The 2024 Texas Invite noticed plenty of drops, and even a couple of American information. One of many greatest group large drops was seen within the males’s 200 butterfly group with 9 of 10 athletes dropping time, some for the primary time in additional than a yr. The largest change this specific group has seen this season? Bob Bowman’s coaching.
Bob Bowman took over the Texas head coach place from Eddie Reese this season, and he has been the first coach behind 4 of the final six 200m butterfly Olympic Gold medalists. Three of these medals got here from Michael Phelps (2004, 2008, 2016), and one got here from former ASU swimmer and 2024 NCAA champion Leon Marchand (2024).
Ten Texas males swam the 200 fly at this yr’s Texas Invite. 9 of them noticed new finest instances.
Logan Walker, a sophomore, had the biggest drop coming in at simply over 4 seconds quicker than his pre-season finest time. He swam the occasion at Texas final yr, going his finest time finally yr’s Invite, and including time to go 1:45.77 finally yr’s Huge 12s. He went 1:41.70 on the Texas vs IU meet a few month previous to the Texas Invite, dropping the primary 3.3 seconds of his complete 4 second drop to date below Bowman.
Walker isn’t any stranger to huge time drops over a season. His Junior yr of highschool, he went from 1:51.76 to 1:48.39 in lower than a month from October 15 to November sixth of 2021. He ended that season at his pre-college better of 1:46.51 in March. He solely swam one 200 butterfly his senior yr of highschool, in September of 2022, and went 1:49.64.
Ryan Branon, Holden Smith, each juniors, and George Flanders, a sophomore, additionally all dropped over a second from their earlier bests, and all three swam the occasion in faculty final season, although Smith’s finest time got here from his pre-college days.
Texas additionally had a trio of freshmen within the occasion who dropped. Cooper Lucas, Landon D’Ariano, and Luke Stibrich dropped 7 tenths, 3 tenths, and 4 tenths respectively of their first ever faculty midseason meet.
The one outlier within the knowledge was junior Spencer Aurnou-Rhees. Aurnou-Rhees had an excellent freshman season again in 2022-2023, and swam the occasion on the 2023 Huge 12 Championships, going his present finest time of 1:46.86. He didn’t swim the occasion a single time final season, opting to swim the 100 free on the ultimate day of the Texas Invite as an alternative.
