Indiana Day Three Quotes
2/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 25, 2006
Indiana sophomore Todd Patrick
On the 100 Freestyle race:
TP: "I'm pretty happy with it. I did what I could do. I had a good race. I went up a spot from the morning swim. I'm pretty happy with what we're doing tonight."
Indiana senior Kevin Swander
On the 200 Breaststroke race:
KS: "It was a good race, but my splits weren't what they needed to be. In a race that is close, you just wish you would have gotten your hand on the wall first. I was talking with Mike Alexander about the race and I said, "What can you do when 1:55.2, which is a pretty good time, gets third in the conference." This is the fastest conference anywhere ever for the breaststroke. You can't complain. All three of us are ranked in the top 25 in the world in one of the breaststroke events."
On his awards:
KS: "None of them mean anything to me except for the team award. It's great. Four years ago, Coach Looze promised to bring the Big Ten title home and he promised to do it when we were here. It's a dream come true. We won it as a team and you couldn't ask for more."
Indiana junior Brian Mariano
On his diving competition:
BM: "It was incredible. Each night was a whole new experience. I just had to take it one step at a time, one dive at a time, listen to Coach Huber and just go have fun."
On his teammates:
BM: "They're more important than anybody. They support me through everything. They really keep me up when things get down. This year I had some back problems and some injuries. They really kept me up and pushed me through this."
On his performance tonight:
BM: "I just wanted to have fun. I knew that I could win and was really hoping that I could win. I put forth all the effort and hard work. I talked to Coach Huber before the final and got a few pointers. I really just wanted to go out and have fun."
Indiana freshman Nick Walkotten
On winning the Big Ten Championship:
NW: "It feels great. We've been focusing on this since last year. We came in this year working very hard. We just tried to stay focused. In the Big Ten Conference your competition is always going to be top notch."
On his coaches and teammates:
NW: "The coaches played a big role in trying to keep everybody motivated and keeping everybody strong and fast. My teammates were always behind me to support me. Everybody was feeding off each other's energy all weekend. That really helped rally everybody to keep going."
Indiana diving head coach Dr. Jeff Huber
On winning the Big Ten Championship:
JH: "It has been a long time coming. One of the reasons I came to IU was to bring back the tradition. It's hard to describe. I think it will probably hit me more tomorrow. It has been a long, long road. Bringing IU back to prominence is what we wanted to do. Every day I just come in and really focus on doing the best I can as a coach to get my athletes ready. I told the guys today that we need to put the pressure on, continue to dive well and not assume anything because anything can happen."
Players Mentioned
