Oooooklahoma

The Cyclones are riding high on a five match win streak right now and will be looking to make is six tonight against what should be an overmatched Oklahoma squad. The meet itself shouldn't be close but as usual there will be some interesting matches. Keep an eye on 141-165 especially. Parker gets a sounding at 141, Degen goes for a win in a rubber match at 149, Straw will try to keep NCAA hopes alive at 157, and Schumacher will get a fellow tossed in to the lineup backup at 165 so might be able to pick up another win in Hilton.

Where: Hilton Coliseum, Ames, IA

When: 7:00PM, Friday, January 25th

TV/Stream: Cyclones.TV / Flowrestling ($$)

Projected Lineups

*Rankings from the 1/24/19 Coaches Panel

Key Matchups

141

Due to his injury at the Scuffle we don’t know a whole lot about Parker this season. He’s got a 5-4 win over #16 Murin from Iowa and a last second 6-5 loss to NCAA qualifier Vince Turk who Murin has beaten out for the starting spot at 141 at Iowa. Other than that he’s won the matches he should and hasn’t been in any he shouldn’t. So we know that Parker is a top twenty wrestler. We just don’t know where he stands in the top twenty. In tonight’s dual he gets #10 Dom Demas and with that he gets a chance to show where he stands. With a win we can legitimately start R12 or even low AA talk about Parker, with a loss he stays in the question mark realm of “definitely will qualify, not sure what he’ll do once he gets to Pittsburgh”.

149

Right now if you look at the rankings you’ll find Degen at #11 and Jeffries at #28. Which makes this look like an easy win for our tall boy. But if you look at results from last season you’ll notice that they split two matches last season - Degen won 11-6 when they met in Vegas at the start of the season but Jeffies won 8-5 in the January dual meet. So we’re looking at a rubber match. I think it is fair to say that Degen is favored as up to this point. This season he’s showed that his NCAA performance from last March wasn’t a fluke. But matchups matter and these guys have split. So this one is key for Degen to show he’s clearly moved up in to the realm of AA contenders.

157

At 157 we have another rubber match - these two met twice last year. In the first match Thomas walked away with a 6-4 win and in the second Straw won 4-3. But while the 149 match has some rankings implications, this one is a little more raw as it impacts whether either or both of these guys will be making the trip to NCAAs this year. When the first coaches panel came out this week Thomas was at #33 (out of 33) while Straw was unranked. The winner of this match will still have a realistic path to earning an allocation for Pittsburgh, or lacking that, the possibility of an at large selection. But the loser is pretty much assured of being on the outside looking in when allocations are announced. So for Straw this is really a put up or shut up match for the season.

Prediction

Iowa State is favored in almost every match and the ones they aren't favored are tossups. I've got them winning 28-3.

Next Up

Iowa State has a quick turnaround with a dual in Stillwater against Oklahoma State at 2:00 PM on Sunday, January 25th. In addition to that, Redshirting Freshman David Carr will be taking the mat on Satuday at the Dave Schultz International in Colorado Springs. He’ll be competing in Freestyle at 70kg.