The No. 11-ranked Wisconsin men’s swim team (8-2, 4-1) heads to West Lafeyette, Indiana this Wednesday for the Big Ten championships, where the Badgers look to improve upon last year’s fifth place finish.

Wisconsin remains one of Big Ten’s top teams, ahead of No. 23-ranked Indiana and No. 18-ranked Northwestern. The team follows only No. 10-ranked Michigan, last year’s champion, and No. 7-ranked Minnesota, last year’s runner-up, in the most recent polls. The team intensity continues to grow as they use the last event of the season to prepare for upcoming spring nationals.

This year’s 50-yard freestyle promises to be especially close, with six swimmers having their best times of the year within four-tenths of a second of each other. Last year’s winner, Minnesota’s Terry Silkaitis, returns to defend his title against a trio of tough Badgers, including junior Adam Mania, senior captain Dale Rogers and senior captain Matt Marshall.

The Badger squad will look to its relay teams for the high scores, returning a winning 400-yard freestyle relay team of Mania, Marshall, Rogers and junior Eric Wiesner. The team will look to defend the only Wisconsin title at last year’s championships.

The Badgers currently hold the Big Ten’s top times of the year in the 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle and individual medley relays, and the second-best time in the 800-yard freestyle relay. With the double-point production gained in the relay races, the Badgers must remain as dominant as they have been all year, especially with the continued dominance of teams like Minnesota.

The Golden Gophers received a boost this year on their relay teams with the emergence of freshmen Daniel Berve and Ales Volcansek. The two have become standouts on the Minnesota relay teams that lost key senior members last year in Allen Ong, Matt Taylor, Todd Smolinski and Jeff Hackler.

In the individual medley, Badger swimmers Mania, who swims the 200-yard, and junior Tim Liebold, who swims the 200-yard and 400-yard, will face a pair of tough Michigan Wolverines in junior Chuck Sayao and sophomore Peter Vanderkaay. Sayao won last year’s 400-yard race and currently owns the second-fastest time in the Big Ten, behind Vanderkaay.

Despite not participating in the individual medley at last year’s championships (Vanderkaay’s win came in the 500-yard freestyle), he enters the championships as one of the favorites in both events. His sophomore campaign has already garnered him four Big Ten Swimmer of the Week awards.

Youth is a recurring theme in this year’s championships, with teams relying heavily on young swimmers for immediate impact. Northwestern, leading the trend, sports a pair of steady freshman swimmers in Matt Grevers and Mike Alexandrov.

The multi-talented Grevers sports Big Ten top-five times in the 50-yard, 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard and 200-yard back-stroke and 100-yard butterfly. Combined with his two Big Ten Swimmer of the Week awards and a National Swimmer of the Week award, he possesses a strong case for Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors.

Alexandrov, much like his teammate, took the conference by storm this year. He currently owns the conference’s best time in the 200-yard breaststroke, and holds a top five position in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard and 400-yard individual medley. His contribution on various relay teams also allows Northwestern to lay claim to the top five conference relay teams.

With the continued improvement of the team, and their dominance in the relay events, the Badgers stand poised for their first ever Big Ten championship. But more importantly, they gain the ability to send off a core group of seniors that have been integral in the continued improvement of the sport, with the biggest conference victory in the history of Badger swimming.