Early Hints at an ILLINI Wrestling Schedule

HINTS AT A SCHEDULE

If you go to wrestlestat.com, you can see that the site already has the ILLINI with a dual against Buffalo on November 18, 2022. Our good friend Jay has found out additional information. This is a screengrab from the Buffalo Wrestling website:

At the Buffalo website, you can see that the dual with the Bulls is part of the Journeyman Classic dual tournament. Additional teams known to be entered into the Journeyman Classic include Iowa, LIU and Oklahoma. There are others, of course, but that's what has been found so far. 

I doubt that the ILLINI will dual with Iowa on November 18. Rather, there's probably going to be pools of teams in a warmer climate city sometime later. Hopefully that city is Myrtle Beach. 

A premiere dual will take place in February against Iowa State. Here's the snippet that Jay found:

Wow! That's a premium dual in the middle of conference season. This suggests that the ILLINI know their Big Ten schedule. It also suggests that Iowa State will have a tough stretch in the Big 12 with two conference foes sandwiched around the Orange & Blue: Northern Iowa, then ILLINOIS and finally Missouri. 

That is by far the toughest three-dual run on the Cyclone schedule. 

THE MATCHUPS

As far as matchups, the Buffalo Bulls have wrestlers ranked at #57 at 125 and 149. Their star is at 157, a two-time national qualifier ranked at #27 by wrestlestat.com. This will be his fourth year starting for the Bulls. Finally, they have good wrestlers at 165 (three-year starter; #60), and at 174 (NQ as a redshirt freshman last year; #37). 

Iowa State finished 15-1 in duals last season. Everybody on their roster is ranked in the top fifty except for 141 and 149. They appear to be holes in the lineup. Check that: Casey Swiderski is a high-level recruit, so he's getting the standard #180 ranking from the algorithm at 141. He's certainly much better than that!

David Carr at 157 is their beast, while Marcus Coleman at 184 was also an AA last year. That sets up a showdown with Zac Braunagel, who beat him in the NCAA tournament. Yonger Bastida is another AA in their lineup, having finished 5th at 197.