After the last race at Saturday night's Big Ten men's swimming and diving championship at Canham Natatorium, Michigan coach Bob Bowman sat down and took off his glasses, shoes and socks. His team had just won Michigan's first conference title since 2003, and that meant Bowman would soon be going for a swim, too.

All the Wolverine swimmers and coaches jumped into the diving well to celebrate Michigan's 33rd Big Ten championship. Even the trophy was pulled into the pool.

"We're all pretty ecstatic," junior Matt Patton said. "We swam out of our minds tonight, and we deserve it, because we worked our asses off."

Michigan started off the meet with a win winning by the smallest possible margin and ended it in a runaway. The 200-yard freestyle relay team of sophomore Chris Brady and juniors Bobby Savulich, Curtis Dauw and Jamie Martone touched first one-hundredth of a second ahead of Indiana. Bowman called that relay and with Michigan's pool record-setting win in the 400-yard medley relay "the best relays in Michigan history."

After celebrating in the pool, Savulich said he was most proud of the way his team started the meet strong and maintained its focus until the end of last race.

No. 4 Michigan won 13 of 18 events and set either a new pool or Big Ten meet record in 10 of those victories. During the three-day meet, the Wolverines finished 226 points ahead of second-place Indiana, while defending Big Ten champion Minnesota came in third.

During last year's conference meet, Michigan was winning by four points over Minnesota heading into the final relay. Minnesota won the event and the title.

This year, it was clear that revenge was in the mind of every Wolverine.

"Without a doubt, that was our motivation," Bowman said in his brand new and newly soaked Big Ten championship gray T-shirt after climbing out of the pool. "That was a very hard time for us, and to be able to overcome that and come back, it's just the best."

The Wolverines utterly dominated three events.

In the 400-yard individual medley, they took the top four places.

In the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, they took the top three places.

And as for individual feats, three Wolverines combined to set four pool records.

Sophomore Scott Spann did so in the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststrokes. Savulich did so in the 100-yard freestyle. And Patton set the pool record in the 500-yard freestyle.

But despite those accomplishments from the juniors and underclassmen, senior co-captain Alex Vanderkaay led the team.

Vanderkaay scored a team-high 78 points and set pool records in the 400-yard individual medley and the 200-yard butterfly. Although he has won seven individual Big Ten titles as a Wolverine, Vanderkaay has never experienced a team championship. Winning the title in his senior year at home was a fitting ending to his career at Canham Natatorium.

"I'm ecstatic," Vanderkaay said. "It's almost too sweet - it's picture perfect. I wanted to be able to leave this pool knowing that I did everything to help win that championship."

At the end of the meet, Michigan swimmers and coaches also received several conference honors. Bowman was named swim coach of the year and Vanderkaay shared the swimmer of the championship meet and swimmer of the year awards with Indiana's Ben Hesen. Finally, Wolverines took 11 of the 17 spots on the Big Ten All-Conference team.

Bowman said the team will now work toward its goal of winning its first national title in 13 years at the NCAA Championships later this month in Seattle.

But the joys of winning his first Big Ten team title seemed to inspire Spann, the record-setting sophomore, to set another new goal for his team.

"This is something I will never forget," Spann said. "We are definitely living up to the Michigan expectations, and now hopefully we can start an entire decade of dominance."