Big 12 Conference Releases Wrestling Tournament Brackets

On Wednesday, the Big 12 released brackets for this weekend’s conference tournament and the seeding was favorable, at least for several Cowboys.

Big_12_Brackets_2022.pdf

Oklahoma State grabbed the No. 1 seed at three different weight classes with Daton Fix at 133, Kaden Gfeller at 149 and Dustin Plott at 174.

Here are the seedings for the entire team:

• 125 — Trevor Mastrogiovanni (4)
• 133 — Daton Fix (1)
• 141 — Carter Young (5)
• 149 — Kaden Gfeller (1)
• 157 — Wyatt Sheets (3)
• 165 — Travis Wittlake (4)
• 174 — Dustin Plott (1)
• 184 — Dakota Geer (4)
• 197 — Gavin Stika (Unseeded)
• 285 — Luke Surber (7)

At a quick glance, I like the draws for Trevor Mastrogiovanni, Carter Young, and Luke Surber.

Mastrogiovanni was a little banged up through a stretch of the season, which led to some losses and hurt his seed a bit. But before that he was looking really strong this year. If he can get off bottom, I think he has a chance to upset his way into the finals.

The Big 12 gets seven automatic bids at 141 for the NCAA tournament. Carter Young just needs to win two matches to secure one of those bids. I like his odds in the 4-5 seed match in the quarterfinals vs. Allan Hart. If he can get a win there, he’s going to the NCAA tournament and he will also give OSU a huge boost in the team race.

With Luke Surber at the No. 7 seed he gets a tough one out of the gate with Tyrell Gordon, but if he can win there he’ll have the No. 2 seed Zach Elam that beat him in the dual vs. Missouri. Elam pinned Surber in the dual, but it was one of those wild exchanges where Surber got the first takedown then later after putting Elam on his back was rolled through and pinned. Elam is good, but he’s a smaller heavyweight. If Surber can avoid anything wild like last time, he has a chance to pull the upset here and take over the No. 2 seed path to the finals. It’s not that Surber has some easy path, but he does have a navigable one that I’m really intrigued to watch play out.

This is one of the first Big 12 Tournaments in a while that the Cowboys haven’t came into as heavy favorites. It will be an interesting one to watch play out.

The preliminary matches will all be on ESPN+ with the finals on ESPN2.

2021 Big 12 Wrestling Championship Schedule
Saturday, March 5
Session 1: Preliminary & Quarterfinal Matches — 11:00 a.m. CT
Session 2: Semifinal & Consolation Quarterfinal Matches — 5:00 p.m. CT

Sunday, March 6
Session 3: Consolation Semifinals, Third, Fifth & Seventh Place Matches — 12:00 p.m. CT
Session 4: Championship Matches — 7:00 p.m. CT