Iowa wrestlers not ready to concede anything to Penn State heading into nationals
By Richard Podhajsky
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Sure, Penn State has won seven of the last eight national titles in wrestling.
And, sure, it just won the Big Ten Tournament by 35 points.
And, sure, Iowa’s last team national title in 2010 may now be nine years in the rearview mirror.
But despite all of that, the Hawkeyes aren’t ready to concede anything as they get ready for the 2019 NCAA Tournament, which will be held Thursday through Saturay at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pa.
.“That’s what we do,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said of his team competing for the title. “We have nine weight classes that will tell you that they are in this thing to win it. And with attitudes like that, you got a good chance.
“We have always been about the team champion and we’ve always been about individual champions. Regardless of what the pundits’ rankings are, whether it favors us or it doesn’t, in a big way or not a big way, if it’s close, either way you gotta perform.”
Iowa’s NCAA title drought is now its longest since before Brands came to Iowa, when they went eight years between championships from 2000-2008. In that time, they only have one second-place finish, that coming in 2015.
“A few years ago I was talking with (former Iowa wrestler) Brooks Simpson and he told me when a team takes a few years (between titles) it takes the same amount of time sometimes to get out of that rut and to win a team title,” sophomore 165-pounder Alex Marinelli, a sixth-place finisher last season, said. “But we don’t want to wait that long, we want to be national champions now. And I feel like we’re ready, we’re there.”
If Iowa is to end that streak, Marinelli will need to lead the charge. He is the team’s only number one seed, after having knocked off two-time national champion Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State to win a Big Ten title. And the Hawkeyes feature a defending NCAA champion in 125-pound sophomore Spencer Lee, though he is seeded third at his weight this year.
“Of course not, I didn’t come here thinking, ‘Alright, we’re going to be second best,’” Lee said. “Of course our goal is to be the best team in the country and to win a national title and we believe that we can. We believe all nine guys representing this university are going to go out there and represent the way they know how to represent. We have to wrestle to our ability and even far above our ability. This is big time now.”
Even “far above” their ability still might not be enough for an Iowa team which hasn’t been closer than 49.5 points from the champion in any of the last three years. And Penn State seems more concerned with breaking the scoring record – set at 170 by Iowa in 1997 – than it does with the race for the title. The Nittany Lions have three no. 1 seeds and seven wrestlers seeded in the top three, including four defending national champions.
But the Hawkeyes are going to do the only thing they can – let the wrestling do the talking.
“There’s a pretty consistent theme for everybody if you’re hearing what I’m saying,” Brands said of needing a top effort from each wrestler to win a team title. “The at-large guy who got in because of a formula and a committee (285-pounder Sam Stoll), you know he wasn’t even in the tournament as an automatic qualifier. And then you have a defending national champion that is coming back for his second time. The approach is the same, it’s just the path they had to take to get here or the path they’re going to take in that tournament is different.”