The NCAA Tournament seeds and brackets have been announced. Looking at the seeds in general there are some interesting ones to see the least. This will cover all of the brackets, and the matches to keep an eye on.
125-
Nick Suriano of course pulls the top seed at 125 and he is followed by Vito Arujau and Pat Glory at two and three.
The two first round matchups that you should be looking out for are #9 seen Devin Schroder (Purdue) vs #24 seed Sam Latona (Virginia Tech) along with #15 seed Brody Teske (Northern Iowa) and #18 seed Noah Surtin (Mizzou). Both of these matches present some sort of upset potential with the higher seed still the favorite to win.
For the second round we have a huge match right off the bat for top seed Nick Suriano where he will most likely face Drew Hildebrant of Penn State. Hildebrandt had a rough Big Ten tournament but the last time these two wrestled it was a 2-1 victory for Suriano. Should be an interesting one to see if Suriano has widened the gap since then.
Quarterfinal Projected Matchups (Seeds Hold)
#1 Nick Suriano (Michigan) vs #8 Patrick McKee (Minnesota)
#2 Vito Arujau (Cornell) vs #7 Trevor Mastrogiovani (Oklahoma St)
#3 Patrick Glory (Princeton) vs #6 Eric Barnett (Wisconsin)
#4 Brandon Courtney (Arizona St) vs #5 Killian Cardinale (West Virginia)
The two big matchups to watch here would be Glory vs Barnett as Glory did not look too great in the EIWA finals vs Vito Arujau where he was dominated 19-6 in a match that he won 11-9 earlier this season. If Glory can’t come back from that loss Barnett may be able to capitalize. He himself did not have the greatest showing in the conference finals falling to Nick Suriano 12-4.
Courtney vs Cardinale also presents an interesting matchup. These two have not met before in their collegiate career. They both won their conference and did so without too much trouble and this should be a great matchup to see who will advance to take on what should be Nick Suriano.
Semifinal Projected Matchups (Seeds Hold)
#1 Nick Suriano (Michigan) vs #4 Brandon Courtney (Arizona St)
#2 Vito Arujau (Cornell) vs #3 Patrick Glory (Princeton)
Glory vs Vito is the match that everyone wants to see here. They are 2-2 head to head. Glory has won the EIWA Finals in 2019 and the dual meet this season. While Vito has won the dual meet in 2019 by fall and this year’s EIWA Finals by major decision 19-6.
Suriano vs Courtney may be interesting but looking at how Courtney fared against Glory this seems to be more of just a procession bout here but I doubt a bonus point victory.
Projected Finals Matchup (Seeds Hold)
#1 Nick Suriano (Michigan) vs #2 Vito Arujau (Cornell)
Nick Suriano and Vito Arujau based on how they have looked so far this season almost seem like locks to make the national finals. There is an obvious edge here for Suriano based on the fact that he has been in the finals on two occasions already. Vito is hungry and he is looking insane right now so this match could essentially go either way.
