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UNIVERSITY PARK -- After a 15-0 regular season in which the No. 1 Penn State wrestling team was rarely challenged, the upcoming Big Ten Wrestling Championships may be much the same.
The Big Ten released the tournament pre-seeds, as voted on by the conference coaches, on Wednesday and the numbers paint a bleak picture for anyone not in a blue and white singlet on Saturday and Sunday in Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Illinois.
Penn State received five No. 1 pre-seeds: Beau Bartlett (141), Shayne Van Ness (149), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levin Haines (174) and Carter Starocci (184). Three Nittany Lions are seeded second: Tyler Kasak (157), Josh Barr (197) and Greg Kerkvliet (285). Luke Lilledahl (125) and Braeden Davis (133) earned fourth seeds.
If those 10 Nittany Lions wrestle to their pre-seeds, or even three spots below them, all of them would earn NCAA tournament bids. Despite the prestige of a Big Ten championship, this tournament is just a means to an end for Penn State.
"The conference tournament really is about preparing for the national tournament," coach Cael Sanderson said at the team's media day earlier this week. "We just try to keep that mentality consistent, and it seems to help our guys peak at the right times."
The Big Ten Conference earned a bounty of automatic qualifiers for the NCAA Championships, 87. The lowest amount is seven at 141 pounds. Every other weight was accorded at least eight and three weights have 10. Weight-by-weight, the allocations are as follows: 125 (9), 133 (10), 141 (7), 149 (8), 157 (8), 165 (9), 174 (8), 184 (8), 197 (10), 285 (10).
Three Nittany Lions -- Bartlett, Starocci and Kerkvliet -- are embarking on their last postseason journey. For Bartlett, at least, the anticipation is palpable.
"I'm really excited. This will be my last Big Ten Tournament. So, just a lot of energy. I'm gonna try to let it build through the week and not go like 100 miles an hour today," he said. "It's gonna be really, really hard not to do that."
What won't be hard to do is change the approach Penn State has operated with all season. It's best summarized as follows -- if the Nittany Lions wrestle the way they have all year, then the rest will take care of itself.
"We don't really have a lot of say in who you're going to face or not face. So, it's just you prepare and go do what you do," Sanderson said.
"I mean, we try not to adapt or adjust or worry too much about our opponents. And that's our philosophy throughout the year. It's the philosophy in the offseason. And so, you know, we don't change a whole lot when it comes to the way we approach competition."
Mesenbrink seems to take that approach to the extreme.
"I'm gonna be honest; I don't even look at the bracket. Minutes before my bout I (ask) Coach Casey or Coach Cael or Coach Cody, 'hey, could you tell me my bout number?' he said.
"Because I don't really even do it in my eyes. Whoever steps out there, look at their lead leg and then go. So, I think that's the fun part about it. Yeah, there's, 'I wish I could wrestle this guy and this guy,' but honestly, just whoever steps out there, that's the battle at hand that I really enjoy."
The tournament gets under way at 11 a.m. Saturday with Session I, which includes the first round, quarterfinals and consolations. Session II, which starts at 6 p.m., includes consolation matches and then, at 8 p.m., the semifinals.
The championships continue at 1 p.m. Sunday with consolation semifinals and seventh-place bouts. Finally, at 5:30 p.m., the championship, third- and fifth-place matches will be contested in Session IV. The Big Ten Network will televise all of Session I, the semifinals and all of Session IV.
Barring an utter collapse, Penn State shouldn't be challenged in the team race. Instead, the Nittany Lions will be competing against history.
The team set a program record of 170.5 team points in winning the 2024 team title. Beyond that, Iowa has set the standard for domination in a single Big Ten tournament. The Hawkeyes accumulated 200 points in 1983, establishing the largest winning margin, 118.5, in tournament history. That year Iowa walked away with nine conference champions.
Could Penn State challenge those marks? While most would consider it unlikely, there is a school of thought that nothing is out of reach for this pride of Nittany Lions.
Sanderson sounded pretty confident that his Nittany Lions would repeat the history they've built under the 16th-year coach.
"I think we're good. I mean, we've got a great team, and they're excited to wrestle. They love to compete. We're happy, we're healthy, we're grateful, and so just go see what we can do," he said.
"Our guys have always competed really well in the postseason, and I think they have a lot of confidence in that. And there won't be an exception this year. Our guys are going to go wrestle great, and they're going to wrestle well at the Big Tens, and they're going to wrestle even better at the nationals. It's going to be fun."