Big Ten Preview: Northwestern

We're not just doctors, you know. We wrestle too.

Northwestern wrestling has never exactly been stellar, and the 2011 season was an extension of that. Not good but not terrible. This is a team that finds themselves at a fork in the road. Northwestern's 2010 recruiting class was a big one including the #6, #14, #21, #47 and #73 recruits. Most of them took a red shirt in 2011 and will be entering the lineup in 2012. If Northwestern can achieve big success this year then they can look to keep a big boost to recruiting, going down the fork of a year-in year-out good Northwestern team. If the 2012 team fizzles out then they will sit back into relative obscurity, content to stay in the middle to bottom of the Big Ten.

2011 Summary 

The Wildcats qualified 5 grapplers for the NCAA tournament and 3 of them attained All American status, giving them a big boost over the other mediocre teams in the Big Ten.

Name: Brandon Precin (125)

Record: 33 - 3

Status: Graduated

Big Ten place: 2nd

NCAA place: All American 3rd

Notable win(s): Matt McDonough (3-1)

Season ended when: McDonough beat him for the 3rd time (1-3), eventually beat Ben Kjar (Utah Valley, 5-0) for 3rd

Vs. PSU: none

Name: Levi Mele (133)

Record: 18 - 11

Status: Junior

Big Ten place: 8th

NCAA place: Round of 16

Notable win(s): none

Season ended when: Lost to Devin Carter (Va. Tech, 3-13)

Vs. PSU: none

Name: Caleb Friedley (141)

Record: 25 - 11

Status: Sophomore

Big Ten place: 6th

NCAA place: Round of 32

Notable win(s): none

Season ended when: Back to back losses to Matt Mariacher (American, 2-7) and Anwar Goeres (Binghamton, 8-11)

Vs. PSU: Lost to Alton 4-6

Name: Andrew Nadhir (149)

Record: 33 - 8

Status: Graduated

Big Ten place: 4th

NCAA place: All American 6th

Notable win(s): Kevin LeValley (Bucknell, 6-5)

Season ended when: Pinned in opening round by Joe Napoli (Lehigh), wrestleback wins until beaten by Ganbayar Sanjaa (American, 1-5) then beaten by Jamal Parks (OSU, 2-6) for 6th.

Vs. PSU: none

Name: Jason Welch (157)

Record: 29 - 7

Status: Junior

Big Ten place: 3rd

NCAA place: All American 6th

Notable win(s): Adam Hall (Boise St., 3-1)

Season ended when: Suffered three losses in a row to Bubba Jenkins (ASU, 5-8), Derek St. John (Iowa, 1-6) and Adam Hall (Boise St., 1-5)

Vs. PSU: none

The Wildcats are losing their two best wrestlers but are gaining a lot of strong freshman coming off red shirts as discussed at the top of the review. Welch will come back even better in 2012 and have an advantage if he can remain at 157 with both David Taylor and Derek St. John moving up to 165.

2011 Team Stats

Dual Record: 18 - 2 (6 - 2 in Big Ten)

Big Ten Championship: 7th

NCAA Championship: Tied for 13th

Midlands: Tied for 13th

Individual Record: 349 - 202

Pins: 74

Tech. Falls: 23

Major Decisions: 60

Vs. PSU: none

Recruiting

With the outstanding 2010 recruiting class, recruiting in 2011 was not a priority for Northwestern. They nabbed one top 150 recruit in #124 Jameson Oster. With a relatively young group don't look for the recruiting to be very heavy in 2012 either.

2012 Outlook

The Wildcats will most likely not perform as well in tournaments without Brandon Precin and Andrew Nadhir who both normally go very deep. However this loss will be counter balanced by the talented wrestlers coming into the lineup. Most likely they won't perform as well when faced with Big Ten competition, but give them a year to develop more and this could be a very good team. They will still be a tough dual team in 2012.

The Wildcats wrestled an astounding 20 duals in 2011, but the schedule strength left something to be desired. Most of the teams were bad to mediocre, but Stanford and Pitt were in the mix. Their two losses came to Iowa and Michigan. In 2012 Northwestern will once again travel to the Midlands. Their schedule strength is once again okay, with Stanford included in the non-conference duals. Northwestern will keep its spot in the Big Ten ladder through 2012, looking to 2013 to make a leap forward.