Tonight our #2 Cyclones take on the unranked Sundevils at 7pm at Hilton! It should be a good test for some of our guys on the team.
If you're thinking about going, I urge you to. I am not sure what the attendance will be with students leaving for Thanksgiving break.
Also, Varner, Sanderson, and Gallick will not be wrestling tonight due to their participation in the NWCA All-Star Classic tomorrow. We're going to see how deep our team really is and I think it will present some interesting matchups.
The best looking matchup on paper is:
125: ISU's Tyler Clark (#11) vs. ASU's Anthony Robles (#8)
ASU is a pretty young team. Other than their two ranked guys at 125 and 141, almost all of their guys are either seeing action this year for the first time in their career, or were reserves last year with limited match experience.
I would expect ISU to win handily, but I will have some fun seeing some of our reserves match up with some of their starters. Both are young teams and it should be fun to watch.
The theme to look for from ISU is attacking and being aggressive: going for takedowns, major decisions, tech falls, and pins. Basically looking for ways to score more points. Not just doing what it takes to win, but also picking up bonus points for the team. There have been some matches from our lower weight classes in which it looked like we were doing just enough to win. If we're going to win the National Championship, we will need to continue to improve in this phase.
If the score is getting out of hand or in an individual match if we're ahead, I'd encourage you to look at whether our guy is trying to get extra points when he can, or is he just satisfied with the lead. It might be an interesting subplot to watch for the casual fan.
Hope to see you at Hilton tonight!