Wrestling claims 184lb title in great B1G Championships showing
It was a bumpy ride, this regular season was. Michigan's #14 national ranking with an 8-6 overall and 4-5 B1G record speaks volumes to how tough their schedule was and how good the B1G is in wrestling.
The B1G is SEC football on steroids in Wrestling. There are 8 B1G teams in the top-15 alone and 10 of 14 teams are ranked in the top-25.
Michigan was in it going into the final stretch last year for the B1G Regular Season Championship last season but fell flat in the B1G Championships meet.
It was pretty much the opposite of that this season.
The championships were held in Columbus this year. The highlight of the 2015 B1G Championships for Michigan was sophomore Dominic Abounader winning the 184lb B1G Championship. Abounader is ranked #2 in the nation in the 184 division and defeated Minnesota's Brett Pfarr who is ranked #4 nationally.
Abounader's individual championship is Michigan's first since 2012 when Kellen Russell won his 4th straight 141 championship.
In addition to Abounader's thrilling 7-6 victory on BTN, Michigan automatically qualified nine other grapplers for the NCAA Championships that will take place in two weeks in St. Louis. They have the opportunity to send one more down to St. Louis via an at-large bid when the official NCAA Tournament brackets are released on Wednesday.
Michigan as a team finished with 102.5 points, good for 4th place. Here are the final B1G team standings.
Place | Team | Points |
T-1st | #2 Iowa | 120.0 |
T-1st | #5 Ohio State | 120.0 |
3rd | #4 Minnesota | 108.0 |
4th | #14 Michigan | 102.5 |
5th | #7 Penn State | 96.5 |
6th | #12 Illinois | 96.0 |
7th | #11 Nebraska | 85.5 |
8th | #15 Wisconsin | 73.0 |
9th | Northwestern | 72.0 |
10th | #23 Purdue | 37.5 |
11th | #21 Rutgers | 20.5 |
12th | Indiana | 16.0 |
13th | Michigan State | 12.5 |
14th | Maryland | 10.5 |
Why are both OSU and Minny ranked #5?
A tie for first? Crazy. Nice that we finished ahead of PSU
One of my fraternity brothers my senior year was Eric Klasson who wrestled unlimited weight for Michigan quite well. What I remember the most about that guy (beside his being pretty cool and absolutely shredded) was the sheer volume of calories he had to take in every day. He ate like every 3-4 hours a LOT and then drank a mega-calorie shake before going to bed.
BTW that's a great pic WD.
I recall wrestling in high school gym class lo these many years ago. It was exhausting.
It makes me wonder what sport requires the most caloric expenditure per average minute of activity? Swimming must be high on the list, as must wrestling be as well. I'd heard boxing is really taxing as well, which is why boxers are in such incredible shape.
our kids usually burn anywhere from 2000-4000 calories
You just named the three hardest sports, as far as order, its a toss up..
of backlash on here, I'm a little hesitant to say where I coach...
Yeah, Coon not making the finals is a little surprising to me, but he is still relatively young. Placing in the BigTen really bodes well for your chances to place at Nationals. I'll take placing ahead of Penn State, thats for sure. A solid year. Michigan is really young tho, should be fun the next few years.
Pantaleo 4th at 149
Youtsey 5th at 125
Murphy 5th at 157
Huntley 5th at 197
Sutton 6th at 165
Bruno 7th at 133
Massa 7th at 174
Coon 3rd at HWT
Fisher 9th at 141.
Fisher is a good bet to get an at large bid to the NCAAs. Had been ranked in the year, has a decent record and a couple good wins. Big Ten had 8 automatic bids for 141. As the 9th, I'd think he makes it.
If Fisher gets in, all 10 UM wrestlers make. Been a while since that happened.
Is the #2 ranked recruit in the nation and indeed is commited to Michigan.
Taylor Massa was also the #2 recruit in his class. Was 1 match away from All-American as a freshman. Red-shirted, and came back this year. He was ranked #6 or $8 at 165 in the beginning of the season. But he got beat a few times and then hurt, came back, hurt again, and came back at 174. A tougher weight class IMO. Not sure if his injuries are effecting his wrestling but he is extremely up and down this year. I don't think he will AA. Starting to look like Grajales who was also the #2 recuit in the nation and only AA once, his senior for 3rd. I seriously hope I'm wrong. So much talent. I'm really pulling for him to get it going in 2 weeks.
speed skating and track cycling are way up there, as well.
My boss is an assistant HS coach in wrestling and I've seen some of their practices and talk to him about the practices quite a bit. Wrestling is hands down the hardest sport. The kind of shape these kids have to be in is ridiculous. I can only imagine what its like on a collegiate level. I have the utmost respect for wrestlers.
OSU had a #1 ranked guy that absolutely destroyed some Iowa dude, getting a takedown 2 secs into the match and just toying with back points until he finished him off 16-1 at the beginning of the 2nd period. I think the Iowa dude had a bunch of upset wins to make the final, but still, it's amazing to see such a dominant performance in the conference final.
I remember back in the day Brock Lesnar absolutely destroyed the kid from Illinois in the final. Kid didn't even want to be on the mat with him. Illinois guy went on to place 3rd in NCAAs that year.
Crazy to think my favorite WWE wrestler once wrestled against Michigan at Cliff Keen Arena.
Dude is a machine. The only good thing maroon and gold.
Jebus Devotee, do you ever back away from the tv? Pro wrestling will likely get along fine without your viewership.
I mean, look what he does the sea creatures!
But yeah, Lesnar in college wasn't even fair; just a man-beast that made some of the best athletes in college look like little children.
Impressed by UM's showing this year; this conference is absolutely stacked in terms of wrestling. Hell, the 11th team in the conference was a top-25 outfit. That's insane.
Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin were on the same team in Minnesota. The only NCAA wrestling match I ever went to as a student was Brock's last appearance in Ann Arbor. My buddy who was a big HS wrestler told me I just had to go see this guy. I honestly thought Lesnar was a WWE guy there scouting or something. He was and is to this day the singularly most impressive specimen of human flesh I've ever seen in person.
Like, historic beast. He's a 3 time champ already, going for 4 this year, and he would only be the fourth wrestler in history to win 4 NCAA titles. I'm not sure on an exact count but I'm pretty sure he's lost less than 10 matches since starting high school, and most of them were close matches to older, multi-championship winning wrestlers like David Taylor.
Do the Iowa fans still show up en masse and dominate the venue? A few decades ago, I went to the Big Ten meet at Purdue, and Iowa possibly had 10 times as many fans as all the other schools combined. They took over the whole center section of the lower seats in Mackey. It was quite impressive and they were quite knowledgable and boisterous in their support of Iowa wrestlers.
Yes. They were loud in Columbus from what I could tell on TV.
Wrestling there is what Hockey is here.
I saw Iowa-PSU on the BTN about a year ago and was astounded at how many people were there. It gets loud in there too
I mean, sometimes when Michigan hockey is doing well I wish more people (especially Buckeyes) cared about it so it was a bit more satisfying. I can't imagine how it feels to be an Iowa wrestling fan. Does any other school care even a fraction as much as Iowa does?
Iowa State and Oklahoma State back in the day. Not sure what it is like now, but those three schools used to completely dominate college wrestling.
Oklahoma State is still a mecca for college wrestling. THe B1G is by far and away the best wrestling conference in the country and it is not close. The old Big 8 used to be but Title IX hurt a lot of those schools, and they dropped their programs.
I am excited for the sports future however. ESPN is doing a pretty good job with the NCAA tournament, and I think the B1G Network has done a good job. (Just need more matches that aren't on BTN rather than BTN+) The recent rise of programs like Penn State and ohio state is great for the sport. I had the pleasure of touring the UM wrestling facility last time I was in AA. It is amazing. Recruiting should pick up for UM, as it would be a fantastic place to wrestle. I see nothing but upside for Michigan wrestling. This B1G tourney was a great outing for the Wolverines.
Go Blue.
I was in Columbus today for the last two sessions. There was some great wrestling and as you might expect the Buckeye fans packed the place and were loud. They even cheered "for" Michigan when they wrestled against Iowa. It didn't seem like Iowa had that many people in attendance.
This is the first time ever that the B1G wrestling tournament ended in a tie and the first time OSU claimed the title in 51 years. Iowa had a chance for the win with their 285 wrestler in the championship. The Norhwestern wrestler never had so many fans.
The young Wolverines had a great showing so hopefully they can build on it at the NCAA tournament and into next year.
Logan Stieber at #141 won his 4th title for OSU as WD mentioned and he will also be going for his 4th NCAA title in 2 weeks. An incredible accomplishment regardless of the school.
Forgive my ignorance. I enjoy watching meets when they are TV but it seems like the same teams always are on top. Looks like sports such as men's gymnastics and other male Olympic sports have taken hits because of title 9. I know wrestling is big from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, but wonder how many top programs are in other geographic areas such as SEC south or PAc 10/ west coast??
Of the 65 major football schools, there are 14 in the Big Ten, 6 in the ACC, 4 in the Big Twelve, 3 in the Pac 12 and 1 in the SEC that sponsor wrestling, for a total of 28 "majors."
Also, there are 6 Ivy League schools and 17 others in the East (Maryland & north), including Army and Navy.
There are 8 other schools in the Southeast, and 8 other schools in traditional Big Ten states (CMU, Cleveland State, EMU, Kent St, Northern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Ohio, SIU Edwardsville). The remaining 9 are out west.
http://www.scholarshipstats.com/wrestling.html
the only SEC school on there is Missouri and the only Pac12 schools are Oregon State, Arizona State, and Stanford.
There are a few mistakes on that list. Boston University and Grand Canyon have dropped wrestling. On the other hand, Bloomsburg, Clarion, Edinboro, Franklin & Marshall and Lock Haven all compete at the Division I level in wrestling. So a total of 76.
2 and 4 were Abounader's and Pfarr's B1G tourney seeding, not national ranking. Watched it with my 8yo son, his first viewing, and I think he's hooked.
If he wants to give it a try you can sign him up for your local club team through Michigan Youth Wrestling Association. He can wrestle like 8 tournaments a year and get about 20-30 matches if he really wants to. Its a cool organization, just beware of crazy parents, I mean really crazy...
encourage him to not eat. There are a lot of ex really good high school wrestlers that are 5'5".
would never make a kid cut weight until HS. Even at my HS we don't make kids cut weight, I'd rather have them eating healthy so that they have enough energy to safely wrestle and think out on the mat. Don't get me wrong, I strongly recommend certain kids get to certain weights if they want to be competitive. But no kid should ever cut weight before HS.