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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue men's swimming and diving begins the championship portion of its season this week, traveling to Iowa City for the four-day, seven-session Big Ten Conference Championships beginning Wednesday evening.
Action at Iowa's Campus Recreation and Wellness Center begins Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. ET with the 200 medley and 800 free relays. Preliminary rounds are set for the afternoon sessions and begin at noon ET. Relays are contested, Big Ten Champions determined and team points earned in the evening finals, which begin nightly at 7:30 p.m.
The Big Ten Network will televise highlights of the Saturday evening session Sunday, March 1 at 11:30 a.m. ET. BTN Plus on BTN2Go will also be offering live pay-per-view coverage of finals sessions Wednesday through Friday evening. Free live video of all the prelims will be available via Hawkeye All-Access on HawkeyeSports.com.
The Big Ten is always one of the top swimming and diving conferences in the country and this season is no exception. Still a 10-team field for men's swimming and diving, this year's conference championship meet will feature seven teams ranked among the CSCAA Top 25 -- No. 5 Michigan, No. 8 Ohio State, No. 9 Indiana, No. 19 Wisconsin, No. 21 Iowa, No. 22 Minnesota and No. 24 Penn State. Purdue was ranked among the Top 25 earlier this season and receiving votes in the Feb. 5 poll, but not listed in the poll that came out this week. The Boilermakers went head-to-head against Indiana and Minnesota as well as Michigan State and Northwestern in dual meet action this season. The divers also competed against Ohio State.
Stephen Seliskar, Lyam Dias & Dan Ross Preview Big Tens
Michigan is the four-time defending Big Ten champion, capitalizing on the opportunity to host the meet last year. Since finishing a program-best fourth in both 2009 and 2010, the Boilermakers' top finish has been fifth in 2011 and 2013. Purdue finished only 20 points behind fifth-place Penn State last season. The Boilers could have realistically finished fifth a year ago had they not been disqualified in the 800 free relay Wednesday evening due to a quirky rule involving an oversized logo on one of the swimmer's suits.
Purdue is up next to host the Big Ten Championships, tentatively set for Feb. 24-27, 2016. The Boilermaker Aquatic Center would have hosted Big Tens this year, but Iowa was selected to host the NCAA Championships next month. When a Big Ten aquatic center is selected to host NCAAs, it automatically gets moved up in the rotation to host the Big Ten Championships in the same season. The Boilermaker Aquatic last hosted the Men's Big Ten Championships in 2009.
Iowa also hosted the Big Ten Championships in 2012 when the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center was still a new first-year venue. Purdue's seniors competed in their first Big Tens in Iowa City that year.
The Boilermakers will be in search of their first Big Ten title since David Boudia swept the diving events in 2011. Andrew Langenfeld, who won the 50 freestyle in 2009, is Purdue's most recent champion in a swimming event. Jamie Bissett, Lyam Dias and Nate Cox all had at least one runner-up finish in a championship final last. They're all back for their senior seasons and, along with Steele Johnson and Guillermo Blanco, are the Boilers' most likely candidates to win a conference title this year.
Since winning on 10-meter platform at the USA Diving Winter Nationals the weekend before Christmas, Johnson has won five of the six diving events over the last two months. Bissett recently had first- and second-place finishes in the springboard diving events at the Canadian Nationals earlier three weeks ago.
Dating back to 2009, Purdue has had 22 record-breaking performances (not including freshman records) at the Big Ten Championships. Current Boilermakers Lyam Dias (100 and 200 breast) and Filip Bujoczek (500 free) both set new records at the 2014 Big Ten Championships. Austin Flager and Bujoczek were also part of the record-setting 400 free relay team. As freshmen in 2012, Guillermo Blanco (100 back and 400 IM), Jan Karel Petric (500 free) and Dias (200 breast) established new freshman benchmarks at Big Tens in Iowa City.
Bissett enters his final Big Tens as Purdue's active career individual scoring leader at the conference championship meet. He was the Boilers' leading scorer with 34 points each of the last two years and has a career total of 95. Dias has also scored 20-plus points every year and ranks second with 76 career points.
Blanco scored in three individual events (200 and 400 IM, 200 fly) last season. Bissett and Cox did likewise in all three diving events two years ago and Alec Back accomplished the feat in 2012.
The freestyle relays have been among Purdue's strengths in recent seasons, but this year the program's medley relays could be eclipsed for the first time since 2009. Stephen Seliskar, Dias and Flager were all part of the of the medley relay teams last year that posted top three times in the record book. This season, Blanco is likely to handle the butterfly duties as Flager takes over as the freestyle anchor on the 200 medley relay. Josh Ehrman should anchor the 400 team.
Marat Amaltdinov and Johnson have been Purdue's top freshman performers this season. Amaltdinov broke the freshman record in the 200 breaststroke while posting the team's top time of the season in the event at the Arena/Minnesota Grand Prix in November. He ranks second to only Dias in program history. Johnson's six Big Ten Diver of the Week awards were the most in the conference this season. He already ranks among the top three in program history in all three diving events.
Blanco (13) and Johnson (12) led the team in individual event victories this season. Seliskar was part of a team-high eight relay winners.
While selected Purdue swimmers and relay teams will essentially clinch berths at the NCAA Championships this week, the divers will have to earn their spots at the national championship meet next month by qualifying at the NCAA Zone Championships. The Boilermakers will compete in the Zone C meet the weekend of March 12-14 in Columbus. The divers have already competed at Ohio State's McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion three times this season.
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