Friends, the postseason is here.
After finishing a tough dual-meet schedule that showcased solid growth from several young wrestlers, Ohio State is ready for tournament season to begin. When the Big Ten Wrestling Championships get underway Saturday morning from the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, N.J., head coach Tom Ryan has one goal in mind: get 10 men into the NCAA tournament.
"The objective this weekend is to get 10 through," Ryan told reporters Thursday as the team readied to board the buses to John Glenn International for the flight to Newark. "We've gotten 10 through the last couple of years. It's a big challenge for us at '25 and '57, those are the biggest challenges we have getting through."
"We need some bracket busters"
There are a handful of guys who are assured to qualify for the NCAA tournament, including No. 1 seeds Sammy Sasso and Kollin Moore, and No. 2 seed Luke Pletcher. Based on seeding alone, seven Buckeyes should punch their ticket to the NCAA Wrestling Championships later this month in Minneapolis given the automatic bids allocated to the Big Ten Conference in each weight class.
Seven Buckeyes are seeded top-6 at their weight for the Big Ten Championships. Keep in mind these are PRE-seeds, however, and could potentially change before Saturday's action starts.
— Ohio State Wrestling (@wrestlingbucks) March 2, 2020
COMPLETE PRE-SEEDShttps://t.co/TWKo1S7TDg#GoBucks pic.twitter.com/mSkACs0gm3
"It's time to trust all the things we talk about in being elite," Ryan said of the three wrestlers with the toughest paths to an auto-bid: Malik Heinselman, Jordan Decatur and Elijah Cleary. "Going to need great composure out there, tremendous emotional control, got to be aggressive at the right moments and rely on your training."
Ryan said he feels good about the growth he's seen over the past 4-6 weeks from Heinselman and Cleary, both of whom were challenged late in the season by teammates looking to unseat them as starters. Both enter the tournament as 11 seeds in their respective weight classes, and have seemingly winnable matches in their first round bouts.
Decatur has the toughest draw of anyone on the team, facing Iowa phenom Austin DeSanto, the No. 3 seed.
"This weight class in the Big Ten is ridiculous,” Ryan said of the 133-pound bracket. “There’s no easy place in that bracket, I don’t care where you are.”
Ryan said Decatur is a "super athlete" and incredibly-talented wrestler. Even so, he'll have his work cut out for him earning an auto-bid in the wrestlebacks, as the Big Ten has just seven NCAA allocations at 133; he'll have to win at least two bouts in the consolation bracket to get the job done.
Scrappin' for a Rematch
The biggest Buckeye match of the weekend should be a dual-meet rematch at 141 pounds, with No. 2 seed Luke Pletcher facing No. 1 Nick Lee of Penn State. The two titans of the class met a month ago in State College, with Lee getting the better of the then-top-ranked Buckeye.
"When you study the elite, there is a level of emotional control, and he's had that aggression, bringing the action to your opponent," Ryan said of Pletcher. "And in the dual meet we saw him bring action in the first period, and then we saw him not do that [later in the match]."
Ryan said Pletcher was really "hyped" about the match leading into the battle at Penn State. He said the approach this time is to treat Lee like "just another match."
"We just need to see the Luke Pletcher that attacks," he explained. "He's got a ton of offense and he's hard to wrestle." Ryan said Pletcher also needed to do a better job of getting off bottom; he did that off the whistle to start the second period, but got caught later after a Lee takedown.
Assuming chalk holds for the top-two seeds, there's a good chance the Pletcher-Lee rivalry gets replayed Saturday in New Jersey and two weeks later in the Twin Cities.
When and Where to Watch
The Big Ten tournament takes place Saturday and Sunday, March 6 and 7 at the Rutgers Athletic Center. Action gets under way Saturday morning at 10, with matches streamed live via BTN Plus.
SATURDAY, MARCH 7
10 a.m. Session I: Round 1, Quarterfinals, consolation
6:30 p.m. Session II: Semifinals, consolations
SUNDAY, MARCH 8
Noon Session III: Consolation semifinals, placement bouts
3:30 p.m. Session IV: Finals - Live on Big Ten Network
Interactive brackets are available via FloArena.
