IU looks to defend Big Ten title

Last year, IU junior swimmer Ben Hesen helped lead the men's swimming and diving team to its first Big Ten title in 21 years. While he believes that experience will help the team at this year's conference tournament, he said he expects that the upperclassmen will find this meet similar to last year's.\n"My freshman year we were really in a shootout and we ended up losing by three points," Hesen said. "With so many good teams in the Big Ten this year, I expect it to be another shootout. It's good that the upperclassmen have been in a meet like that. We're going to need to battle for everything. Every point will be huge."\nThe Big Ten championships will be held Feb. 15-17 at McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio. \nThe conference's field will be extremely competitive, with six teams ranked in the top 25 and five in the top 15. Despite the rankings, IU coach Ray Looze said he believes one team is the clear favorite. \n"Minnesota should be considered the favorite, hands down," Looze said. "They have 20 guys seeded into the top 16. We're a bit of an unknown, so there's a huge gap that we have to close."\nLooze said he expects IU will trail after the first day of competition, so he has prepared the team to swim from behind.\n"It's a three-day meet, so we have to be prepared to swim from behind," he said. "We've been in those situations before. We have to keep our poise and keep chopping wood. We can't be scoreboard watching, we just have to take care of business."\nHesen said he remembers the Purdue meet, when the Hoosiers suffered disqualifications and fell behind early. \n"Against Purdue, we were down 13 points basically right away," Hesen said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't come back. The Big Ten (tournament) is a three-day format and the first day isn't our strongest. So, we can't give up until the end. We have to keep swimming hard."\nOn the diving side, depth should play an important factor for the Hoosiers. All-American junior Taylor Roberts has been dominant all year, but several other IU divers are beginning to step up as well. \n"(Junior) David Legler, (freshman) David Piercy and (sophomore) Will Bohonyi are starting to give us some nice balance," diving coach Jeff Huber said. "They are really working hard and are doing a lot of nice things. That should help us coming into this meet"