DiPrimio: NCAA Bound – ‘Charting’ IU Swimming and Diving Success

DiPrimio: NCAA Bound – ‘Charting’ IU Swimming and Diving Success

3/17/2024 4:50:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving

By Pete DiPrimio
IUHoosiers.com

Let's start with the chart.

It shows five rings based on the Olympic model, appropriate in an Olympic year with this summer's Paris Games.

Each ring has a word – Growth, Courage, Soul, Perseverance and Joy – that represent the values and culture that have made Indiana swimming and diving a national force for more than half a century, and that continue to propel its men's and women's programs to impressive success.

The latest examples come with the recent Big Ten team titles for both programs – the women winning in thrilling fashion, the men dominating as they so often do.

Could it deliver national team championships in the upcoming days?

Let's take a step back.

IU once ruled college swimming, winning six straight men's national titles from 1968 to 1973, with the '71 team, led by superstar Mark Spitz, so good, a Sports Illustrated writer suggested it might have been the best college team ever in any sport.

The 21st Century Hoosier men have finished in the top 10 in seven straight NCAA meets, including a pair of third places. Last season, they took fourth behind standouts such as swimmers Brendan Burns and Tomer Frankel, and divers Carson Tyler and Andrew Capobianco.

As for this season…

Hold that thought.

The women haven't won a national title – their best finish is seventh – but they've had their own historical superstar in Olympic gold medalist Lilly King. This season they have All-Americans in swimmers Anna Peplowski, Ching Hwee Gan and Mariah Denigan, and diver Anne Fowler, plus Big Ten Diver of the Championships Skyler Liu.

After the remarkable resiliency they showed in claiming last month's conference championship, doubt them at your own risk.

Hold that thought, as well.

Ray Looze doesn't doubt. IU's head swimming coach for both programs has seen improbable become reality. He's steeled by twice serving as U.S. Olympic swim team assistant coach (2016 and '20). Head diving coach Drew Johansen has his own Olympic experience as the head coach of the U.S. squad each of the last three cycles.

Here is Looze in his SRSC Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center office. Practice is minutes away as he brings out the value chart – a new addition to the coaching arsenal – that reflects why the Hoosiers have sustained success for so long. It comes back to those identifying words – Growth, Courage, Soul, Joy and Perseverance.

"When we recruit, when we coach, when we deal with tough situations, we fall back to that," Looze says. "There's always a path forward. It's a way to adjudicate whatever life throws in your way, positive or negative."

IU wins with elite athletes, elite coaching and elite development, combined with those intangibles that make it work.

"It's a huge thing we utilize in the day-to-day grind of our training," says Burns, who has NCAA titles in the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard butterfly on his resume. "All those core values are at the heart of everything we do. It's something we've tried to emphasize going into this Olympic year. It's what we're founded on."

Peplowski vouches for the benefits.

"We fall back on them when we're going through hard times. I love them."

Recruiting reality sometimes finds the Hoosiers missing out on many of the best recruits (the lure of southern programs is so strong, Looze jokes that IU is considered a "frozen tundra place" even though climate change now makes it "like the top of the South"), but they still get good ones, tough ones, athletes who thrive under the brightest spotlights.

"We do wonderful growth and player development," Looze says. "We have the values in spades over everyone else. We've started that in the recruitment process, and we hammer away at it every day in our developmental process.

"It's not just about making them better swimmers and divers but teaching them how to go about life."

He pauses.

"Here is the secret."

He points to the chart.

"You have something like this. We fall back on it time and again. We never had it organized like this so we can refer to it all the time. Every coach has one in their office."

IU has 14 scholarships for its 30 women swimmers and divers. It has 9.5 scholarships for its 40 men.

Unlike football and basketball, swimming scholarships can be divided up. One person might get a full ride, another half a scholarship, and so on. In so many ways, it's like a salary cap in pro sports.

"It goes further than that," Looze says. "It's like we're constantly clearing cap space. Nobody loses anything, but we keep moving the money around. It's like mortgaging the family farm every year, but the bank hasn't taken it yet."

Moving brings urgency as Looze and Johansen balance present needs with future prospects.

"In this day and age, you want to be good now," Looze says. "You see that in all sports."

What can you see with these Hoosiers?

Let's take a look.

*****

It wasn't a miracle, but it might have been karma.

Ohio State, winners of four straight Big Ten women's swimming and diving team titles, and a huge favorite to make it five, cheered over the Hoosiers' 400-yard medley relay disqualification in last month's Big Ten meet.

It seemed to set up the Buckeyes for another conference championship. Instead, it motivated the Hoosiers to win their first since 2019, and if it came by just half a point, 1,359 to 1,358.5, making it the closest finish in Big Ten women's championship history, let others dwell on point differential.

The Hoosiers were too busy celebrating.

"It was a one of a kind," Looze says. "We run a lot of simulators ahead of time to see if we can win a meet. We ran it many times before the Big Ten. We lose to Ohio State every time by 100 points. Every time. There wasn't a simulator out there that had us winning."

This time, spirit beat simulation. Hoosier heroines were everywhere.

Consider freshman MacKenna Lieske, who needed to win a 200-yard breaststroke morning swim-off to reach the C final, which she did, and wound up earning nine crucial points by finishing 17th.

The behind-the-scenes key – after placing 24th in the prelims, Lieske was so discouraged, she didn't want to do the swim-off.

Enter Looze the psychologist.

"She was crying," he says. "She said, 'I don't want to do another one.' The girls talked to her. I talked to her.

"I told her, 'I guarantee you will beat this girl. I guarantee she's tired and doesn't want to do it. We're better trained. I am positive you will win.'

"She does. She gets a time that would win the C final. She goes from no points to getting nine, and we needed every one of them."

Consider Liu, who had won the 3-meter title the previous day with a personal-best 379.95 score and needed more – a title in the platform final.

Needing a big score on her last attempt, she dared it all on a high-risk dive – a three-and-a-half somersault into a pike position from a handstand starting 33 feet above the water, all under white-knuckle pressure.

"She's doing a handstand on the last dive," Loose says. "No one does that. Just the handstand makes you sweat, makes your hands get clammy. Your back's to the water. It's the highest degree of difficulty. She chooses that. She needed all of that, nails it and wins by four-tenths of a point."

As Johansen, who has experienced the highest drama on an international stage, told the Bloomington Herald-Times, "I've never been part of something as exciting as that championship."

Consider Gan and Brearna Crawford, who also won last-day titles, or Peplowski, Fowler and swimmer Anna Freed earning crucial points.

"It kept happening," Looze says. "I told my assistant coaches 'I just want to have a shot on the last relay.'"

IU got that shot in the meet's final event – the 400-yard freestyle relay. The three favorites were IU, Michigan and Ohio State. For Indiana and Ohio State, it was winner take team-title all.

Michigan won the relay, with the Hoosiers and Buckeyes battling for second. Ohio State used its three strongest swimmers in the first three legs to build a big lead. Its best swimmer, Amy Fuller, went third.

After starting with Peplowski, then veterans Ashley Turak and Ella Ristic, IU ended with Kristina Paegle, a junior relay world record-setter.

"We were way behind going into the last leg," Looze says. "They put all their chips in the first three legs. They used their stud on the third hole. We were down by 1.5 seconds, which is usually too much, but we had Paegle going."

Paegle's blazing 46.65-second anchor delivered the title-clinching second-place finish in a program record 3:11.37.

"As it's happening, I'm thinking, I can't believe I'm watching this," Looze says. "Things never work out like this. We had to make up 52 points in a final session. I've never seen that. I've never heard of it. I didn't think it was possible.

"They did it. I still can't believe it."

*****

The women get their shot at the national meet starting Wednesday at the University of Georgia. The men follow the next week in Indianapolis.

Nothing is guaranteed. Everything will be earned. Looze is confident in the Hoosiers' training and willingness to find fun amid pressure.

"I coach my ass off in practice. I'm a preparation guy because when it gets to the big meet, I want to keep it simple. We'll keep it simple. We'll let them be kids and have a good time. That takes pressure off of obvious situations where there are bright lights. We'll continue to do that – have a loose, nothing-to-lose type of attitude."

The Hoosiers are all in.

"All season, we've worked super hard," Peplowski says. "We got a good glimpse of what we can do at Big Tens. We have to keep our foot on the gas.

"Our team is set up to do well. How the Big Ten worked out was awesome. I don't think any of us were expecting that. I think the NCAA will be a good meet. We'll surprise ourselves."

For the women, Virginia looms as the team title favorites, with Texas and Florida behind them. Looze thinks the Hoosiers can have their best-ever NCAA finish after placing seventh a year ago and tying the program's best-ever result.

"We want to be sixth or higher."

For the men, Arizona State and Cal project to top the scoring.

"Realistically, it will be tough to beat the top two teams," Looze says. "We could be anywhere from third to sixth. We want to push that as high as possible."

IU's last national men's title came in 1973. It finished second in 1974 by a point and again in 1975. Since then, programs such as Florida, Texas, Stanford and California have dominated.

The only northern team to have broken through that South and West Coast dominance since 1973 is Michigan, which won titles in 1995 and 2013.

"If we keep finishing in the top four, eventually we're going to win one of these things," Looze says. "If you're hovering around that group, you are who you hang out with, and eventually you bust through. That's my theory. That's where we want to live.

"Maybe things break our way, like they did for our women."

For now, Looze adds, "Our two teams are very well prepared. Very fit. Very strong. We haven't played all our cards yet. We have a few more up our sleeves. We should be at our peak."

You don't need a chart to tell you that.