Big Ten Wrestling Tournament Session III Open Thread

Session III, Sunday, March 7

• 12 noon
• 3 Mats
• Consolation Semifinals
• 7th Place
• 9th Place: brackets of the four wrestlers who lost in the R12 Bloodround, to assist the at-large selection committee

How to Watch

• Big Ten Network: roving mat coverage, perhaps some split screens. All Producer-dictated; you get what they serve.
• BTN Plus ($): individual mat cams for all for mats, selectable by us!

How to Listen

• The Dulcet Tones of Penn State Wrestling, Jeff Byers, 11:40a

Penn State Session III Matchups

Resources

• Full conference Team and Individual scoring, via the Penn State Wrestling Club

Nationals Status & B1G Tourney Team Race

Everybody but Beau Bartlett has auto-qualified for Nationals (and his opportunity for an at-large bid is quite a long shot). For such a young team during a most trying season, this is a very good result that should give Penn State plenty of opportunity to team up with the national field in an effort to outpace the mighty Hawkeyes in St. Louis and extend their current streak of National Championships from four to five.

There’s even a small chance that Penn State could do so in this tournament!

Iowa is ahead of Penn State by 15 points.

Everybody in the Consolation Semifinals has an opportunity to add 3 Placement Points, .5 Advancement Points (with a Decision win), and 1, 1.5 or 2 Bonus Points if they do so with dominant flair. If Penn State goes 4 for 4 there with mere decision-level dominance, that’s 14 points. Additionally, Kerkvliet’s opponent, Nebraska’s Christian Lance, injury-defaulted in the Semifinals (versus competing against Gable Steveson), so it’s possible he may not compete, which would grant Kerk those 2 Bonus Points, for a sweep-level total of 16 points.

Iowa also has three wrestlers competing in the Consolation Semifinals. Their matchups:

• 184: #9 Nelson Brands vs #2 Chris Weiler (WISC)
• 197: #3 Jacob Warner vs #5 Lucas Davison (NW)
• 285: #3 Tony Cassioppi vs #8 Tate Orndorff (tOSU)

If they go 0-3 there, that’s zero additional points to Iowa, and, hey look at that, Penn State would lead Iowa by a point heading into the Finals this afternoon, where Iowa has six wrestlers competing and three of them are head-to-head vs. Penn State.

Joe Lee’s 7th-Place bout affords him a chance at 1 Placement Point, zero Advancement Points. Go 1-0 there, and PSU leads by two! See how this works?

Like we said, a small chance, but wouldn’t that be something?

Also, it’s not like there isn’t precedent.

Remember wayyy back in 2011, when Cameron Wade and James Vollrath (RIP, King!) each scored massive Bonus Points in consolation wins, that propelled Penn State to a razor-thin 139 to 138 win over Iowa for their first Big Ten Tourney Championship of the Cael Sanderson era? Here’s a little BSD Memory Lane refresher for yas!

Go get some, boys!