 |
A weight class that will be taking the top four to the NCAA tournament, in an all in all out dog fight between eight wrestlers. The obvious forerunner here is three time BIG 12 champ Nick Piccininni of Oklahoma State who should have no problem securing his fourth title. He's dominated the conference competition albeit one close match, a 9-6 decision over Northern Iowa's Jay Schwarm.
As to Schwarm I feel certain losses will put him at a seed lower than what he should finish. The guy is a pinner & I would not be the least bit surprised to see him with the most amount of falls in the least amount of time in this tournament. He lost 20-4 technical fall to Iowa State's Alex Mackall earlier in the season but more recently pinned him at the 2:17 mark in the first period.
North Dakota State's McGwire Midkiff has an odd loss to Northern Colorado's Jace Koelzer 5-2, but has managed to squeak by a lot of one and two pointers in viable matches against other conference competition.
The real guy here to watch in my opinion will be Oklahoma's Christian Moody. He's wrestled well exactly ONCE all season. A 7-14 record it's a wonder to put any faith in him at all but I do so for a few reasons. He defeated Air Force's Sid Flores 13-4 & by saving grace, Flores defeated Koelzer 9-4. I think this should put Moody as the #6 seed, which by my calculations puts him up against Midkiff early on. I think that is a winnable match for him. Moody has always wrestled well at the BIG 12's. He's been 4th-6th-4th here in the past & while he'll have to wrestle a hell of a lot better than what he has been this season, another fourth place finish is doable. I have no doubt that he'll finish his career at Oklahoma a four time BIG XII place-winner. It's simply a matter of whether he'll qualify for his fourth NCAA appearance I doubt.
How I would seed?
#1 Nick Piccininni senior Oklahoma State
# 2 Alex Mackall junior Iowa State
#3 McGwire Midkiff sophomore North Dakota State
#4 Danny Vega junior South Dakota State
#5 Jay Schwarm senior Northern Iowa
#6 Christian Moody senior Oklahoma
#7 Sid Flores sophomore Air Force
#8 Jace Koelzer freshman Northern Colorado
No comments:
Post a Comment