Illinois swimming and diving’s elite are in Austin, Texas, to compete against Big Ten foes Indiana and Michigan State and the nation’s best swimmers.

Thursday’s races mark the start of the three-day 2012 AT&T Winter National Championships. Unlike other meets, swimmers were required to reach a time standard in their event by Nov. 20 to qualify for entry into the national meet.

Juniors Jessica Holz (100 and 200 back) and Courtney Pope (50 and 100 free) each qualified for two events, along with freshman Sarah Sykstus in the 100 fly and the 200 IM. Other qualifiers include senior Erin Rodriguez in the 200 fly, sophomore Alison Meng in the 100 back and freshmen Lori Lynn, Isabella Schamber and Hollie Smith in the 100 fly, 200 breast and 100 breast, respectively.

“It is an opportunity to work on the best morning prelim swims that we can, kind of modeling what Big Tens are going to be like against real tough competition,” assistant head coach Steve Farnau said.

Changing from the typical dual meets, head coach Sue Novitsky has elected to not travel with the team and stay behind to train the other swimmers. Farnau said that it’s not unusual for Novitsky to stay with the majority of the team, and he has traveled with the smaller group in the past.

“I think it’s just kind of what we feel works best for the team this week,” Farnau said.

Pope, who traveled to nationals last year, said she knows what to expect going into this year’s competition, and the focus has been about her being more on top of her swimming.

“It’s a fun trip and a small group of us, so you get to know each other a little closer, but you have to remember that you’re there for swimming,” Pope said.

Pope added that she looked at the psych sheet — a meet lineup with each swimmer’s previous bests — earlier this week and was excited to find that Michigan State was seeded around the same spot as Illinois. She said it’s fun to compete against Big Ten rivals and see how everyone matches up.

Illinois lost its first road meet of the season to Illinois State as well as falling to Northwestern in the last week’s invitational in Evanston, Ill. Heading into those meets, Novitsky said the coaches were concerned about the underclassmen potentially losing their comfort from swimming in another team’s pool.

Now, Illinois’ freshmen are traveling out of state for the first time in their collegiate careers, but Farnau said other freshmen from competing schools will also be in a similar situation.

“They understand what’s going on when it comes to travel,” Farnau said. “Certainly, we’re flying, and it’s a long day of travel, and we’re going to have to be ready to go the next morning … I think a lot of teams have to travel like that, (though,) so we just have to be ready.”

The swimmers competing at nationals had an easier practice this week. By lightening the workload, Novitsky said she gave them the chance to rest in hopes of having her swimmers at their peak for competition.

“They put in a lot of yards and work throughout the fall so we want to see how they respond to some rest,” Novitsky said. “For the underclassmen, it’s an opportunity for me to see how they rest and how the fall and the differences in training affected them so I can see what adjustments, if any, I need to make heading into the spring semester, going into the Big Ten Championships.”

J.J. can be reached at [email protected] and @TheWilson9287.