Big 12 Upperweights: An Opening For Lujan & Adams Tops A Strong Class
Big 12 Upperweights: An Opening For Lujan & Adams Tops A Strong Class
Taylor Lujan and Noah Adams are looking strong in their respective weight classes.
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A few days ago I went over the lower weights for the Big 12 tournament. Here I’m going to make a quick rundown on 165-285. Let’s dive in.
165: Wittlake & Fogarty.
After coming down from 174 last season, redshirt freshman Travis Wittlake has put together an impressive year at 165. Wittlake has only taken two losses to Stanford’s Shane Griffith and Iowa’s Alex Marinelli and has beaten everyone the rest of the Big 12 has thrown at him to this point in the season.
He hasn’t matched up with North Dakota State’s Andrew Fogarty yet, though. Fogarty, a senior who is 19-3 with his only losses coming to top-20 opponents, has had a bit of a different path than Wittlake this season when it comes to wrestling the rest of the Big 12. In duals vs Air Force and South Dakota State, who have a few of the top 165s in the conference, Fogarty did not see their starters, and the Cowboys and the Bison did not have each other on the schedule this season. So it’s a bit of an unknown how some of his matchups will look this weekend and what he’ll do with guys like Randy Meneweather and Tanner Cook if/when he sees them in the early rounds of the tournament.
Those are the heavy favorites to receive the four bids from the conference. You could see them bumping around their spots within the top four a bit, and upsets do happen of course, but with the way the season has gone for the Big 12 at this weight class, this is one weight that it’s really hard to see anyone sneaking in and stealing a bid.
174: Joe Smith may have to steal a bid to make the NCAA tournament.
Over at Wrestling by Pirate, they broke down by name who earned each NCAA tournament allocation for each conference.
At 174 in the Big 12, those five spots were earned by Colbray, Steiert, Mantanona, Bastian, and Hastings. That means All-American Joe Smith will need to knock one of those guys out to receive an automatic bid. The obvious unknown is how this will be seeded. Smith beat both Colbray and Hastings during the regular season and lost to Steiert and Mantanona . . . he never matched up with Bastian. Ultimately it will be a battle for that final automatic bid.
The fight for the title here will be interesting. Bryce Steiert has been the most consistent of the group but Sammy Colbray knocked him off in their dual a few weeks ago and after settling in at 174 could certainly be a factor. Down the rest of the line everyone has basically beat up on everyone else. Anthony Mantanona could definitely make a run here and beat Bastian early in the season, but he lost to Steiert and Colbray late. How Joe Smith gets seeded could shake things up as he’s beat some of the top guys but has also lost to a few. This could create some big early matchups that end up deciding the champ.
This is certain to be one of the more intriguing weights of the tournament as there’s no incredibly heavy favorite to win the title and it will be a fight to get the last automatic bid.
184: Is this Lujan’s to lose?
At 184 Taylor Lujan may be the heaviest favorite in this tournament. With the exit of Zahid Valencia, he may now even be the favorite to win an NCAA title as well, and give UNI back-to-back NCAA champs at 184 after Drew Foster’s win last year.
That #1 target on Lujan’s back will come with some pressure and it should be Anthony Montalvo and Zach Carlson battling to have that shot in the finals vs Lujan. Montalvo and Carlson’s bout in the dual ended with Montalvo winning on a controversial last-second takedown that was awarded after a review.
Rounding out the top five here are Alan Clothier and Marcus Coleman. This is a weight similar to 165 where it’s difficult to see anyone sneaking in and grabbing one of the automatic bids from the top five guys but the two, I would give a punchers chance are OU’s Darrien Roberts and Wyoming’s Tate Samuelson.
197: The Big 12’s best weight?
It’s not hard to argue that this could be the best weight in the Big 12. After the graduation of three-time Big 12 champ Preston Weigel, Noah Adams has emerged as the clear #1 bringing in a 29-0 record and #2 national ranking. The conference boasts another six top-25 ranked wrestlers and seven total automatic bids.
The rest of the top seven breaks out like this:
| Rank | Class | Name | School | Previous Rank |
| 1 | SO | Noah Adams | West Virginia | 1 |
| 2 | FR | Tanner Sloan | SD State | 2 |
| 3 | FR | Stephen Buchanan | Wyoming | 3 |
| 4 | SO | Jake Woodley | Oklahoma | 5 |
| 5 | JR | Dakota Geer | OK State | 4 |
| 6 | SR | Tanner Orndorff | Utah Valley | 7 |
| 7 | SR | Jacob Seely | N. Colorado | 8 |
Behind Adams this group has beat up on each other a bit with Geer winning by injury default over Sloan, splitting with Woodley and losing to Buchanan. Sloan split with Woodley, beat Seely and Buchanan, and lost to Orndorff. Buchanan lost to Sloan and beat Geer and Orndorff. With all of that, it will be interesting to see how the seeding shakes out. Ultimately you have to give Adams a strong edge to win the tournament and depending on how the seeds shake out could see a number of scenarios play out from 2-7.
285: Can Utah Valley get two champs?
Since the expansion of the Big 12 in 2016, Utah Valley has crowned one champ with Demetrius Romero last season. They’ll have a pretty strong shot to do it at two weights here. At 133 Taylor Lamont is likely to be the #1 seed, but ‘33 is a very deep weight with a ton of parity. At 285 they’ll have the favorite as well with Tate Orndorff.
Orndorff has not lost in conference all season and has a win over All-American Josh Hokit and two over UNI’s Carter Isley. He could find himself in a semifinal with Wyoming’s Brian Andrews and Wyoming coach Mark Branch has a unique knack of getting his guys to peak in March, so this is one I would circle if it happens.
The conference has seven automatic bids and based on the results throughout the season I would expect it to go chalk but heavyweight is always interesting in conference tournaments. Things can get to ride-outs or somebody can hit one big throw and the bracket can get flipped upside down.
Ultimately it should be a really interesting tournament and it’s certainly the first one in a long time where the team trophy wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Oklahoma State, Northern Iowa, and Iowa State all have a shot and will all need to wrestle well if they want to bring it home.
Seth Duckworth is a Stillwater-based writer who covers Oklahoma State University wrestling for Pistols Firing Blog, the best OSU news and community site on the internet. Follow Seth on Twitter.