Wrestling Breakdown: Big Ten Championships

Top-ranked Hawkeyes look to add conference title to impressive season.

Breaking down this weekend's Big Ten Wrestling Championships.

Tournament facts

Site — Rutgers Athletic Center, Piscataway, N.J.

Saturday's schedule — Session I, 9 a.m. (CST); Session 2, 5:30 p.m.

Sunday's schedule — Session III, 11 a.m.; Championships, 2:30 p.m.

TV — BTN will show Sunday's championship session. BTN-Plus will provide live video streams of the tournament.

Radio — KXIC (800-AM) and Hawkeye All-Access (online)

Iowa matchups

125 — Spencer Lee (1 seed) vs. Nic Aguilar (8 seed, Rutgers) or Eric Barnett (9 seed, Wisconsin)

133 — Austin DeSanto (3 seed) vs. Jordan Decatur (14 seed, Ohio State)

141 — Max Murin (3 seed) vs. Hunter Baxter (14 seed, Maryland)

149 — Pat Lugo (2 seed) vs. Collin Purinton (7 seed, Nebraska) or Griffin Parriott (10 seed, Purdue)

157 — Kaleb Young (2 seed) vs. Peyton Robb (7 seed, Nebraska) or Nah Jones (10 seed, Maryland)

165 — Alex Marinelli (2 seed) vs. Dan Braunagel (7 seed, Illinois) or Kyle Cochran (10 seed, Maryland)

174 — Michael Kemerer (1 seed) vs. Layne Malczewski (8 seed, Michigan State) or Phillip Spadafora (9 seed, Wisconsin)

184 — Abe Assad (3 seed) vs. Kyle Jasenski (14 seed, Maryland)

197 — Jacob Warner (3 seed) vs. Nick Willham (14 seed, Indiana)

285 — Tony Cassioppi (3 seed) vs. Parker Robinson (Maryland)

What to watch

With two 1 seeds and three 2 seeds, the Hawkeyes are poised to win the Big Ten title after winning the conference's dual meet title.

Lee and Kemerer have been dominant all season — Lee, a two-time NCAA national champion, has never won a Big Ten individual title — but Iowa's lineup is one of the deepest in program history.

One of the top weight classes to watch for Iowa is 165, where Alex Marinelli is the defending Big Ten champion. Marinelli is the No. 2 seed behind Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State, who defeated Marinelli earlier this season.

How the Hawkeyes do here could be a sign of what comes in two weeks at the NCAA championships in Minneapolis, since four of the top five teams in the national rankings are Big Ten teams.