Big Ten Wrestling Standings: Start of Post Season

It’s taken nearly four months of fighting to get here. And now the hardest fighting starts - the post season. From this point forward, it’s win, or die.

First up, let’s look at Wrestling’s BCS, the Dual Championship Series. The pairings have been set.

Championship: #2 Penn State (13-0) at #1 Oklahoma State (14-0) - Sunday, 4pm ET

#6 Nebraska (12-3) at #5 Virginia Tech (17-1)

#4 Ohio State at #8 Cornell

#10 Rutgers at #12 Lehigh

#17 Michigan at #7 NC State

NR Purdue at #14 South Dakota State

NR Indiana at #19 Appalachian State

#3 Iowa at #23 Edinboro

Wrestling is awesome. Wrestling coaches - ehh, not so much. We’re going to leave it at that, rather than dive into a moral soliloquy about those coaches who say one thing, and do another, or those coaches who pledge to do one thing, and then break their promise, or throw a tantrum to maintain a 12-year old petty grudge over stupidity.

Want to grow wrestling? Exclude the coaches from the discussion, because some of them are only 3 years old.

Big Ten Individual Standings

125 LBS

The top 3 seeds at Big Tens are pretty easy: 1-Gilman, 2-Suriano, 3-Lambert. After that, it’s a little messy. We kept Lizak at 4, despite his OT loss to Rodriguez, because he’s 5-1 against everyone below him. Youtsey, Oliver, and Jimenez are all working from partial seasons. If you have them shuffled a little differently, alright.

The one that probably jumps out at you is Ohio State’s Rodriguez way down at 11. He’s ranked 20th by the coaches, earned the 12th best RPI nationally, probably bringing a bid to Big Tens - and we’ve kept him in the basement. Here’s the thing: that’s what he’s earned. Besides that OT win against Lizak last weekend, he’s been bad nearly all year long. His best win was against Brent Fleetwood, CMU. He’s got destroyed by Gilman, Suriano, and Lambert - and by Jimenez (10-1 MD), and Illinois’ Travis Piotrowski (10-0 MD). His only other conference win came against Northwestern’s Rubinetti. So, we’re leaving him at 11. We have zero idea why the Coaches poll ranks him #20 nationally. None.

Guesstimated Bids: 7

Our Guy’s Path: B1G will only seed this weight to 8 spots, so who knows whether Nick gets a first round match or not. But he can put bonus on any of #s 9 - 14. So let’s hope he does. In round 2, he’d likely get #7 Jimenez, whom he hasn’t faced. Then a rematch with #3 Lambert in the semis, before a rematch with #1 Gilman in the final.

Chances at making NCAAs: 100%. If Nick makes the semis, he’s in. If he bombs out of B1G’s completely, he’ll get an at-large bid. He’s going to NCAAs. The only question is his seeding.

133 LBS

Cory Clark’s loss to Montoya hurt him, and helped Montoya. Clark’s only win among the group at the top was an early season 2-0 decision over Micic, so he had to come down a peg.

The Terps’ Rappo leads the rest of the pack in our seeding by virtue of his impressive 7-3 conference mark.

Guesstimated Bids: 10

Our Guy’s Path: with 10 bids on the line, the conference will seed the full 14-man bracket. So George likely starts off with Clark in the first round. Assuming that’s a repeat loss, he’d get the loser of 6-Rappo vs. 11-Ispirades. Win that, and he makes NCAAs - if the conference gets 10 bids. If it’s 9 bids, then he’d need to win one more match.

Chances at NCAAs: 35%

141 LBS

Jimmy’s climbed all the way up to the 3-seed. And even better, Nebraska’s Colt McCrystal shows signs of returning to Earth from his early season interstellar orbit, losing twice last weekend, to Pletcher and Carton.

Guesstimated Bids: 9

Our Guy’s Path: 14-Simmons in round 1; 6-Carton in the quarters; 2-McCrystal in the semis; 1-Ashnault in the final.

Chances at NCAAs: 100%. How about that.

149 LBS

Ladies and gentlemen, Zain Retherford.

Guestimated Bids: 7

Our Guy’s Path at B1Gs: 50/50 chance at getting a first round sacrificial victim. Quarters vs. 8-Perez; Semis vs 4-Bannister; Final vs. 2-Sorensen.

Chance at NCAAs: wouldn’t be NCAAs without him.

157 LBS

I’m a little iffy on the 4 - 8 seeds. They’re all very close. Doesn’t seem correct to have Langenderfer at 4, but he’s 7-3 in conference. So go figure.

Guesstimated Bids: 8 or 9

Our Guy’s Path: with a fully seeded bracket, Nolf gets a first round bye, which is a shame. Quarters vs. Van Brill; Semis vs Murphy. Final vs. Kemerer.

Chance at NCAAs: 100%

165 LBS

Welp, this one is pretty easy to seed. Cousin Ike dropped his rematch with Massa, so we get a clear 1-2-3-4. Iowa’s Gunther has been wrestling well. He makes for a dangerous 5. Wanzek, Hughes, and Martin round out our top 8.

Guesstimated Bids: 8

Cenzo’s Path: open vs. 13-Pafumi, Quarters vs. 5-Gunther, Semis vs. 1-IMar.

174 LBS

Ta-da! When you put the previously unbeaten (in conference) guy on full blast, 16-1, then you move up the seeding table. Mark Hall is our new 2-seed. The 1-seed stays with BoJo, who donned a singlet twice this past weekend, because the matches were against 9-Barnes and 10-Pfarr. He won both.

Guesstimated Bids: 8

Wreck Hall’s Path: BYE, Quarters vs 7-Pagano; Semis vs. 3-Brunson; Final vs. 1-Jordan.

Chances at making NCAAs: 100%

184 LBS

Since they’d split their previous two bouts, and because Brooks sat out the dual, we moved Indiana’s Jackson to the 2-spot, ahead of Brooks at the 3-seed.

Similarly, Nebraska’s Dudley wrestled - and lost - to Ohio State’s Martin, and then sat out the dual against Iowa’s Brooks. So Dudley drops like a rock, down to the 5-seed, while Martin bumps up to the 4-spot.

Guesstimated Bids: 9

Bo’s Path at B1Gs: first round BYE; quarters vs. 8-Sliga; semis vs. 4-Martin; final vs. 2-Jackson.

Chance to make NCAAs: 100%

197 LBS

The top 4 are set in stone. The question mark is what to do with Wisconsin’s Robertson, who carries a losing (5-6) conference record. We kept him at the 5-seed, because he’s (0-5) against the top 4, but (5-1) against everyone else.

Guesstimated Bids: this is a tough one. Maybe 6?

Mouse’s Path at B1Gs: TBD round 1; quarters vs. 5-Robertson; semis vs. 1-Pfarr.

Chances at NCAAs: 100%. Make the semis, and Mouse is going to NCAAs via auto-qualifier (assuming 6 bids). Failing that, he’s getting an at-large because he owns multiple quality wins (at least, what we project to be quality wins).

285 LBS

Why would Rutgers’ Rahzohn Gross be 9th when he’s (6-1) in conference? Because he’s not wrestled anyone. Everything else in this seeding table is self explanatory.

Guesstimated Bids: 6

Nick’s Path at B1Gs: TBD first round; quarters vs. 6-Jensen; semis vs. 2-Medbery.

Chances at NCAAs: 100%

Team Total Projections

The totals above are WITHOUT bonus points, and reflect everyone wrestling perfectly to seed, as shown. In other words, it’s totally useless, except that it gives you some perspective on how far out front Penn State is from the rest of the conference contenders.

(Hint: it’s a lot.)