Women's team swims at Purdue, men travel to Tennessee

With a win against Michigan in their rear view mirrors, the IU men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams look to continue rolling Saturday. The men travel to Knoxville, Tenn., to take on Tennessee and Georgia, while the women head to West Lafayette to swim against Purdue.

Though IU and Purdue are rivals on the football field and basketball court, coach Ray Looze said he tries to keep emotions consistent from meet to meet.

“We don’t put any more emphasis on any one program than another,” Looze said. “We don’t really have a Purdue rivalry. We have a ‘we want to beat everybody’ rivalry.”

The men will face Tennessee and Georgia, who are ranked No. 10 and No. 11, respectively. Now that most teams have begun to rest up for the upcoming NCAA championships, freshman Cody Miller said all swimmers react differently to the resting period of training.

“Some guys will be swimming faster, quicker into their taper, and other guys take a little bit longer in their taper,” Miller said.

Since the men’s meet against Purdue takes place during Diving Winter Nationals, a large amount of the men’s team will travel to Purdue with the women competing early. The points will be added to the swimmers’ scores when the men swim against Purdue on Feb. 6.

Sophomore Mick Dell’Orco said he believes that the change will not adversely affect the divers.

“It’s just a matter of what we need personally to succeed as a team at Winter Nationals,” Dell’Orco said. “We’re all on the same page on that one.”