Iowa wrestling media day notebook: Tom Brands plays waiting game; hitting the portal; waiting on Kueter
By John Bohnenkamp
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Tom Brands is playing a waiting game, but he understands the process.
There are members of the Iowa men’s wrestling team who are involved in the NCAA’s investigation into sports gambling, but Brands, the Hawkeyes’ coach, didn’t go into much detail during Thursday’s media day.
Brands, like the wrestlers who are being investigated, is just playing the waiting game.
“It never changes that you’re wrestling, competing for a national team title, and individually it never changes that you’re competing and wrestling for individual titles,” Brands said. “That doesn’t change how these guys operate.
“It’s natural to maybe check out in some of these situations, but our guys have been patient, and they’re facing it. They’re facing it like you face adversity, and that is one day at a time, and you control what you can control, and you move on every day. At the end of the day, if you have that mentality and that theme that you’re marching to, you know what? There’s satisfaction.”
The NCAA’s Division I council has pushed back the vote on sports-wagering penalties to November 8. Iowa’s regular-season schedule opens with a dual at Cal Baptist on November 5.
Brands did not say how many wrestlers are involved.
“We know that November 8 we’re going to know more, and we’re hopeful that we’ll have a decision then,” Brands said. “When you look at where we go from here now, it’s about opportunities. It always is. Our guys, every one of them that you’re going to see downstairs, have an opportunity.”
Brands said his team has just moved forward through the questions.
“You can say that these guys are looking and there’s a lot of uncertainty, and you know what, they’re not playing that card,” Brands said. “There is uncertainty. There is this, there is that. The thing is they’re focused on controlling what they can control, and you know what, there’s satisfaction at the end of the day because of that. That’s a good life lesson. When you’re getting stared into the face by something that could be significant.”
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ANOTHER CASSIOPPI: There’s another Cassioppi wrestling at Iowa, but on the women’s team.
Rose Cassioppi, the sister of Iowa 285-pounder Tony Cassioppi, is a freshman in the women’s program, in its first season.
“It’s awesome,” Tony Cassioppi said. “I moved out of my apartment, she moved in. It’s kind of funny, I go visit her and it’s like being at home.”
Cassioppi said his sister is a frequent visitor to his home, and the topic often turns to wrestling.
“She comes over and uses my washer and dryer all of the time,” he said. “I think that’s the only reason she hangs out with me.”
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HITTING THE PORTAL: Iowa added four transfers in the offseason — Jared Franek and Michael Caliendo from North Dakota State, Victor Voinovich from Oklahoma State and Joey Cruz from Oklahoma.
Franek was an All-American who finished fourth nationally at 157 pounds last season. Caliendo was seventh at 165, and Voinovich qualified for the NCAA championships at 149.
“They’re awesome,” Brands said. “The portal obviously helped that transition. When I say transition, not transitioning them here, but the transition … when you’re looking at your roster and maybe what’s thrown at you and how you’re dealing with certain things, certainly the new portal rules, we had to utilize them. We jumped in that arena.
“They’re not just new additions. Two of them are All-Americans, and one of them was in the Round of 12. These are good wrestlers that we know because we looked at them when they were in high school. We looked at these guys. We know where they come from. We know where their strengths were as high school wrestlers. They were on our watch list. We recruited them.”
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WAITING ON KUETER: Heavyweight Ben Kueter, a freshman who won the under-20 world championship in 2022, is doing two sports with the Hawkeyes. He is a linebacker with the football team as well.
Brands said there will be no battle for his services.
“The best thing that Ben Kueter can do is focus on football,” Brands said. “The only way that this is going to work is that he focuses on football until they’re done with their bowl game, and when they’re done with their bowl game, he comes over here and he focuses on wrestling here until we’re done. He’s done that, and it’s not a yo-yo situation where it’s in and out.”
Brands said Kueter is up to the challenge of playing two sports.
“A lot of people want to know, well, how is he going to do this?” Brands said. “He’s been doing it his whole life. I think (Iowa football coach) Kirk Ferentz said it best when he said this isn’t about like a toughness test whether or not Ben Kueter can do this. This isn’t about that. This is about an opportunity that this guy has because he’s put himself in that position.”
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HANDS OFF: Brands said he isn’t micromanaging the construction of the new wrestling facility next to Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Brands said he has trust in everyone involved in the project.
“I was in there today, and every time I do go in there, there is a change, and there is progress, and those people are working their tail off,” he said. “It’s going to be spectacular.
“That doesn’t mean that there’s going to be spectacular results, but you have good people we’re going to put in, we’re going to put good people in a good facility, and then we become great, and that’s how it is. That’s how it works. We love it. We love it. Credit a lot of people for that.”
The new building is expected to open next April.