Off Mat Empire: The End

First and foremost, go check out the fanpost from the aptly named “Alltheiowanamesaretaken” and see what (outside of HWT) should happen with seedings for the B1G. It’s going to be a fun weekend coming up.

So here we are! The last weekend of the regular season (with three teams being done already), and there’s not a ton to write about. The Buckeyes and Boilermakers took a weekend off prior to the B1Gs next weekend at Rutgers, and #6 wisconsin lost to #16 Northern Iowa last night 20-18 to close out their year. Great job repping the conference and getting ready for tournament time, you damn clowns.

In the meantime, we get a whole lot of not much. Maryland has their last chance at seeing good results this year with matches against George Mason, Rider, and something called the “Mat-Town Open II”. Good luck, Turtle friends! Indiana travels to Chattanooga, #17 Michigan goes Pennsyltucky to face Edinboro, Sparty visits #22 Central Michigan, #12 Northwestern visits SIEU, and Rutgers goes to Princeton, all of which I presume are magnanimous efforts by mighty B1G schools to help smaller schools with a big gate to end the year and boost their program’s visibility and pocketbooks. Huzzah all! Additionally, we have Fresno State traveling to Illinois (presumably in an attempt to get east prior to the Big XII tournament next weekend in Tulsa. Yes, Fresno State wrestles in the Big XII. I know.) and #2 Penn State wrestles American. We always knew you hated American, PSU. Iowa fans have been telling us this for years, and now we finally see the proof.

So what does that leave us with after that? Well...

Dual Meet of the Weekend

#7 Nebraska vs. #8 Minnesota (Friday 8 PM, BTN)

Your winner by default, NEBRASKA-MINNESOTA! Yay. This is here because we are a B1G blog and this is the only B1G dual meet of the weekend. If nothing else, this should be fun between two teams in the 2nd tier of the B1G. I think Nebraska is a deeper team and will do better at the NCAAs, but Minnesota has a guy that could actually win a title. Matches of note are 141 between #6 Mitch McKee and #9 Chad Red (Nice) and 174 between #6 Mikey Labriolia and #8 Devin Skatzka (almost nice). I think Nebraska wins 6 of the 10 weights if Gophers 125 #11 Patrick McKee goes, and get the dual meet win in spite of bonus points from Gable Steveson to close out the night.

Runner-Up Dual Meet of the Weekend

#13 Oklahoma State vs. #1 Iowa (Sunday 7 PM, BTN)

Check this one out, wrestling fans. Yeah yeah, I know. There will be endless streams of jeers from the Iowa fans about Oklahoma State guys stalling. It’s what both of them do, so just be prepared for it. But there are 3 Top 10 matchups if both teams send out their starters, including #2 Pat Lugo vs. #6 Boo Lewallen at 149 in a matchup of guys who have been #1 this season and #2 Alex Marinelli vs. #6 Travis Wittlake at 165. All together, there are 6 meets featuring Top 20 showdowns that could happen. Sadly, the Pokes style will take a bit of the luster off this one because...well, in spite of the mascot having a gun they just don’t like to shoot much.

Matchup of the Weekend (Hopefully)

125 #4 Nick Piccininni (Oklahoma State) vs. #1 Spencer Lee (Iowa)

The pickings are sparse this weekend, but this is a good one. Check it out before you get a chance to see it again in Minneapolis in a few weeks. Try to guess when Spencer Lee gets the win, since nearly none of his matches go the distance in one of the more impressive seasons we’ve seen in recent memory.