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Penn State Wrestling: Did we learn anything from the Big Ten Championships?

By Chris Snyder

Penn State's Brady Berge, center, has his hand raised after winning in sudden victory against Iowa's Kaleb Young at 157 pounds during the third session of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, Sunday, March 6, 2022, at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.220306 Big Ten Wr 033 Jpg
Penn State's Brady Berge, center, has his hand raised after winning in sudden victory against Iowa's Kaleb Young at 157 pounds during the third session of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, Sunday, March 6, 2022, at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.220306 Big Ten Wr 033 Jpg /
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Penn State’s Max Dean, right, has his hand raised after scoring a decision against Michigan State’s Cameron Caffey at 197 pounds during the second session of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, Saturday, March 5, 2022, at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.220305 Big Ten Semi Wr 061 Jpg /

Are the Big Ten Wrestling Championships important to Penn State?

And now we have arrived at the final question of the article. I’ll be honest, I wavered on this a couple of times before finally coming to my conclusion.

Which sounds crazy. How on earth is the second-biggest wrestling event of the season not important for Penn State?

Well sure, it does have some importance.

Namely, allowing Nittany Lion grapplers to automatically qualify for a spot in the NCAA’s at their weight. But outside of that is there really any benefit to them?

And look, each one of these Penn State guys is a competitor and they want nothing more than to lay it all out on the mat for each match. However, they wouldn’t be much help to themselves or their team if they do something crazy and get injured.

Getting injured in the Big Ten Championships after locking up a spot in the NCAA field would be catastrophic.

I have a feeling each of the Penn State grapplers understand this and have this it in the back of their mind going into each match. Which takes a ton of discipline to execute as each of them would probably run through a brick wall prior to hitting the Resilite.

There’s also pride to consider. Wrestlers want to win. Period.

And was it great for Roman Bravo-Young, Nick Lee, Carter Starocci, and Max Dean to take home Big Ten titles? Of course it was. It was amazing.

Was it also fun and exciting to see Brady Berge and Greg Kerkvliet win matches to seal podium finishes? You better believe it!

But here’s what makes Cael Sanderson so special as a coach. He can get his team prepared and focused on wrestling against the best in the nation at the Big Ten Championships, but he can also get them to understand it’s not the ultimate goal.

And that’s to give max effort in every single match at the NCAA’s next week in Detroit. The Big Ten Championships never disappoint, but they’re merely a tune up each year for Penn State.

Are the Big Ten Wrestling Championships important to Penn State?
Answer: No

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