THREE THINGS WE LEARNED THIS WEEK
1 - International stage treats IU men's and women's swimming and diving programs well.
Sophomore Gabriel Fantoni, who competes in the backstroke, took fifth place in the Championship Final of the men's 50 backstroke with a time of 25.12 at the World University games in Napoli, Italy.
Alum Kennedy Goss also registered a fifth-place finish, but in the women's 100 backstroke with a time of 1:00.87. She also swam the third leg of the 4x200 freestyle relay for Team Canada (8:07.22), helping her squad finish fifth overall with a split of 2:00.44.
Alum Zach Apple earned the No. 2 seed for Monday's Championship Final of the 100 freestyle, recording a time of 25.12 in Sunday's semifinals. This came after Apple helped Team USA win gold in the 4x100 freestyle relay earlier in the week.
2 - Indiana volleyball also went global last week thanks to assistant coach Krista Vansant being on the Collegiate National Team's coaching staff for its Japan Tour.
The 12-player squad was comprised of athletes from all across the United States and toured Japan May 19-30. Vansant was one of two assistant coaches selected to join BYU head coach Heather Olmstead for the trip.
Last week, Vansant published a first-person account of her trip last week, which can be read here.
3 - IU women's tennis goes to Serbia for its second signee in 2019.
Mila Mejic signed last week and intends to study economics at Indiana. Her current Universal Tennis Rating is 10.58, with a career-high of 11.09.
"UTR Powered by Oracle is a global rating system that promotes fair and competitive play across the tennis world," according to its website. "All players, regardless of age, gender, geography or skill level, are rated on a same scale between 1.00 and 16.50 based on actual match results."
TWO QUESTIONS
1 - Will Ali Patberg choose to use her sixth and final season of eligibility?
The redshirt junior point guard was granted a rare sixth season of eligibility by the NCAA late last week, meaning she can play through the 2020-21 season if she so chooses.
2 - Are there any surprises in store for IU Athletics' contributions to the school's bicentennial celebration?
An extensive and presumably exhaustive list was released last week, but who knows what could be under wraps. After all, it wasn't known that Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller were prominent benefactors of the new team area for the men's basketball program until Hoosier Hysteria last year.
ONE PREDICTION: Jeremiah Gutjahr is going to be fun to watch in his rookie season with MLS' Chicago Fire.
Gutjahr told the Chicago Sun-Times he wears 33 in in honor of his former roommate Cody Jewett's father Scott, who died of colon colon cancer at age 55 in January 2018.
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