Wisconsin Men Sign Two Important Pieces, YMCA National Champion

When new Wisconsin women’s coach Whitney Hite moved north from Arizona, he knew he had his work cut out for him. On both the men’s and women’s teams, he had a few very good pieces, but lacked the depth that he was used to in Tucson. Since coming to town, he has had to find himself a diving coach, which he did in Anton Slobounov. Slobounov is very young – he was a 2007 graduate from UC Irvine – but already has some great experience from four years as an assistant at a solid Maryland diving program.

Next, he knew he needed to hit the recruiting, and do so hard. The programs both carry very small rosters, which played out in the mens team’s first-ever lost to Wisconsin-Milwaukee last week, despite a four-win, Big Ten Swimmer of the Week winner, Daniel Lester. That program especially needs numbers as much as anything – they only have 18 swimmers on the roster, which is barely enough to fill out their maximum allotment at Big Ten’s.  

He’s hit that early and often this year, and has already earned verbals from two freshmen. The biggest coup of them all was John Bushman, who collegeswimming.com ranks as the #20 recruit in the country.

The reason why Bushman was so important (as compared to if Hite had signed the #19, or #21, recruits in the country) is that he’s an in-state swimmer, and the best in the class out of the state of Wisconsin. If he’s going to put together a winner, when swimmers like Bushman come around from home-grown sources, Hite has to jump on them.

Bushman, who is home schooled, is primarily a breaststroker, with bests of 56.89 and 2:00.77, the latter of which earned him a 4th-place finish at YMCA Nationals last year. He is also a very good IM’er (1:51.10/3:52.08), and was the YMCA National Champion in the 400 IM last year.

As a freshman, Bushman should be able to place at least in a B-final at Big Tens in both the 200 breaststroke and 400 IM, which is something that only now-departed Sam Rowan was able to do for the Badgers last year. With continued development, an A-final (especially in the 400 IM) is also a possibility.

The other verbal came from Josh Anderson out of Round Rock, Texas and the Nitro Swimming program. Anderson doesn’t come in with the same lofty rankings as Bushman does, but he does have Winter Nationals cuts in both the 1000 (9:22.42) and 1650 (15:33.29) freestyles, and distance freestylers is something that the Badgers need in the worst way.

Anderson has shown that he is very good at a huge range of events, including the 200 fly (1:51.61). I think with a little bit of focus in Wisconsin, he has the potential to become an NCAA scorer in the distance freestyles and the 400 IM at some point in his college career. In the short-term, he will quickly become the Badgers’ best miler after he arrives on campus next fall.