NCAA Wrestling Seeds and Brackets Out Smith Comments on Fix Seeded No. 1 at 133
STILLWATER – The NCAA released all the widlcards, all the seeds, and all the complete brackets fornext week’s 2024 NCAA Wrestling Championships in Kansas City, Mo. at the T-Mobile Center. Oklahoma State didn’t need any wildcards as head coach John Smith’s team qualified every single OSU starter with the allotted positions to the Big 12 prior to the start of the conference tournament. Oklahoma State has comapny as a wildcar entry at 184 pounds will allow Big 12 team champ Iowa State to have all 10 of their wrestlers in Kansas City.
“It is so much different now with the seeding,” Oklahoma State head coach John Smith started his comments. “There was a time when they seeded the top 16 and threw the rest of them in. There is not a real mismatch. You kind of fall in where your season went. If you are seeded 28th then you belong 28th. I think for us we had some good draws, good seeds, and some of them not so good. Some of them were pleasing and some not so pleasing.”
The best news for Oklahoma State is that unbeaten this season and five-time Big 12 champion Daton Fix is seeded No. 1 at 133 pounds. The second seed is Ryan Crookham of Lehigh with a record of 18-0.
I asked John Smith about what it would be like seeing Fix win that long sought after NCAA individual championship?
“You can’t wish it, but that would be right at the top of my list with a few more,” Smith answered. “that would be really nice.”
Below are the seeds and opening round match-ups for all Oklahoma State wrestlers with the tournament starting on Thursday, March 21. The full NCAA brackets can be found here.
Wt. | (Seed) Oklahoma State Wrestler & record | (Seed) First Round Match-Up & record |
125 | (6) Troy Spratley 21-8 | (27) Max Gallagher, Penn, 20-8 |
133 | (1) Daton Fix 17-0 | (33) Dyson Durham, VMI 20-13 or (32) Cayden Rooks, Indiana 10-11 |
141 | (10) Tagen Jamison 21-8 | (23) Danny Fongoro, Indiana 21-7 |
149 | (20) Jordon Williams 14-7 | (13) Caleb Rathjen, Iowa 16-5 |
157 | (16) Teague Travis 20-5 | (17) Brock Mauller,Missouri 16-5 - Travis beat Mauller 4-2 on Feb. 4. |
165 | (7) Izzak Olejnik 24-5 | (26) Domonic Baker, Campbell 19-7 |
174 | (25) Brayden Thompson 12-9 | (8) Adam Kemp, Cal-Poly 16-3 |
184 | (3) Dustin Plott 27-3 | (30) Malachi Duvall, George Madison 18-10 |
197 | (27) Luke Surber 12-7 | (6) Lou Deprez, Binghamton 23-2 |
Hwt. | (12) Konner Doucet 19-9 | (21) Dayton Pitzer, Pittsburgh 11-5 - Doucet beat Pitzer 3-0 on Jan.12. |