At this point, SEC championships have become routine for the Gators men’s swimming and diving team.
Winners of four straight titles, the Gators are one of the favorites heading into the conference championships, which begins Tuesday in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Ahead of the five-day meet, the men’s team has won four straight dual meets, including three against conference opponents Texas A&M, Auburn and Tennessee.
After its win against Tennessee last week, the Gators men’s team moved up four spots in the polls to No. 6. And two of its swimmers — Chandler Bray and Caeleb Dressel — won SEC honors, the conference announced on Jan. 31.
Because of its recent and repeated success in the SEC, the UF men’s team’s confidence level is continuously high, while the women’s team — losers of two conference meets in a row — works to take steps in the right direction.
“Maybe the best thing about the women’s team is that we got a lot of improvement we can still make,” coach Gregg Troy said. “And we can evaluate some of those things to get better.”
The women’s team, which has 14 freshmen, has endured growing pains throughout the season. But Troy remains optimistic.
“We’re learning a lot by making our mistakes,” Troy said. “But we’re not making the same ones. I think that bodes well for our future.”
A high number of freshmen is one thing the men’s and women’s teams have in common. However, the men’s team — which has 13 true freshmen — has a slightly different problem: It has too much depth.
Heading into the SEC Championships, Troy has a lot of decisions to make on the men’s roster.
“We can only take 19 swimmers to the meet,” Troy said. “We have seven or eight other guys that could easily be our 12th guy.”
Unlike the men’s team, the women’s team has struggled against its conference opponents this year. Its sole victory — a 188-112 win against Arkansas — has become a distant memory, having occurred more than three months ago.
The women’s team’s latest defeat came against conference rival Tennessee 151-149 in the Gators’ only home dual meet of the season on Jan. 28. However, the women’s team swam well and moved up a spot to No. 19 in the final regular-season edition of the CSCAA/TYR Top-25 swimming and diving rankings.
After its defeat, Troy said the women’s team was “certainly not going to be the favorite at the conference meet.”
The difference between the men’s and women’s teams may be obvious But despite both teams trending in opposite directions, both are hoping to have the same amount of success at the SEC Championships.
Contact Sean Denison at sdenison@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @seandenison.
UF coach Gregg Troy encourages his swimmers during Florida’s meet against Auburn on Jan. 23, 2016, in the O’Connell Center.
