It didn’t take long for the Texas Longhorns men’s swimming and diving team to make another leap.
After Texas’ two wins over current No. 22 LSU and No. 3 Indiana, it became the No. 1 team in the November release of the Men’s Swimming and Diving rankings after being the No. 3 team in the preseason.
The team continued its brilliance over the rest of the month with its dominant showing at both the Texas Diving Invitational, namely over present No. 8 Stanford and No. 23 Texas A&M, and the Texas Invitational, over the same Stanford, No. 14 Wisconsin and No. 20 USC.
A large part of this year’s success can be attributed to the new makeup of the roster. The main storyline surrounding the Longhorns at the beginning of this season was the hire of legendary coach Bob Bowman this past April, but the transfers have also been making a huge impact from the get-go.
Junior Arizona State transfer and Olympic gold medalist Hubert Kós was the headlining transfer and has been extremely impressive in his first two meets as a Longhorn, winning all his individual events in both dual meets. However, Stanford transfer and sophomore Rex Maurer has truly made a name for himself as well, becoming one of the top distance swimmers in the SEC.
After both the Indiana and Texas Invitational meets, Maurer won the SEC Swimmer of the Week award, sharing it with Texas freshman Cooper Lucas after the latter competition. In the Texas Invitational, he swam his 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:04.45, breaking the American record by over a second.
The rest of the team has also stepped up to the plate with stellar performances over the rest of the field. Sophomore Will Modglin broke the school 100-yard backstroke record twice in the Texas Invitational and now holds the program’s top four times in the event, and in the LSU meet, nine Texas swimmers set LSU pool records among other feats.
Additional weekly awards this season included junior diver Nick Harris, who claimed the SEC Diver of the Week title after Texas defeated LSU, and Landon D’Ariano, who claimed SEC Freshman of the Week after Texas defeated Indiana.
Texas reclaims the top spot in the nation for the first time since 2022 when it went into the NCAA Championships ranked No. 1 before finishing as national runner-up to California. The Longhorns will look to defend this spot in December as the divers will compete in the USA Diving Winter Nationals before the final dual meet of the calendar year against No. 7 Georgia.
