March 2, 2012
Big Ten Championship Brackets
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The brackets for the 2012 Big Ten Championships have been drawn after pre-seeds for all weight classes were confirmed by the conference coaches on Friday. Four of the 10 Illinois' seeded wrestlers have first-round byes while six Illini drew pigtail matches.
No. 4 seeded Jesse Delgado and No. 3 seeded B.J. Futrell received first round byes as Delgado will face the winner of the No. 5 Levi Mele (Northwestern) and Zach Zimmer (Indiana) match while Futrell will take on the winner of the No. 6 Zac Stevens (Michigan) and Jameson Oster (Northwestern) bout. Darl Thomas drew a pigtail match against Brian Gibbs of Michigan State in the first round at 141 and No. 7 Eric Terrazas drew No. 10 Mike Kelly of Iowa at 149-pounds.
No. 8 seed Jackson Morse will square off with Brandon Zeerip of Michigan in his pigtail match at 157 while fifth-seeded Conrad Polz receives a first round bye and will face the winner of the No. 4 Ben Jordan (Wisconsin) and Kyle Mosier (Purdue) match. At 174, eighth-seed Jordan Blanton will take on No. 9 seed Lee Munster of Northwestern in the first round while 184-pounder Tony Dallago will square off against the winner of the No. 2 seed Quentin Wright (Penn State) and Luke Sheridan (Indiana).
No. 5 seed Mario Gonzalez will face John Schoen (Northwestern) at 197 while heavyweight Pat Walker drew a pigtail against No. 6 Bobby Telford (Iowa).
A weight-by-weight breakdown of the Big Ten's NCAA qualifiers show the conference getting six automatic bids at 125, seven at 133, five at 141, nine at 149, six at 157, eight at 165, nine at 174, seven at 184, seven at 197 and ten at 285. The Big Ten Championships begin Saturday at 10 a.m. ET. A live blog will be available on FightingIllini.com
