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Seven Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s Third-Place Finish at the NCAA Championships

What a night.

Published

1 year ago

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[Devin Wilber/PFB]

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For the first time since 2016, the Cowboys have a pair of national champions, and the first season of the David Taylor era finished with one of the greatest matches in college wrestling’s history.

Oklahoma State finished third at the NCAA Championships while Dean Hamiti and Wyatt Hendrickson won individual titles.

Here are seven thoughts on the weekend, the season and OSU wrestling under Taylor.

1. Wyatt Hendrickson Provides an All-Time Moment

I’m not going to act like I’m some grandiose wrestling historian, but the talk on wrestling Twitter is that Wyatt Hendrickson’s win against Gable Steveson in the heavyweight final might be the biggest upset in the sport’s history.

Steveson won gold at the Tokyo Olympics. He was en route to his third national title, a Hodge Trophy and a place on the Mount Rushmore of college wrestling. He might still be in the Rushmore discussion, but Hendrickson took Steveson down late in the third period and sent Wells Fargo Center into pandemonium.

I’ve probably watched that clip 200 times since it happened.

It was straight out of a movie from start to finish.

Steveson walked out to “Big Poppa.” Most guys just trot straight toward the mat, but Steveson turned around and looked at the crowd, soaking it all in. Hendrickson, a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force, trotted to the mat draped in an American flag. When the Cowboy got to the mat, Steveson was chirping at him a little bit. It was a WWE match — a baby face vs. a heel. Then with how the match played out — the late, go-ahead takedown — you couldn’t have scripted it better. It was Rocky but real life.

“That was crazy,” Taylor said. “I just think this is a sport where everyone’s got a chance. You just gotta believe. You gotta believe. It’s easy to get caught up in what you can and what you can’t do. Wyatt believed.

“Honestly, not one time this year did we talk about wrestling Gable. From the moment he got there, it was just, ‘Let’s just become a better wrestler.'”

If you’re an OSU fan who now highly dislikes Steveson after the prematch chatter, you should know Steveson looked supportive of Hendrickson on the podium.

“That was one of the greatest matches I’ve every seen in my entire life,” Taylor said. “It’s almost like surreal in the corner to think, ‘Hey, we have a chance here. We gotta chance here.’ Wyatt, he believed it. He came over. He essentially said, ‘I’m gonna get the takedown.’ Go get it.”

2. Dean Hamiti Is That Guy

Dean Hamiti got through a national champ in the semifinals and a two-time national champ in the finals to become the Cowboys’ first national champ since 2021.

Hamiti avenged his only loss of the season, beating Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole with a sudden-victory takedown. O’Toole beat Hamiti in sudden-victory in the Big 12 final.

That Big 12 final was huge for this weekend’s seedings. It was considered a three-contender weight among Hamiti, O’Toole and Penn State’s Levi Haines. O’Toole winning in Tulsa meant he got on the opposite side of the bracket from the other two. But Hamiti went superhuman and just beat them both.

The first period of Saturday’s final ended scoreless, but Hamiti spent a good portion of that period hopping on one leg, as O’Toole had his other. Hamiti used his length to fight off the would-be takedown. Hamiti had a called takedown in the third, but Missouri challenge it, and it was overturned. That honestly made his sudden-victory takedown all the more impressive that he was able to mentally reset and get back to work.

Hamiti rocked all season. He has a beautiful wrestling style. It’s art. And that style took him all the way to the top of the podium.

3. OSU Wrestling Is All the Way Back

This thought was written in a much more subtle way until Hendrickson beat Steveson. It’s time to say it with my chest: The Pokes are coming. College wrestling better look out.

A David Taylor-coached wrestler just beat an Olympic champion and a guy who is mentioned among the greatest of all time in the sport. Another David Taylor-coached wrestler beat a national champ in the semifinals and a two-time national champ in the finals. I bet if you get down to it, Taylor working with both of those guys every day went a long way in those wins.

Taylor’s Cowboys proved this weekend that if you go to Oklahoma State, you can win a national title, and it doesn’t matter who is standing on the other side of the mat from you. Taylor was getting elite recruits before this weekend (he has two top-three guys in the 2026 class committed), and now he has tangible proof that guys get better under him — much better.

There were four first-year transfers in OSU’s lineup this season — all of them finished better this weekend than they did last season.

Caleb Fish had never been an All-American. He is in his first year under Taylor.

Cameron Amine missed the podium last season. He finished eighth this weekend.

Dean Hamiti missed the podium last season and hadn’t finished better than sixth in his career. In one year with Taylor, he won a national title.

Wyatt Hendrickson had two third-place finishes on his resume. He beat an Olympic gold medalist in the final. Like Hamiti, he beat a national champ in the semis and a two-time national champ in the final.

So, there’s your portal pitch. It’s also a pitch to high schoolers. Think of what Taylor could do with a guy in four or five years instead of one.

OSU wrestling is back.

“We talked about Oklahoma State being a sleeping giant, and now we’re inserted right back in the conversation. When I got here people say, ‘Well, maybe you’ll win down the road. Maybe one day you can win.’ No. We wanted to win this year. I thought we’d win this year. I’m never gonna settle for something less than that. …

“We’re just at the beginning. I haven’t been here for a year yet. We’re going against programs, these guys have been here 15 years. We don’t even have a recruiting class yet. It’s exciting. You gotta keep going. Gotta keep building, gotta keep innovating. Just the beginning.”

4. Spratley Drops a Tight Finals Bout

With the gravity of these finals matches, they can tend to get a little tight with neither guy wanting to make a match-deciding mistake. That’s how Troy Spratley’s final against NC State’s Vincent Robinson felt, as Robinson beat the Cowboy 2-1 in tiebreakers.

The only points scored in regulation were escapes, and then no one scored in sudden-victory. Robinson started tiebreakers in the bottom position and twisted out from under Spratley in just three seconds. Instead of taking a crack at a two-second escape, Spratley chose neutral in the next frame, and while he was able to push Robinson to a stall warning, Spratley couldn’t get a match-winning takedown.

The match felt similar Spratley’s semifinal against Virginia Tech’s Eddie Ventresca, except in that match after a quick Ventrasca escape, Spratley was able to pounce on the Hokie and get a quick takedown.

It was a tough result for Spratley, but he wrestled great this weekend, and he’s only a redshirt sophomore.

5. Taylor Gets a New Perspective of the Back Side of the Bracket

In some ways, this was weekend was David Taylor’s first time competing in the blood round — the consolation round where guys earn All-American honors.

Taylor never experienced the consolation side of a national tournament as a wrestler, as he made the finals in all four of his seasons competing. But he had three wrestlers competing in Friday night’s blood round, where the Cowboys went 2-1. Caleb fish and Cameron Amine earned spots on the podium. Tagen Jamison fell just short.

“Shoot, man, I’ve never wrestled in a blood round before,” Taylor said Friday night. “I’ve watched it, obviously, with the teams that I’ve been on, and I know the emotion. But, like, being on the floor with the emotion of it, it’s just good to have a better understanding of that. Understanding that it’s much better for our guys to not be there because it’s a tough round to win in. It’s easier to stay on the front side of the bracket. Just gets crazy back there.”

6. Teague Travis ‘a Freaking Warrior’

Teague Travis might’ve not gotten on the podium this season, but he should be cemented in the hearts of the Cowboy faithful.

To even get to this tournament, Travis suffered a knee injury in his second match of the season. He was set to medically redshirt, but he kept working and jumped at an opportunity to go down in weight and wrestle at 149 pounds for the Cowboys at the Big 12 tournament. Because he had so few matches, he needed to finish in the top four in Tulsa or his season would end and they’d essentially waste a year. Travis finished fourth.

Because of the limited number of matches, Travis was given the 33 seed — the worst seed in the bracket. He won his prelim match before dropping a bout to top-seeded Caleb Henson and starting his run in consolations. He won two matches on the backside (both via bonus points) before suffering an injury to his other knee in a match he would go onto lose. He finished two wins short of the podium.

His eye was blackened and swollen shut, he had two bum knees, he chipped a tooth, and it was all to help his team.

“Teague’s a tough son of a gun,” Taylor said Friday night. “… The hunger and the way he competed here, that’s what we hoped that we would see. Dude’s a freaking warrior. His eye was black the very first day. I went to dap him up, and he’s missing me. I’m like, ‘Are you messing with me?’ He’s like, ‘No, I just can’t see.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK,’ so I’m trying to get on the other side of his eye. He was battling — knees are all banged up. …

“Just give him a hug. We just told him how proud we are of him and just thanked him. Think about how do you want Oklahoma State wrestling to be represented, and that’s the kind of wrestling that we take a lot of pride in.”

7. Good for Caleb Fish

The other side of that early season Travis injury, Fish got his shot when Travis went down.

A senior transfer from Michigan State, Fish was set to redshirt this season at 165 pounds, but when Travis got injured at 157, he jumped down and chose to use his final season of eligibility.

Fish had never made the podium coming into this season, but he beat former teammate Chase Saladate in the blood round to get the job done.

“I think when you look back down the road, Fish will be one of those guys who will always have a place in our heart because he’s just the best kid,” Taylor said Friday night. “He’s just caring, loving, works super hard. Is one of those guys who’s gonna do whatever you ask him to do. You don’t have to ask him twice. …

“Caleb is awesome.”

Top 10 Team Standings

Team Points
1 Penn State 177
2 Nebraska 117
3 Oklahoma State 102.5
4 Iowa 81
5 Minnesota 51.5
5 Ohio State 51.5
7 Cornell 50
8 NC State 46.5
9 Northern Iowa 45.5
10 Illinois 44.5

OSU’s Placements

125 — Troy Spratley, 2nd
141 — Tagen Jamison, DNP
149 — Teague Travis, DNP
157 — Caleb Fish, 8th
165 — Cameron Amine, 8th
174 — Dean Hamiti, 1st
184 — Dustin Plott, 4th
197 — Luke Surber, DNP
HWT — Wyatt Hendrickson, 1st

More on the NCAA Championships

MATCH-BY-MATCH UPDATES
FIVE THOUGHTS ON DAY 1
FIVE THOUGHTS ON DAY 2

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