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Credit: Arizona Athletics
The offseason is here for most Arizona sports, the 2025-26 season in the books and the 2026-27 seasons still a few months away.
What better time than now to press pause and check the pulse of each Wildcat program?
Over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at each of the UA’s men’s and women’s athletic programs to see what shape they’re in, as well as the prospects for the near future. We’ll break down each team and evaluate how it has performed under the current coaching staff, comparing it to how it looked beforehand, and assess how it fits into the Big 12 Conference.
Next up: swimming and diving under Ben Loorz
How it looked before
Loorz was hired two years ago to take over a program that had fallen on tough times. Arizona was one of the top swimming destinations under longtime coach Frank Busch but slipped under Rick DeMont and Augie Busch. Arizona athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois had previous experience working with Loorz at UNLV, where he led the Rebels to multiple conference championships. In 2025, Loorz’s first season, the Arizona men and women each finished runner-up at Big 12 Championships. Six men swimmers were named Honorable All-Americans at NCAA Championships.
Where things stand now
Loorz’s second season as head coach saw swimming and diving make marked progress. Loorz earned Big 12 Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year honors, and Dwight Dumais was named Big 12 Men’s Diving Coach of the Year. Diver Luke Hernandez was named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year. Arizona posted competitive results in the pool: The women took down Texas A&M and nearly defeated ASU, and the men defeated Texas A&M and USC (who both finished in the top 25). Arizona produced All-American honorees on both the men’s and women’s sides.
Taking Stock 2026
The offseason provides a great opportunity to evaluate each of Arizona’s athletic programs under its current leadership. Check back each day for another sport breakdown.
Tuesday, June 16: Men’s and women’s track and field
Sunday, May 31: Football
Monday, June 1: Volleyball
Tuesday, June 2: Soccer
Wednesday, June 3: Triathlon
Thursday, June 4: Cross country
Friday, June 5: Men’s and women’s swimming
Saturday, June 6: Women’s basketball
Sunday, June 7: Men’s basketball
Monday, June 8: Gymnastics
Tuesday, June 9: Beach volleyball
Wednesday, June 10: Women’s golf
Thursday, June 11: Women’s tennis
Friday, June 12: Men’s tennis
Saturday, June 13: Baseball
Sunday, June 14: Softball
Monday, June 15: Men’s golf
Life in the Big 12
Arizona is comfortably the second-best program in the Big 12 behind rival ASU, which repeated as conference champions. The Sun Devils emerged as one of the sport’s top programs under former coach Bob Bowman and have nearly maintained that success under Herbie Behm. Arizona isn’t going to catch up to ASU anytime soon, but the women pushing the Sun Devils to the brink last season in head-to-head competition showed the gap might be narrowing. The Big 12 lacks a formidable depth like what Arizona faced in the Pac-12. ASU was the only other Big 12 men’s program to be ranked, and the only school with a ranked women’s program.
One big question
What is Arizona’s ceiling under Loorz? As a non-revenue sport, swimming and diving isn’t going to benefit from the name, image and likeness era. Additionally, Loorz doesn’t have the cache as some of the sport’s elite recruiters. Loorz and his staff have to grind hard to land the types of swimmers that could elevate Arizona into a top program. While Loorz has demonstrated progress in his first two seasons, Arizona is far off from competing for national titles. Year 3 will go a long ways in showing just how big the gap is between and the programs it aspires to compete against.
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