Rutgers & Big Ten Wrestling: New rankings and RU moves up

Rutgers moved up one spot in the USA Today/NWCA rankings even after going 1-1 over the weekend.

Individual Rankings

The Knights lost one ranked wrestler as John Van Brill fell out of the Intermat rankings, that despite recording a fall against Northwestern. Nick Suriano maintained his No. 1 position after topping Northwstern’s No. 10 Sebastian Rivera. Proving there can be little sense in some rankings, Eleazer DeLuca lost last Friday and did not wrestle on Sunday and moved up across the board. He did only lose by decision to No. 5 Ryan Deakin.

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Team Rankings

No. 1 Penn State remained unbeaten with a 19-18 victory over No. 2 Ohio State. Even without the services of returning NCAA champion Jason Nolf at 157 pounds, the Nittany Lions pulled out the victory and earned a share of the Big Ten regular season title.

With its split over the weekend, Rutgers actually moved up one spot to 18. Topping then-No. 17 Northwestern helped the cause while losing to No. 14 Illinois didn’t hurt.

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Around the Big Ten

Big Ten Wrestler of the Week

Anthony Cassar, Penn State

197 pounds – So. – Rocky Hill, N.J. – Montgomery HS

• Defeated a top-ranked opponent to help the Nittany Lions take down No. 1 Ohio State and clinch at least a share of the Big Ten Dual Meet Championship
• Handed No. 1 Kollin Moore of Ohio State his first loss of the season by a 6-3 decision, helping spark a Nittany Lion run that overcame a 10-point halftime deficit and led to a 19-18 victory over the Buckeyes
• Notched takedowns in the second and third periods and picked up 1:16 in riding time while not giving up a takedown en route to the victory
• Improved to 16-2 overall, including 4-0 against top-15 and 2-0 against top-five opponents

NCAA Seeding Projections: 125 pounds

Flowrestling has been throwing these out and it’s worth a look. Nick Suriano is No. 1 right now in two of three rankings, including Flowrestling’s. They see him likely as the No. 2 seed at the NCAAs. Here’s what they said a few weeks back:

If anyone goes undefeated and wins the Big Ten, they will be the top seed. Suriano, Tomasello [Ohio State] and Lee {Iowa] are all capable of going undefeated. But the potential for them to pick each other off, not to mention Lizak in the mix, is too great for me to see one of them coming out completely unscathed.

Ranked Opponents Remaining for Suriano

Feb. 2 vs. #16 Sebastian Rivera, Northwestern [Suriano won, 4-1]

Feb. 4 vs. #17 Travis Piotrowski, Illinois [Suriano did not wrestle due to illness]

Feb. 9 vs. #3 Ethan Lizak, Minnesota

Flo has Lehigh’s Darian Cruz as the No. 1. And then there’s the free for all that will be the Big Ten Tourney March 3 &4.