Big Ten Wrestling: Ranking the top three wrestlers at each weight class
By Chris Snyder
165
1. Carson Kharchla (Ohio State)
2. Cameron Amine (Michigan)
3. Dean Hamiti (Wisconsin)
Remember when I talked about my irrational confidence at times?
Well, when it comes to the 2022-2023 Big Ten group at 165, your guess will definitely be as good as mine. Because I have zero confidence in exactly how this is going to play out. So, this list if my best effort at throwing darts at the wall and seeing which ones land on the board.
Michigan’s Cameron Amine had the best finish of this trio as he took home fourth place after falling to Cal Poly’s Evan Wick in the third-place match. Hamiti hit a brick wall of Big Ten talent in the 2022 NCAA’s as he fell to both Cameron Amine and Iowa’s Alex Marinelli in back-to-back matches to finish sixth. And Kharchla had the worst finish of the bunch by falling to the eventual champion, Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole, and then Marinelli in the blood rounds. Carson was able to take out WVU’s Peyton Hall to take home a seventh-place finish.
So naturally I have Kharchla leading the pack going into the coming season. Yep, that makes perfect sense to me.
From top to bottom, the overall landscape at 165 is going to be a crazy ride not only for the Big Ten, but also the nation. The defending champion is only a sophomore, the three guys I have listed above are also all sophomores, and the remaining threats in the Big Ten (Nebraska’s Bubba Watson and Iowa’s Patrick Kennedy) are, you guessed it, sophomores.
Mix in the overall No. 2 recruit in the 2021 cycle for Penn State (Alex Facundo) and this list may look drastically different by the end of the season.