***Official NCAA Wrestling Championships Info and Discussion Thread***

[Judoka]

The Division 1 NCAA tournament begins on Thursday in Des Moines. Iowa State has seven wrestlers qualified.

Schedule:
Thursday, March 21st
11:00AM: First Round, ESPN3
Friday, March 22nd
10:00AM: Championship Quarterfinals and 3rd round consolations ESPNU/ESPN3
6:00PM: Championship Semifinals and 4th round consolations, ESPNU
Saturday, March 23rd
10:00AM: Last round consolations 3rd-7th Place Matches, ESPNU
7:00PM: Championship Finals, ESPN

Schedule for fan events

Cyclones.TV preview from John Walters
ISU Press Release (.pdf)
Brackets are here
Live scoring: Trackwrestling

Pre-tournament Intermat Rankings
Pre-tournament FloWrestling Rankings
Pre-tournament WIN Magazine Rankings
Pre-tournament Amateur Wrestling News Rankings
Pre-tournament Takedown Wrestling Media Dual Impact Index

A weight by weight look for each wrestler is below. I generally only looked at Day 1 and will add more as the tournament progresses.

Overall if we wrestle to our seeds/rankings we'll be looking at around 17 team points, so I'd consider that to be the baseline for what we should score. Getting a few upsets would get us closer to a point total of 23-24, which is what I'd consider to be a "good" performance from the team given where we stand in the brackets. Anything higher than that would mean we got multiple big upsets and would mean we vastly overperformed. If things go to seed we'll have six guys still alive on Friday, and one on Saturday.

Basically I'll consider this a good performance and give me hope for next season if we get at least one AA (Gadson), at least one other guy to the Round of 12 (Moreno, Weatherman, or Beard) as well as win all the matches we are supposed to. That would mean everybody won what they needed to and we scored at least a few big upsets.

Note that the draw is important. Goettl, Weatherman, and Gibson all have similar resumes but due to their draws I expect Gibson to win several more matches without needing any upsets. On the other end of the scale Mike Moreno is probably our second best wrestler but will need upsets to do better than 1-2.

Lastly, if you want to complain about Kevin Jackson rather than talk about the wrestlers, Here's a whole thread dedicated to that topic. Go crazy and complain all you want, but please do it there.

Rankings are Intermat/AWN/WIN

 

[Judoka]

141 Pounds: US Luke Goettl 15-11 19/UR/20

Luke got a fairly tough draw, but its NCAAs and so did everybody else. He will open up against #9 seed Nick Dardanes of Minnesota (25-7 8/9/9). They have not met this year but last season Dardanes beat Luke 2-3. A win here would be a pretty substantial upset. A loss would drop Luke into an easy first round consolation match followed by a likely matchup against #10 seed C.J. Cobb of Penn.

If Luke wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 1-2 and score us 1 or 1.5 team points. It would take a very big upset for Goettl to go 2-2 or better.

 

[Judoka]

149 Pounds: US Max Mayfield 15-13 UR/UR/UR

Max actually got a very good draw. He opens against #12 seed Eric Grajales of Michigan (22-6 13/13/13). An upset here would be unlikely but is not impossible. However, the reason I say he got a good draw is that Max is one of the two weakest wrestlers in the bracket at 149 but a loss to Grajales would give him a chance against the other of the weakest two guys in the bracket. Alex Hudson (14-6) has feasted on really bad competition and if there is one guy in the bracket that Max could beat, it is Hudson. It would be a small upset but I'd love to see Max go out with a win. He's the only senior who has stuck through the transition from Cael and just getting to NCAAs required him to score a big upset. Going out with a win in Des Moines would be awesome for him.

If Max wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 0-2 and score us 0 team points. With a small upset he could go 1-2 for 1 team point.

 

[Judoka]

165 Pounds: US Mike Moreno 26-7 13/16/14

Mike got by far the toughest draw compared to his abilities. He is the best unseeded wrestler in the bracket but will need upsets to go better than 1-2 because the draw was very unkind to him. Mike will open up against Nick Moore of Iowa (18-8 11/15/11). Moore beat Moreno 2-3 earlier this season. A win would give Mike #7 seed Conrad Polz of Illinois (22-6 8/8/7), while a loss would drop him to the consolation bracket with #9 seed Nick Sulzer waiting after just one match. However, if anybody on the team can become our second R12 or AA it is probably Moreno. He owns two wins over top ten guys this season and can beat almost anybody in the bracket if he wrestles his best. Mike "Owings" Moreno has a nice ring to it.

If Mike wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 1-2 and score us 1 team point. But with upsets I see 7th place as his ceiling this year.

 

[Judoka]

174 Pounds: US Tanner Weatherman 18-7 20/20/14

Tanner's draw is similar to Goettl's. He'll open up against #10 seed Daniel Yates of Michigan (29-9 9/11/9). A win there would be a pretty big upset, as I think Tanner is correctly ranked in the low teens given how he has done this year. A loss gives him a winnable match in the first round consolations but then bumps him right up against #9 seed Nathan Brown of Lehigh.

If Tanner wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 1-2 and score us 1 team point. With upsets I see R12 as his ceiling this year.

 

[Judoka]

184 Pounds: US Boaz Beard 15-8 15/16/16

Beard got a reasonable draw and it includes a pigtail match. He'll open up against UR Stephen Doty of Virginia before facing #12 Ethan Lofthouse of Iowa (18-7 12/13/11). Lofthouse beat Beard 3-10 earlier this season. A win would give him #5 seed Kevin Steinhause of Minnesota while a loss would give him a pretty winnable match and then #11 seed Mike Larson of Missouri.

If Boaz wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 2-2 and score us 2 team points. With upsets I see R12 as his ceiling this year.

 

[Judoka]

Heavyeight: Matt Gibson 17-9 18/UR/17

Gibson probably got the best draw compared to his abilities. He will open up with a pigtail against unseeded Adam Fager of Utah Valley (18-10 UR/UR/UR) before having a pretty even match against unseeded Blake Herrin of American (26-8 UR/UR/UR). He'd then get #1 Seed Dom Bradley in the evening session. But a loss there would give him a match against unseeded Evan Knudson of NDSU, whom he pinned earlier this season and then likely against a matchup against #8 seed Mike Mclure of Michigan State, who major decisioned Gibson a few weeks ago.

If Gibson wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 3-2 and score us 2.5-3.5 team points. His draw makes doing better than that very tough.

 

[Judoka]

197 Pounds: #6 Seed Kyven Gadson 25-2 6/6/6

As a seeded wrestler Kyven got a pretty good draw. In fact, the match that concerns me most is his first, even though he beat that guy 9-5 at Midlands. Mario Gonzolez of Illinois (14-7 14/13/14) is the best unseeded wrestler in the bracket (He made it to the round of 12 last year) and will already be warmed up from a pigtail match. Kyven has faced a lot of distractions the past two weeks and if he doesn't show up ready to go he could easily find himself fighting back through the consolations. A win would give him his 4th match of the season against #11 seed Blake Rosholt and then a quarterfinals matchup against #3 seed Matt Wilps of Pitt, who beat Kyven 3-4 at Midlands.

If Kyven wrestles to seed/rankings he'll go 4-3 for 6th place and 10 team points. With upsets he could put himself into the finals.

 

[Judoka]

Moreno, Weatherman, and Gadson all won championships in Wells Fargo as high schoolers. I think that'll help them. Its an arena they are used to an and arena they are used to winning in.

 

[Judoka]

If things go to seed/rankings here's how today will go (this includes us winning the toss up match between Gibson and Herrin):

Session 1:
Pigtails: 2 for 2, possible bonus points from Gibson
Round 1: 2 for 7

Session 2:
Championship bracket: 1 for 2
Consolation bracket: 4 for 5, possible bonus points from Goettl.

For a total of 9 for 16 on the day.

I'm hoping that we get an upset from somebody to keep a third guy in the championship side tonight.

I'm expecting to have at least 6 of our 7 guys make it through today, hopefully all 7. However, we'll need upsets to have more than one guy (Gadson) make it out of tomorrow morning's session.

 

[Dryburn]

The matches appear to be available on ESPN3.com, sort of.....mat by mat, and they only list 3 mat numbers right now.....but where do you find what mat numbers and times the ISU wrestlers are wrestling?

 

[cloneswereall]

The matches appear to be available on ESPN3.com, sort of.....mat by mat, and they only list 3 mat numbers right now.....but where do you find what mat numbers and times the ISU wrestlers are wrestling?

They move from 125 up, and first open mat goes the the next wrestler in the bracket. In other words, no one knows after the first 4 matches what mat anyone is going to wrestle on. It's just continual wrestling.

 

[Judoka]

They are actually wrestling on 8 mats and ESPN will be streaming 4 of them. Mats 1-4 on ESPN won't correspond exactly to mats 1-4 in the arena. But they don't change, so once we figure out what mat is which it'll be that way through the entire tournament.

As far as what mat we are on, Trackwrestling will update live with mat assignments. Matches are assigned a mat two matches in advance (i.e. when wrestlers are "in the hole"). So we'll know about 10-20 minutes in advance what mat our guys will be on.

For the pigtails Beard will be first up on Mat 8. Matt Gibson is on deck on Mat 2. I'm not sure yet if either of those mats will be on the ESPN stream.

 

[cloneswereall]

They are actually wrestling on 8 mats and ESPN will be streaming 4 of them. Mats 1-4 on ESPN won't correspond exactly to mats 1-4 in the arena. But they don't change, so once we figure out what mat is which it'll be that way through the entire tournament.

As far as what mat we are on, Trackwrestling will update live with mat assignments. Matches are assigned a mat two matches in advance (i.e. when wrestlers are "in the hole"). So we'll know about 10-20 minutes in advance what mat our guys will be on.

For the pigtails Beard will be first up on Mat 8. Matt Gibson is on deck on Mat 2. I'm not sure yet if either of those mats will be on the ESPN stream.

I thought it was 8 mats until I read a few days ago that ESPN was only showing 4. That's why I was confused. Also forgot about the "in the hole" thing, but it's pretty close to what I said about not knowing where a wrestler is gonna end up.

 

[Judoka]

InterMat Wrestling - InterMat Live Blog: NCAA Division I Championships

Intermat Live Blog.

 

[Judoka]

ISU Live Blog

NCAA Wrestling Championships Live Blog - Iowa State University Athletics Official Web Site - www.CYCLONES.com - The home of Iowa State Cyclone Sports

 

[cloneswereall]

Also, it's all on ESPN3.

 

[Judoka]

And we're off!

 

[Judoka]

Takedown Beard for the first points of the tourney.

 

[Judoka]

Doty out, Beard up 2-1 with some RT.