The Cyclone swim and dive team is headed to different parts of Kansas before Thanksgiving break this weekend.

The swim team will compete in The Big Challenge starting Friday against Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Northern Iowa and Nebraska-Omaha in Topeka, Kan.

The times of each race will be official, but the wins will not count in the season’s records. Teams will be scored individually but also in conferences to crown a conference winner. Iowa State and Kansas make up the Big 12 conference, Illinois and Nebraska make up the Big Ten, and UNI and Nebraska-Omaha make up the Mid-Major conference.

Teams’ individual scores will be added together by conferences and the highest score will determine The Big Challenge conference winner.

The diving team heads to Lawrence, Kan., a 31-minute drive from Topeka. Iowa State, Nebraska-Omaha, UNI and Kansas will compete against each other in the KU Dive Invite.

The invite is a little different than most because preliminary scores are added into final scores. Since this is a smaller meet, there won’t be any cuts in the roster, and every diver will get to compete in the final rounds.

“Even though [swim and dive are] in separate [cities], I think we’re actually going to keep one combined team total,” said head dive coach Jeff Warrick.

This is the first year the swim meet is scored based on conferences, making this a new challenge for everyone. Sorenson said the Kansas coach, Clark Campbell, came up with the idea.

The entire event, for both swim and dive, will last for three days. This is the first three-day event for the team this season, and Warrick applied a tried and true trick for training his divers.

“Prepare your minds, it’s just one board a day. It is three days long, but it’s just one board a day,” Warrick said.

The swim team has prepared for this meet a little differently than it usually would for regular season meets.

This meet is better known to the team as a Tek Suit Meet. These suits — what head swimming coach Duane Sorenson said are “fancy, high-tech, $600 suits” — are different than the normal dual-meet suits the team usually wears.

“We are backing off our training a little bit,” Sorenson said. “We’re cutting out some of our morning practices, cutting out weights on Wednesday, and backing off on our yardage. We’re looking to see some really good times out of this meet.”

Sorenson believes decreasing the training schedule will give the team a little more energy and spunk, and hopes to see their races finish stronger.

This meet will give the new swimmers a feeling of how the Big 12 conference championship will go and also give Sorenson an insight on what swimmers are best for certain races.

“Because it’s a championship order of events, it’s going to simulate conference a lot,” Sorenson said. “It’s really going to help us start looking at what our conference team is going to be.”