The brackets are out, and the seeds are in.
For the NCAA Championships in New York City March 17-19, Penn State has three No. 1 seeds and six Nittany Lion wrestlers are ranked among the top five of their respective weight class. With Tuesday’s news that Geno Morelli secured a wildcard qualifying bid at 165 pounds, PSU will have a total of nine wrestlers on the mats in Madison Square Garden.
Sophomore Zain Retherford, who is 29-0 on the season, earned a top seed at 149 pounds, while redshirt freshman Bo Nickal (29-1) and senior Morgan McIntosh (28-0) earned No. 1 spots at 174 and 197, respectively.
In their opening matches Retherford will draw pigtail winner of Chris Vassar of Gardner-Webb vs. Bryce Hammond of CSU Bakersfield. The 2016 Big Ten Wrestler of the Year and an All-American, Retherford will have Brandon Sorensen (No. 2 seed), Lavion Mayes of Missouri (3) and Matthew Climato of Drexel (4) as the top competitors in his weight class. Retherford topped Sorensen in the B1G final, 4-0.
Nickal will meet Josef Johnson of Harvard in his first match, which will be his national tourney debut. Also ranked among the top of Nickal's weight class are Brian Realbuto of Cornell (2), Blaise Butler of Missouri (3) and Ethan Ramos of North Carolina (4). Nickal has a 14-7 win against Realbuto and an 11-7 win against Ramos, both at the Southern Scuffle.
McIntosh, who will be in chase of a third All-America honor, first draws Rider’s Ryan Wolfe, who McIntosh beat by major decision in the early-season dual meet, 10-1. Other top seeds at 197 include, 2014 NCAA champ J'Den Cox of Missouri (2), Brett Pfarr of Minnesota (3) and Nathan Burak of Iowa (4). In their only meeting of the season, McIntosh beat Burak, 3-2, last week in the Big Ten championship round.
Classmate Nico Megaludis (27-3) earned the No. 3 seed at 125 and his first match will be against the pigtail winner of Brandon Jeske of Central Michigan and Chasen Tolbert of Utah Valley. A three-time All-America who has already made two career appearances in the national final, Megaludis this year will have as much or more competition in from of him, including Virginia Tech’s Joey Dance (2), Thomas Gilman (Iowa) and defending NCAA champion and top-seed Nathan Tomasello, who twice has beat Megaludis this season, most recently in overtime of the Big Ten Championship. Dance also bested Megaludis in the November dual meet.
Redshirt freshman Jason Nolf (29-1), the Big Ten freshman of the Year, draws a No. 3 seed at 157 and faces Kamaal Shakur of Chattanooga in his first-ever NCAA match. On the opposite side of the bracket, Illinois’ Isaiah Martinez is seeded No. 1. Nolf and Martinez have split a pair of bouts this season with Nolf winning the first by fall and then Martinez winning last week in the B1G final in double sudden victory, 4-3. Rounding out the top four seeds at 157 are Thomas Gantt of North Carolina State (2) and Ian Miller of Kent State (3).
Senior Jordan Conaway (26-5) grabbed the No. 5 seed at 133 and wrestles Corey Keener of Central Michigan for his first match. Conaway, who was an All-American at 125 last season, has Nahshon Garrett of Cornell (1), Cory Clark of Iowa (2), Zane Richards (Illinois) and Cody Brewer (Oklahoma) seeded in front of him.
After finishing a few spots below his seed at Big Tens last week, Matt McCutcheon (16-6) was seeded No. 16 for NCAAs at 184 and will wrestle Tom Sleigh of Bucknell in the opening round. Ranked among the top four of McCutcheon’s weight class are Sammy Brooks of Iowa (2), Victor Avery of Edinboro (3), Domenic Abounader of Michigan (4) and defending champion Gabe Dean of Cornell (1).
Unseeded at 141 is junior Jimmy Gulibon (12-9), although he finished as runner-up at Big Tens last week and was an All-American at 133 last year. Gulibon draws the No. 5 seed, Matt Manley of Missouri first. Seeded ahead of Manley are Anthony Ashnault of Rutgers (4), Kevin Jack of North Carolina State (3), Joey McKenna of Stanford (2) and Dean Heil of Oklahoma State (1).
Morelli (19-10) is also unseeded and will wrestle against No. 11 John Staudenmayer of North Carolina in his first match. Defending champion Alex Dieringer of Oklahoma State (1), Isaac Jordan of Wisconsin (2), Bo Jordan of Ohio State (3) and Daniel Lewis of Missouri (4) are the top seeds at 165.
Penn State’s nine-man contingent equals that of Cornell’s, Iowa’s and Missouri’s. Defending NCAA champion Ohio State qualified eight wrestlers, while Michigan, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech also send eight.
Nebraska, Rutgers and Big 12 champion Oklahoma State, meanwhile, each send an entire 10-wrestler lineup to NCAAs.
