Heading into the last day of the SEC Tournament, the Alabama men’s swimming team sat in sixth place, a decent position for the team that finished 10th last year, but short of the team’s goals for the year. By the end of the day, behind several record-breaking performances, the team had surged into fourth place – its best finish since 1995.

“The men’s team’s goal was a top-5 finish at SECs,” junior Phillip Deaton said. “But to go and get fourth place and just all the breakout swims we had from all of the guys on the team stepping up definitely surprised everyone.”

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By the end of the weekend, 17 team records had been broken, including an SEC-record 200 breaststroke by freshman Anton McKee. McKee, who is relatively inexperienced in the event, said he never expected to be setting conference records so early in his career.

“I started swimming breaststroke the year before I came here, but I didn’t really train it,” McKee said. “I knew I had some potential, but with those times, I didn’t expect anything until senior year … I exceeded all of my goals.”

Freshman Connor Oslin, who set two records in the 100 and 200 backstroke, also said the team’s performance was unexpected.

“I don’t think I pictured us doing as well as we did,” Oslin said. “I thought we were gonna do well, but it was really surprising to see everyone go that fast and get all those records … I thought I’d get the 100, but the 200 really surprised me.”

Deaton, the men’s team captain, agreed that the record-breaking pace of the team was surprising. Deaton said the resurgence of the Crimson Tide can be attributed to the team-first philosophy brought in by second-year coach Dennis Pursley.

“Probably the biggest surprise is not that we broke the records, but how much we broke them by,” Deaton said. “For me, I was here before the new staff got here, so when the new staff came in and started doing new things, and the culture change that the new staff tried to implement, and having everyone buy into the new things and having everyone buy in, that’s where the results are coming from.”

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The women’s team had a similar resurgence, with the women climbing from 10th place last year to eighth place this year.

The athletes from both teams and coaches took to Twitter to declare #BAMAISBACK. Freshman Bridget Blood, who set a school record in the 100 breaststroke only to have it broken a heat later, said she appreciated being part of the comeback.

“It’s exciting to know that what you’re doing now is not just for you, but for more people that come after you,” Blood said. “Knowing that having the same goals as my teammates is paving the way for tons of people to come is really inspiring.”

In the meantime, the team isn’t resting. National Championships start March 20, and the swimmers who qualified will be preparing, with the men looking to place in the top 10.

“We can be happy with what we did with SECs,” Oslin said. “But we still have one more job to do this season.”

(See also “Crimson Tide blows out LSU 78-60“)