THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

In this portion of our coverage of the ILLINI in the 2023 NCAA Wrestling tournament, we will take a deeper dive into the Brawlnagel brackets, publish their hype videos, and start a seeding discussion entitled: "Byrd v. Orine." We'll start with Danny's bracket: 165  DANNY BRAUNAGEL This discussion is divided into two parts. Part One looks at what we've already discussed in a previous post: Danny Braunagel's first-round match against West Virginia's Peyton Hall. Part Two determines what possible outcomes can happen after that. If you've already read Part One, you can skip to Part Two.  Part One As the 19th seed, Little Braunagel will face the 14th-seeded Peyton Hall of West Virginia in the first round. On wrestlestat.com, the Mountaineer gets a lot of love as the #8 wrestler, while Brawny is undervalued at #31.  Yet, it is the ILLINI who holds the head-to-head win over his rival.  That Braunagel win happened at the Midlands by the score of 7-6. A word of...

WHAT:   NCAA Wrestling Championships WHEN:   Thursday, March 16, Session 1 starts at 11:00 am (Central) FULL SCHEDULE WHERE:   The Bok Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma  WHY:   Dominate Division One Wrestling WHO:   Lucas Byrd, Danny Braunagel, Edmond Ruth, Dylan Connell & Zac Braunagel TICKETS:   $25 to $350 (each) TV/STREAMING:   ESPNU (Morning coverage) ESPN (Evening coverage) ESPN+ ( Streaming ) THE ILLINI TEAM Five ILLINI will be wrestling in the NCAA Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They have a combined record of 118-44. Represented are two All American honors (Lucas Byrd) and two Honorable Mention All Americans (Danny and Zac Braunagel) and a Round of 12 (Zac Braunagel).  Of the 118 wins, 43 included at least one bonus point. That's a 36.44% bonus rate.  This is Zac Braunagel's fourth year qualifying for the Big Party and Danny Braunagel's third. Little Brawny was injured last season. Lucas Byrd has been to the NCAA tournament twice, ...

Congratulations to our winners in the B1G Tournament Prop Bet Contest!  We had entries on Twitter, on Intermatforums.com, at ILLINOISMatmen.com and in DMs. First prize and two ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond t-shirts go to Significant ACC Bias on Twitter (nine correct answers and did a slightly better job on the team standings).  Second prizes and one t-shirt apiece are hereby awarded to every poster who got at least eight of the prop bets right. These include: FSL ILLINI (9 correct answers but sucked at the team race, ya homer), Ionel on Intermat (9 correct answers but didn't have a tie breaker with team standings), Mr. PeanutButter on Intermat (8 correct answers, got first four teams right in team standings) and Fighting Scot on ILLINOISMatmen (8 correct answers but did a brilliant job on the team race).  A reminder of what the prop bets were: 1.  Spencer Lee will get a first-period pinfall in his first match at the 2023 B1G tournament (No, he did not.) ...

GOING TO THE BIG DANCE!   We have ILLINI Wrestlers going to the Big Dance. Five qualified automatically, and we’ll have to hope for a wild card bid for a sixth. Here are your ILLINOIS NCAA Championship wrestlers:   LUCAS BYRD The Wyrd led the ILLINI again with a third-place finish. If it hadn’t been for the “Gopher Choker”—yes I’m going to start calling Aaron Nagao the Gopher Choker—it would’ve been even better. Also, interesting to me and perhaps nobody else, Lucas Byrd finished third, while Ohio State’s Jesse Mendez, the two seed, finished sixth. This isn’t hindsight is 20/20; no, this is knowing that Lucas Byrd is a proven commodity, a warrior who has been there, done that. We still didn’t get the Byrd-RBY match that the universe demands. Byrd started out with a pinfall in 4:12 over Jackson Cockrell of Maryland. He then lost to the referee who allowed the Gopher Choker to avoid contact for seven minutes while employing his choke ride and using a front headlock...

Suitable for framing, this giant wallpaper is made with care and pride by our staff right here in the USA! We bet you can search the globe and not find a better Guardians of the Galaxy-related ILLINI Wrestling poster!  GO ILLINI!!! And don't forget ILLINI Summer Camps! So you can plan ahead:

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 getti...