OSU Wrestling: Big 12 Releases Championship Brackets

The brackets are here.

The Big 12 Wrestling Championship is Saturday and Sunday in Tulsa. The conference on Monday released seeding and individual brackets for the tournament. You can see all the brackets here.

Daton Fix was the only Oklahoma State wrestler to earn a top seed at 133 pounds. Iowa State, Missouri and South Dakota State each earned a pair of No. 1 seeds apiece to lead the conference, paving the way for what looks to be a tight team race at BOK Center.

Fix already has four individual conference titles on his resume and is 13-0 this season. He and Iowa State’s David Carr will look to become the Big 12’s first five-time conference champion. Fix has also earned the top seed at 133 every season he’s competed in the tournament.

Fix will be matched up with North Dakota State’s Fernando Barreto in the first round before facing No. 8 Garrett Ricks of Wyoming in the quarterfinals with a win.

Troy Spratley (125), Tagen Jamison (141) and Dustin Plott (184) all earned No. 2 seeds, predicting the Cowboys to have four finalists including Fix. This weekend will be Spratley and Jamison’s first postseason action, and both have already beaten the top seed at their respective weight.

Plott is a two-time Big 12 champion at 174 pounds. Plott moved up a weight at the start of this season, so he now shares a bracket with defending national champion Parker Keckeisen of Northern Iowa. Keckeisen beat Plott 12-6 earlier this season in a dual at Gallagher-Iba Arena for Plott’s second loss of the season. Plott has won six straight since and leads the Cowboys with 23 wins this season.

Izzak Olejnik gets a gauntlet in the 165-pound bracket. Despite being 21-4 this season, Olejnik is still just the fourth seed. Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole, who has won back-to-back NCAA titles, is the top seed ahead of Iowa State’s David Carr, who lost to O’Toole in last year’s NCAA final. West Virginia’s Peyton Hall got the No. 3 seed. The three wrestlers seeded ahead of Olejnik are each responsible for one of his three losses.

Like Olejnik, Jordan Williams also got a fourth seed at 149 pounds. Teague Travis and Brayden Thompson earned three seeds at 157 and 174 pounds, respectively. Konner Doucet finishes things for the Cowboys with the fifth seed at heavyweight, while 197-pounder Luke Surber is the lowest-seeded Cowboy at No. 7.

With Surber being the Cowboys’ lowest-seeded wrestler at No. 7, though, OSU and Mizzou are the only teams with their entire lineup earning seeds inside the top eight.

The Tigers have won the past two Big 12 titles, which ended the Cowboys’ nine-year streak of winning at least a share of the conference championship. And the last team to win the Big 12 before OSU’s run? Missouri.

Iowa State and Nebraska tying for the 2009 Big 12 title was the last time a program other than OSU or Mizzou won the conference.