Ok, 125, 133, and 141 are done, here we go with 149 lbs where the weight is a little more dynamic this season.
Conference Champion Predictions
Big Ten – Sammy Sasso (Ohio State)
Big 12 – Brock Mauller (Missouri)
ACC – Tariq Wilson (NC State)
PAC-12 – Kyle Parco (Arizona St)
EIWA – Yanni Diakomihalis (Cornell)
MAC – Brent Moore (Cclarion)
SoCon – Josh Heil (Campbell)
All-American Predictions
1. Yanni Diakomihalis (Cornell)
2. Sammy Sasso (Ohio State)
3. Brock Mauller (Missouri)
4. Tariq Wilson (NC State)
5. Kyle Parco (Arizona St)
6. Austin Gomez (Wisconsin)
7. Josh Heil (Campbell)
8. Yayha Thomas (Northwestern)
Round of 12
- Bryce Andonian (Virginia Tech)
- Ridge Lovett (Nebraska)
- Max Murin (Iowa)
- John Millner (App State)
Yanni Diakomihalis
So after spending the last 2 years sitting on the sidelines with consecutive Olympic Redshirts. Yanni returns to claim his 3rd National Title at his second weight. The move up I think makes him a little more comfortable and he will be doing a lot less of cutting and more maintaining during the season, I assume. Look, I do not know who does not realize this yet, but Yanni Diakomihalis is a top 3 P4P wrestler in college wrestling and I do not see anyone realistically beating him. Now with taking 2 years off there might be some early season rust, but that will be shaken off by December. His opponent in the finals, I believe, will be Sammy Sasso. If you wanted to replace Sasso with Wilson or Mauller. I would not argue with you but I think Sasso is a good number 2 at this weight with Diakomihalis in it.The finals matchup will be close and if Diakomihalis hits Mauller in the Semi-Finals, that could be a very difficult match. I will take Diakomihalis by a takedown in this matchup.
Round of 12
Matchups:
- Austin Gomez vs Bryce Andonian
- Josh Heil vs Ridge Lovett
- Yahya Thomas vs Max Murin
- Kyle Parco vs John Millner
Ok so these blood round matches can go either way but I think they will shake out in this way. In the first match we have Gomez vs Andonian. Gomez will be falling from a Quarterfinal loss to Brock Mauller and Andonian losses early on. Gomez, I believe, will eek this one out in tiebreakers. I think both wrestlers have the opportunity to be All-Americans and it is a toss up. We jump to Heil vs Lovett and this is another one that comes down to the final seconds. Heil will drop down from an early loss to a good opponent, possibly controversial, and Lovett drops from a Quarterfinals loss to Diakomihalis. This has the potential to be a high scoring affair with possibly 30 plus points combined when it is all said and done. I am taking Heil in this match and I pick it because I think he will be determined to All-American, especially off of what happened last year.
Thomas vs Murin is probably a Big Ten Quarterfinal rematch, and it goes down in the blood rounds in Detroit. Thomas had an incredible run last season to nab an All-American spot and I think he drops from a Quarterfinal loss to Sasso. Murin will fall early and I am going off of trends here but will battle back to get within one match of being an All-American. I give Thomas the edge in this one and I think Murin’s loss will weigh heavily in the team race. Next matchup is Parco vs Millner. Millner in my eyes is a first round exit that catches fire in the consolations and Parco suffers a Quarterfinal loss to Wilson. I like Parco to cool of Millner’s hot streak and compete for a medal.
All-Americans
Now that the blood rounds are out of the way, let’s discuss how the All-American’s will shake out. First matchup is Gomez vs Heil and I think Gomez takes this one. Next is Thomas vs Parco and I am going with the “upset” if you want to call it that and Parco moves on. Gomez will probably be taking on Tariq Wilson in the Consi-Semi’s off of a Sammy Sasso defeat. Wilson comes back the next morning takes care of business. Parco will have to face Mauller and I go with Mauller to move on. So medal matches are set, and for 7th we see Heil vs Thomas and I am going with Heil in this one. Saturday moring is all about who has the better gas tanking especially if you had to wrestler 4 matches on Friday and I think Heil will have more in the tank. For 5th we see Gomez vs Parco and I think Parco takes this one. Parco is an interesting wrestler here because he faced some great competition at NCAA’s last season and held his own. I think he does better than holding his own this year. For 3rd we get a cool matchup between Wilson and Mauller. This will be about the best medal match of the day and I give a slight edge to Mauller, but I would not be surprised if it goes the other way.
Wrap-Up
Ok, so the top 4 in this weight, I think are easily identifiable with Diakomihalis, Sasso, Mauller, and Wilson. But, the rest of the weight is very competitive and anyone has the possibility to pull off upsets. My thinking for this weight is, as long as it is seeded correctly, there should not be a 24 seed in the Quarterfinals but who knows. Couple names to keep an eye on here for growth from last year and it is Beau Bartlett (Penn State), Jarod Verkleeren (Virginia), Luke Karam (West Virginia), and Legend Lamer (Cal Poly) can all be names that can have late season success with better growth from last year. Thanks for reading this preview and look out for the 149 lb preview coming out soon.