The ILLINI B1G Tournament Preview (Vol. 3)

This portion of the preview will look at the NCAA tournament qualification process for the ILLINI who will have to do more than shake hands at the conference tournament to get into the Big Dance. These folks are Maximo Renteria, Mikey Carr, Jake Harrier and Matt Wroblewski. 

Everybody else, I believe, can shake hands for their first match, wave to the crowd, forfeit out, and get a ticket for NCAAs. That includes Dylan Connell, who has a #22 Coaches' ranking and a #23 RPI. Both of Danny Pucino's final rankings sit at #24. 

So, let's look at who Maximo, Mikey, Jake and WroboCop have to beat to get where they want to go. There will be brackets for the other wrestlers, and all of these brackets are from Black Shoe Diaries, the writers of which, are the only non-awful people in Pennsylvania (besides the Ruths and Carrs). 

125.  MAXIMO RENTERIA

Our guy from Cali has an assignment due this weekend: Make the Big Dance. He will need some wins, as the conference is only getting nine bids at this weight, and he has no chance to receive an at large or wildcard allotment. 

HIS PATHWAYS

1.  Beat Matt Ramos and the Michael DeAugustino/Gary Steen winner. Whatever he does after that, it doesn't matter, as he will be in the NCAA tournament and have a placement in the B1G tournament. This is not outside the realm of possibility, as Maximo lost by the score of 2-3 to Ramos during the dual, and besides having a pin over DeAugustino (not called by the ref), he was right there with him in the third period. 

2.  Lose to Ramos and win a couple of matches in the wrestlebacks. A loss to Ramos, and Maximo would face the loser of DeAugustino/Steen. A win over Steen, and he would likely face the loser of Eric Barnett/Patrick McKee. He would still need a win in his next match to place. 

3.  Beat Ramos and lose to DeAugustino in the second round. His first wrestleback would probably be against the winner of a Lujan/Moran match. He would also have to win the next match to place. 

4.  The Ninth-Place Bracket. The most likely scenario is that Maximo will have to win the ninth-place bracket. This is how that sets up:

This bracket contains every wrestler not in a placement match (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th) in the tournament. If Maximo is in this bracket, we know where he will be as the 14th seed. He will be in that 1002 pairing with the third highest seed in this bracket. 

Last year, Cardani won this bracket, but he didn't get an NCAA bid because the B1G didn't get enough allocations at this weight. Also, #2 seed Drew Hildebrandt of PSU was in this ninth-place bracket but MFFed to Cardani. 

The most likely wrestlers fighting it out in the bracket will be Steen, Moran, Lujan, Maximo, Medley and Peterson. Win it, and the ILLINI goes to the NCAAs. 

149.  JAKE HARRIER

The ILLINI has shown a lot of fight this year as an under-sized 149-pounder. As the #12 seed, he'll have a difficult assignment in the first round with Shayne Van Ness of PSU. The Lion has four losses on the season against fifteen wins, but those losses have all come to top ten wrestlers (Gomez, Sasso, Johnson and Murin). Recently, he's begun to score bonus against good wrestlers like Graham Rooks of Indiana and Ethen Miller of Maryland. 

A loss to Van Ness would mean a likely rematch with Peyton Omania. That's fine for Jake, as he beat him to help the ILLINI win the MSU dual. Another win over Omania, and the kid in the Orange and Blue singlet would get either Michael Blockhus of Minnesota or Yahya Thomas of Northwestern. 

Jake lost in duals 3-7 to Thomas and 4-14 to Blockhus. 

With the conference receiving nine automatic slots into the NCAA tournament, it is likely that the ninth-place bracket will include Harrier, Reynolds of Purdue, Omania of MSU, Morton of Nebraska, White of Rutgers and one of Lamer (Mich), Miller (MD) or Rooks (Ind). To earn a bid to the NCAA tournament, Jake will likely have to win that ninth-place bracket. 

He has beaten Omania and Reynolds and received a forfeit against Nebraska--Morton didn't wrestle. He hasn't faced White, Lamer or Rooks. Ethen Miller of Maryland has bonused Jake twice, so we don't want him in this last-chance bracket. 

157.  MIKEY CARR

Mikey Carr was screwed on the seed, and I hope that he wrestles the wrestlers being coached by the coaches that screwed him. Serves them right! With a 4-0 record and no Coaches' rank or RPI, he will need to finish top ten at the weight. 

In other words, he needs to steal an allocation spot. 

Since all of the other wrestlers at this weight are ranked, that shouldn't be a problem for them, although Maryland's North at 31 in the rankings is very much on the bubble. 

Wrestlestat.com predicts a 7-4 win for Carr, and I can dig that. Gilcher is quick and strong and much better than the usual #10 seed, but he does tend to lose to wrestlers ranked as high as Mikey is. Gilcher's record is 18-10 against Division One wrestlers. 

Get past Gilcher, and it will be a matchup with a fully-rested Levi Haines of PSU. Luckily, Carr has had luck against highly-ranked Lions at the BTT:

Wrestlestat.com is calling for a 9-4 win for Haines, which I do not see. They are 4-0 and 3-0 against common opponents, and, for example, Haines had a one-point win over Iowa's Cobe Seibrecht, while Carr beat the Hawkeye by five. 

The future Doctor Carr did seem to gas in his last two matches, and he will face opponents like Gilcher and Haines who will not. So, that should be priority number one for the ILLINI. 

285.  MATT WROBLEWSKI

The big guy in the middle for YOUR Fighting ILLINI actually has about the best possible draw for a 13th seed. In his first match, he faces Lucas Davison of Northwestern. A formidable foe, for sure, but he has been competitive in the two matches against him, losing 2-6 and 0-5. The most recent of those is the four-point loss at the dual. Pull off an upset here, and he would likely face Trent Hilger. WroboCop lost 0-3 to him. 

The most likely scenario is a loss in the first round to Davison (Matt is 0-4 against the Davison brothers), and a match with Ryan Vasbinder of MSU in the first round of wrestlebacks. The ILLINI has lost four matches to Vasbinder, the latest a 0-1 decision. All of them have been close.

What those scores tell you is that Polish Power really, really needs to find some offense if he wants to earn an NCAA bid. 

The ninth-place bracket, which Wroblewski will have to win to get that bid, will likely include the following: Wroblewski, Vasbinder, Emerson of Nebraska, Joles of Minnesota, Copass of Purdue and either Smith from Maryland or Bullock from Indiana. 

Matt lost to Joles 3-6 this year, although he beat him in SV at 197 the year before. He's 0-4 against Vasbinder, but close, and 0-1 against the Freshman Copass from Purdue, losing 0-1. Wroblewski is 0-2 against Jaron Smith of Maryland, with the last loss by the score of 0-2. He hasn't wrestled Bullock or Nebraska's Emerson, who is 0-2 against D1 wrestlers this season. 

The ILLINI will need to find at least one takedown in each of his ninth-place bracket to find his way to Tulsa. 

133.  LUCAS BYRD

Byrd is 15-2 against common opponents of his first-round foe, Jackson Cockrell, who is 0-9. Cockrell has been pinned twice by Northwestern's Chris Cannon and once by Nebraska's Boo Dryden. Lucas Byrd is 6-0 against those guys. Cockrell is 1-5 on the season, and has been out with an injury since the Southern Scuffle. 

He hasn't seen either of his possible second-round opponents either. But he's more concerned with winning the whole thing. 

141.  DANNY PUCINO

Danny Pucino got the #6 seed instead of the #4 seed that he deserved. In another mysterious move, the coaches gave that #4 seed to Frankie Tal Shahar, who the ILLINI beat, and who DUCKED his last dual against Purdue's Parker Filius. Totally bogus, man. 

As the #6 seed, Danny will face Joseph Zargo of Wisconsin in the first round. Zargo is 9-10 on the year, and is on a five-match losing streak. Those five matches were mostly against top ten wrestlers, though. He wrestled up a weight against ILLINOIS and came away with a 9-7 win over Jake Harrier. He's very strong, so Pucino will need to use his technique and quickness against him. 

165.  DANNY BRAUNAGEL

The ILLINI has faced injuries again this year, with the latest being a progressively larger wrap on his hand until he missed the last dual against Iowa State. The time off was likely for recuperative purposes, but I have no insider knowledge about that. 

His first round opponent is Andrew Sparks of Minnesota, whose record against D1 wrestlers is actually 12-7. It seems that the Gopher has also been injured, as he hasn't wrestled in almost six weeks. Little Brawny lost to Cael Carlson at the Minnesota dual. 

174.  EDMOND RUTH

The ILLINI will face a familiar foe in the first round in Dominic Solis of Maryland (10-12). Edmond beat him 2-0 in the dual, controlling the whole match. Solis has never beaten a wrestler as highly ranked as Ruth, but he has beaten one fellow in each of the last two years in the low-twenties: A tough Luca Augustine of Pitt (3-1; SV) and Gerrit Nijenhuis of Oklahoma (3-1). 

As you can see, Solis will want to keep it close and hope and pray at the end. 

Win that match, and we'll likely see Ruth-O'Reilly II, and I'm betting on the ILLINI in that one. He's too quick to lose to the Gopher again. Then, we get to see some fireworks against Starocci. That'll be an interesting match! 

184.  DYLAN CONNELL

This weight was a seeding dream. Before the seeds came out, I knew that Dylan would face Rutger's Soldano in the first round. This is what I wrote in Volume 1 of the B1G Tournament Preview:

"The way the dual records sorted out, Dylan Connell is looking at a nine seed and Soldano the eight. Throw in Pinto, and you have the nucleus of a great weight in the conference for years to come. As for the Connell versus Soldano matchup, they've already met this year at the Midlands. 

It was Soldano who emerged the 5-2 winner. In my mind, though, it was Connell who emerged as a new wrestler at and after that tournament. That's when the young ILLINI started to believe. The last stretch of matches has been rough on both of them, though, with Dylan going 0-4, while Soldano has been 2-4. 

Whoever wins the match will face a fresh Aaron Brooks in the second round, and that's not a happy thing."

That all remains the same. The only thing different is that the final RPI and Coaches' Ranking came out, and Dylan is not in the gray area. He has solid numbers in both those categories. 

197. ZAC BRAUNAGEL

The ILLINI has a popsicle in the first round in Filpovich of Purdue. Zac came within a whisker of teching him in the dual. The real battles start after that, with the ILLINI likely to meet wrestlers to whom he has lost in the next two rounds: Smith of Maryland and Allred of Nebraska. 

He has the talent and momentum to beat them both and top it off with a win against Max Dean.