LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) -

The UNLV Rebel men are off to this week's 2016 WAC Swimming and Diving Championships, which will run from Wednesday, Feb. 24-Saturday, Feb. 27. This year's meet, which has been moved to Houston, Texas and the CRWC Natatorium, will have preliminaries starting at 10:30 am (CT) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday while the night finals will have a 6:00 pm (CT) start beginning on Wednesday.

UNLV Weekly Release

The Rebels are the defending championships, and have won ten conference championship meets in the past 11 seasons. It will be a tall order for UNLV to claim a repeat this season, as the team has been picked to finish fourth in the pre-championship poll. That's partly due to the loss of three key swimmers from a year ago, all of whom are redshirting while sitting out the season to train for their Olympic trials - Tom Paco-Pedroni (France), Or Sabatier (Israel), and Henrique Machado (Brazil). At the 2015 WAC championships, the trio cumulatively earned UNLV a total of 122 points in just the individual events alone. They were also key members of the majority of the relay squads as well for the Rebels a season ago.

One key swimmer back for UNLV is 2015 WAC Swimmer of the Year Dillon Virva. The senior is currently seeded second in both the 50 free and the 100 fly in this year's meet. Also coming in with top-four pre-rankings in their events are: Avi Cohen, third in the 200 fly, Boris Kulizhnikov, fourth in the 200 IM and 200 breast, and Pasha Semochkin, fourth in the 100 back

Live video and results, team scores, event highlights and more from the meet is available on the WAC Men's Swimming & Diving Championship Central page at www.wacsports.com/live. All live broadcasts are free of charge. Links will be available on UNLVRebels.com as well.

Fans also can follow the championships through the league's social media channels on Twitter (@WACsports), Facebook (WesternAthleticConference), and Instagram (@WACsports) for updates on each day's events.