Penn State Wrestling: 5 Bold Predictions for Big Ten Wrestling Championships

Bold Prediction No. 3: One of the four returning NCAA Champions will not be a Big Ten Champion

So far, my bold predictions for this year’s Big Ten Championships have been positive.

However, it’s a difficult task to come up with “Bold Predictions” for a team that finished the year ranked No. 1, went undefeated in their dual meets and has five of their grapplers ranked at No. 1 in InterMat’s most recent rankings.

While the notion of Roman Bravo-Young literally growing the ability to levitate and fly around the mat rattled around in my head, I just don’t think even HE can do that. But anything short of flying? Yeah, I think RBY has the ability to do it on a wrestling mat.

This brings us to our first somewhat negative prediction of the article.

Speaking of Roman Bravo-Young, I strongly feel he holds the widest gap to the rest of the top competition at his weight in the Big Ten.

While sitting on my couch watching reruns of American Gladiator and eating donut holes, I believe RBY comfortably repeats as the 133 pound Big Ten Champion. Which is easy for me to say since I’m not the one getting my face crammed into the Resilite and my legs pretzeled around my arms.

But take a look at the absolute gauntlet Nick Lee, Carter Starroci, and Aaron Brooks are going to have to navigate if they want to hoist a Big Ten trophy. And yes, I know they have all faced and beaten these guys before, but holy cow is the difference as thin as a surgical scalpel.

Nick Lee pushed his winning streak to two in a row when he took down Iowa’s Jaydin Eierman 6-4 in sudden victory in their dual in January. But Eierman isn’t the guy who scares me at 141 in the Big Ten. It’s Sebastian Rivera.

Sebass and Lee faced each other twice last season with Nick being the victor both times. But Rivera has taken his wrestling game up several notches this year in compiling an impressive 22-0 record and a staggering 86% bonus point percentage.

Let’s now look at Carter Starocci’s possible opponents in the later rounds.

Does anyone remember the last two Starocci/Kemerer matches? Of course you do.

Both of them are virtually instant classics. Carter won 3-1 in sudden victory to claim the NCAA title last season and their latest matchup was one for the ages as Starocci outlasted Kemerer 2-1 in TB-1 in Iowa City. Going back to the 2020 season, Kemerer has been the undisputed No. 2 wrestler in the nation at 174.

However, in the 2022 Big Ten Wrestling Championships, he is the No. 4 seed at 174. FOUR!!

Michigan’s Logan Massa is the No. 2 seed and Nebraska’s Mikey Labriola, fresh off his win over Kemerer, is the No. 3 seed. Needless to say, it’s going to be a slobber knocker just for Starocci to make the finals.

As for Aaron Brooks, this has been by far his toughest season in the Big Ten in his Penn State Wrestling career. Namely because of Myles Amine’s addition to the talented Big Ten group at 184. But there’s a reason Brooks got my vote for the regular season MVP.

The dude has been simply amazing all year. And I would love to think he’s a guaranteed stone cold lead pipe lock to win his third Big Ten title. But the gap between him and Amine is really close and in the sport of wrestling, anything can happen at any time.