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Nebraska Chasing School History At NCAA Wrestling Championships
Nebraska is positioned to make program history at the NCAA Wrestling Championships, where the Huskers are after their fifth team trophy.
Mar 18, 2024 by Dylan Guenther
Nebraska is fresh off a third-place finish at the Big Ten Championships and heads into this week’s NCAA tournament as one of the favorites to earn a team trophy. Led by Big Ten champion Ridge Lovett at 149 pounds, Nebraska saw nine of its wrestlers place at Big Tens. The Huskers had a trio of third-placers in Peyton Robb (157), Lenny Pinto (184) and Silas Allred (197).
Redshirt freshman Jacob Van Dee finished fourth at 133, while Brock Hardy (141) and Antrell Taylor (165) both finished fifth. Football player-turned-wrestler Nash Hutmacher finished sixth at 285 to qualify for NCAAs, while Caleb Smith finished eighth at 125. The lone Husker starter that didn’t receive a spot at NCAAs was Bubba Wilson at 174. Ranked #18 in the country, Wilson is the highest-ranked guy at any weight to not receive an NCAA qualification. The next highest-ranked non-qualifier was #22 Vincent Santaniello of Pitt at 133.
Now that there are only three team trophies instead of four, the margin for error has eroded even further. Nebraska has finished as high as third at NCAAs just once — in 1993. The Huskers also took home team trophies for fourth place in 1984, 2008 and 2009.
Based on the seeds, Nebraska is projected to finish third behind Penn State and NC State. With 58 projected points, Nebraska is followed closely by Lehigh (57), Oklahoma State (55), Iowa State (53.5), Arizona State and Cornell (52 each) and Iowa (49.5). There is a pool of up to 12 teams that have a realistic chance to finish in the two spots behind Penn State, so nothing is guaranteed, but Nebraska has as good a chance as anyone this year.
Now, let’s see how this year’s Huskers got to a point where they’re in the trophy hunt. Top-ranked Ridge Lovett locked up the top seed at NCAAs with his 5-4 win over Michigan’s #5 Austin Gomez in the Big Ten final, his second win over the Wolverine this year. Lovett is 24-1 this season with 14 bonus-point wins, including a team-leading seven pins. Lovett has recorded 47 takedowns this year and given up just seven to pace the team. “Great work by him,” Nebraska coach Mark Manning said of Lovett’s conference tournament. “Obviously, Austin Gomez is a tough competitor and obviously a really good wrestler – he just won (an Olympic qualifying spot for Mexico at) Pan-Ams. Ridge is special. It’s not an easy road to win a championship and he showed a lot of mental toughness.”
At Big Tens, Lovett was dealing with a hand injury. According to Manning, Lovett “crushed” his left hand recently — he had it heavily wrapped last weekend, but it’s been improving.  “It’s a lot better and getting better all the time, and we’re just padding it up and protecting it,” Manning said.
As for Allred, he’ll be the #10 seed at NCAAs after his third-place finish at Big Tens where he only lost to three-time national champ Aaron Brooks. In the third-place match, Allred had arguably the best win of his season when he downed then-#3 Jaxon Smith of Maryland 10-3. Allred leads Nebraska in both wins (24-6 record) and bonus-point wins with 17. He also leads the team with 88 takedowns on the year. … story at … Flowrestling.org/Nebraska-chasing-school-history-at-ncaa-wrestling-championships
And …

Wrestling: Nebraska in the Trophy Hunt Going into NCAA Championships
Nebraska qualified nine of its 10 starters with six Top-10 seeds, including 1-seed Ridge Lovett at 149 pounds
If you’re a wrestling fan, March is the best month of the year. With conference weekend behind us, we’re heading into the NCAA Championships this week starting Thursday morning in Kansas City.
The Huskers are one of a number of contenders that will challenge for a team trophy — after awarding team trophies to the top 4 each year previously, the NCAA will only be awarding trophies to the top 3 finishers this year and going forward.
Having only finished in the top-3 once in program history in 1993 (although they finished fourth twice in 2008 and 2009 and received team trophies), it goes without saying that this year’s team will have to put together a historic national tournament performance to get it done.
With nine qualifiers and six of them seeded in the top 10, the Huskers appear to have the firepower to contend for one of those two trophy spots behind the presumptive winner Penn State. The Nittany Lions are heavy favorites to win their third team title in a row and their 11th in their last 13 tries. In wrestling, Penn State is a dynasty right now and there’s no end in sight, so the rest of the field is really just wrestling for 2nd place and individual glory from their wrestlers.
Based on seeds, Penn State is projected to win the tournament with 131.5 points (doesn’t include potential bonus points adding to their total). NC State is projected to get second with 83. That’s a 48.5 point cushion between #1 and #2, which is likely to be even larger once bonus points are factored in. Nebraska is projected at third place with 58 points, while Lehigh (57), Oklahoma State (55), Iowa State (53.5), Arizona State (52), Cornell (52), Iowa (49.5), Virginia Tech (46) and Michigan (45.5) will all be in contention for a team trophy. The 3rd-ranked Huskers went an impressive 12-2 in their dual season this year. In tournaments, Nebraska was just as impressive with its second-place finish at the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas in early December. Then just over a week ago, the Huskers placed third at the Big Ten Championships behind just Penn State and Michigan. … story at … Cornnation.com/Nebraska-in-the-trophy-hunt-going-into-ncaa-championships

March 20, 2024 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized