regular basis...although, starting next year, we will be swimming several of them."
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Bultman has given his team a bit of rest prior to the UT Invitational in an effort to allow his swimmers to achieve their NCAA qualifying cuts early in the season. Last year at the team's fall invitational, the Aggies posted over 80 NCAA "A" or "B" qualifying cuts and broke a pair of school records. It paid off for the Aggies, who took an NCAA-best 17 swimmers and divers to the national meet last year.
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"We've been doing this for the last eight or 10 years, and we've been very successful with just a little rest," Bultman said. "Like we did four years ago, we wanted to find a meet that would have long course prelims and short course finals since this is an Olympic year. We want to give them the chance to pick up some Olympic Trials cuts or just gain more experience swimming long course. But at the same time we want to go short course in the evening finals so we have a chance to pick up some NCAA cuts and get those out of the way. A number of girls have been able to get them in years past, so we'd like to see that happen."
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In addition, Aggie diving coach Jay Lerew will take his men's and women's diving crews to Knoxville, including both of last week's Big 12 Divers of the Week. Senior Grant Nel won the men's honor after shining at the Southwest Collegiate Plunge, while fellow senior Jaele Patrick took the women's award after sweeping both springboard dives in duals against Missouri and Texas.