The men's swimming and diving team has a problem that many other Penn State sports have faced this year, the University's first year in the Big Ten. This week, it has to face it head on.

The Lions get no respect.

Yesterday the Lions, 9-3 on the year, with a five-meet winning streak, left Happy Valley for the University of Minnesota, where the conference swimming and diving championships will be held tomorrow through Saturday. But all three of the team's losses came at the hands of conference opponents -- two to Michigan State, the other to Indiana. Although Penn State has won two meets in the conference -- against Northwestern and Ohio State -- the Lions still don't feel they get the respect they deserve, especially from Michigan, Iowa and Indiana.

"To them we're just another team in the lower tier of the conference," Coach Peter Brown said. "They're not really concerned about us right now."

"We're definitely out for respect," senior Nick Boyce said. "Some of the teams take us seriously, but teams like Michigan State and Indiana don't want us around at all."

Getting respect in the Big Ten is a big step toward getting some on the national level. As recently as two weeks ago there were six Big Ten teams in the Top 20, tied with the Pac-10 for most of any conference. Michigan, last year's conference champion, was ranked third in that recent poll. Which is why Brown, and quite a few other coaches, think that the Big Ten is one of the top three swimming conferences in the nation, along with the Pac-10 and the SEC.

There are also a few good swimmers that the team will be facing this week, including Iowa's Artur Wojdat, three-time NCAA champion and former (and very likely future) Olympian from Poland. Wojdat holds conference records in the 200, 500 and 1,650-yard freestyles.

"He's incredible," junior co-captain Adam Carroll said. "I led off against him in the 400 free relay at NCAAs. He's really tough."

Most would think that the team would probably, pardon the pun, drown under all the pressure, facing this big of a meet, for some the biggest in their careers. But actually Brown looks at it in just the opposite way.

"We're in a no-lose situation," Brown said. "I told the guys that for us to finish anything higher than seventh place in the conference is like winning Easterns (the Eastern Seaboard Championships). Finishing seventh is nothing to sneeze at."

So the Lions head to Minneapolis expecting to do well for themselves and hoping to do well against some of the nation's top swim teams. Maybe the team might just make a name for itself.

"We're just going to go there," Brown said, "and let it fly."