The B1G has two serious All-time superstars at these upper weights in Carter Starocci, going for his fifth NCAA title for the Penn State Nittany Lions and Gable Steveson looking for his third title to go along with a Gold Medal, appearances in professional wrestling (the TV show kind) and a brief run with the Buffalo Bills. These guys are stars, but it’s not like they’re unbeatable. I mean, Steveson lost twice in 2019 and Starocci lost twice in 2021 so...
174 Pounds - 8 auto bids
Kind of...: Starts simple at the top, gets confusing as you move down. Levi Haines is the clear 1-seed, but Carson Kharchla pushed him in the dual, and is a worthy 2-seed. Lenny Pinto’s 18-11 win over Patrick Kennedy in the B1G dual of the year settles the next two seeds. You don’t have to feel sorry for Kennedy, but as far as 4-seeds go, he’s pretty damn good. And he’s going to be fodder for Haines. Pinto and Kharchla didn’t meet in the regular season and that sounds like a great semifinal.
Big drop in caliber after the top four. Clayton Whiting should get the 5 since he beat Jackson Turley, who gets the 6, because he beat Danny Braunagel, who gets the 7. After that? Well, Brody Baumann beat Branson John, but lost to Derek Gilcher. Gilcher’s win over Baumann is good, but he lost to the Michigan Wolverines Joseph Walker. But Walker lost to John. John has a win over Turley, so that should (?) get him the 8-seed, I think. If so, then I think it would go Walker, Gilcher, Baumann. 12-seed is interesting, too. Looks like it might be Wisconsin Badgers’ frosh Lucas Condon, who took Whiting, the likely 5-seed, to SV. Good bracket to watch for first-round action.
184 Pounds - 8 auto bids
HWAHSQB: Man, 184 used to be the wheel of chaos. Everybody was beating everybody, but the seeding here is extremely orderly this year. Starocci is the undefeated returning 4X national champ so very clearly the #1. Minnesota Golden Gophers freshman Max McEnelly is also undefeated so clearly #2. At the 3 is Nebraska Cornhuskers Silas Allred who has only lost to the two guys above him. At the 4 is Iowa Hawkeyes Gabe Arnold, who has only lost to the two guys right above him. At the 5 is Maryland Terrapins Jaxon Smith, who has only lost to two of the guys right above him. At the 6 is Illinois Fighting Illini Edmond Ruth Jr. who has lost to the two guys right above him + Starocci. Rutgers Shane Cartenga-Walsh has lost to the two guys right above him plus a couple others will get the 7. At the 8 is Ohio State Buckeyes Ryder Rogotzke who has lost to the two guys right above him plus a couple others. The 9 will be Donnell Washington who has, you guessed it!, lost to the two guys right above him plus Ruth and Allred. This might be the easiest weight to seed that I can remember. The Indiana Hoosiers Donnell Washington is one of the two guys who have beaten Starocci way back when. I always expect a little more out of him because the athleticism is there, but he’s never been an All-American.
Edmond Ruth Jr. is another guy I’d like to get a little more from, although he was an All-American last year, but check out his older bro.
Kind of...: Rogotzke is only a sophomore, but I thought he’d be better than an 8-seed at this point. This is deep weight, for sure, but the way it breaks down is pretty clean. The guys at 3-6 are fairly well-bunched and should have two bang-up quarters before they run into Starocci and McEnelly. And the guys at 7-10 are pretty well-bunched and should have two bang-up opening round matches, with the two losers needing to work their way through the consolation bracket to grab an auto-bid.
Let’s talk about McEnelly for a second. Is he going to beat Starocci? Almost certainly not. But’s he’s #4 nationally as a frosh, and the three guys ahead of him are all seniors. Allred is the likely 3-seed at the B1G, and McEnelly majored him. He did need SV to beat Gabe Arnold, who may not even be Iowa’s best option at this weight. Bottom line, Starocci is moving on, and let’s celebrate him while he’s here, but next year should see the conference still be excellent at this weight.
197 Pounds - 10 auto bids
Kind of...:Stephen Buchanan beat Josh Barr who beat Jacob Cardenas. They’re the top 3 in the nation, so there’s your top 3 B1G seeds. Isaiah Salazar’s only losses are to those guys, so he’s the 4. Shumate beat Braunagel who beat the Northwestern Wildcats Evan Bates, but Shumate has losses to Sollars and Poznanski, whereas the other two don’t have any bad losses, so let’s go Braunagel at 5 and Bates at 6. Camden McDaniel should be the 7 based on wins over Gabe Sollars and Michigan State Spartans Remy Cotton. After that, my best guess is Sollars at 8, Poznanski at 9, Shumate at 10, and Cotton at 11. However, Poznanski lost his last match by a MD to Cotton, and I don’t know how the fact that Poznanski and Sollars met twice, including once at the Midlands, will get factored in. [ed.—Poznanski isn’t going for Rutgers, which is a shame. Burst on the scene with a 4th place finish at nationals in 2021. Didn’t make All-American again. This sport is a grind, man. Hats off, John Poznanski.] With 10 auto bids, the seeding isn’t quite as important. Should be some good effort in the consolation bracket.
HWAHSQB: There’s a clear gap between 1-4 and the rest of the field. 5-10 seeded guys are all pretty interchangeable so I agree that the consolation bracket will be a lot of fun.
HWT - 10 auto bids
Kind of...:Steveson and Kerkvliet are untouchable. No idea how the B1G will settle the seeding there, but it really doesn’t matter. They’re meeting in the finals. 3-8 are bunched in the rankings among Yaraslau Slavikouski, Josh Heindselman, Nick Feldman, Luke Luffman, Ben Kueter, and Seth Nevills (7-12 nationally in InterMat). But Nevills is 0-3 against the other guys, so he’s the 8-seed and we look at 5-man round-robin for 3 through 7. Heindselman only wrestled Feldman, but he won that bout so give him the 3. That would leave Feldman as 2-1 against the rest, and the 4-seed. Kueter beat Feldman, but among the remain three it goes: Slavikouski > Luffman > Kueter. But given that Kueter > Feldman > Slavikouski, it could go differently. I’m pretty confident Jacob Bullock will be the 9 and Harley Andrews the 10.
HWAHSQB: I think the Purdue Boilermakers Filipovich might get the 10 because he beat Andrews H2H and 3 through 8 are indeed a mess to seed. Those 4-5 and 3-6 quarters are going to be fire and the guys who didn’t do enough to get seeded better than 7 are going to have to do something from the consolation side. [*ed.—This guy was right. Don’t mess with @HWAHSQB’s ability to reason through messy situations.*]