Breaking down brackets to determine which Cowboys have best chance at NCAA title
- Mar 13, 2025 Updated Mar 13, 2025
Tyler Waldrep
OSU Sports WriterSTILLWATER — Oklahoma State coach David Taylor probably isn’t the best one to ask for a blow-by-blow from his first NCAA Championship trip.
Taylor, who was then in middle school or high school, was sitting up higher and forgot his contacts at home.
“I could hardly see what was going on,” Taylor said. “And that was a learning lesson, make sure you bring extra pairs of contacts. But, yeah, I just remember the energy of the national tournament. And just was like, man, I couldn't wait to be there.”
NCAA Wrestling Championships
March 20-22Philadelphia
On Wednesday night, the NCAA released the final brackets for the upcoming national championship taking place in Philadelphia on March 20-22. Taylor’s first group of Cowboys was one of only 10 teams to send at least nine wrestlers to the tournament.
Only Penn State, Northern Iowa, Ohio State and Cornell qualified all 10 wrestlers. The only Cowboy starter to miss out was 133-pounder Reece Witcraft following his 0-2 run at the Big 12 Championships.
“Great things happen when you're hungry,” Taylor said. “And you want to be there, and you stay in the fight and you keep scoring. And that's just what we've done all season. And just, I just told the guys, it's, it's about belief.”
Oklahoma State wrestlers by seed:
- HWT Wyatt Hendrickson, 2 seed
- 174 Dean Hamiti, 3 seed
- 184 Dustin Plott, 4 seed
- 125 Troy Spratley, 7 seed
- 141 Tagen Jamison, 7 seed
- 165 Cameron Amine, 8 seed
- 197 Luke Surber, 8 seed
- 157 Caleb Fish, 12 seed
- 149 Teague Travis, 33 seed
1. How high can Cowboys finish?
Seven Cowboys earned top-eight seeds, meaning they will finish as All-Americans if they live up to their spot in the bracket. Oklahoma State hasn’t produced that many top-eight seeds since 2017 when eight wrestlers earned top-eight billing. That’s also the last time more than six Cowboys earned All-America honors in the same season.Of course, it’s not about where these guys start. To that end, Oklahoma State hasn’t produced more than three All-Americans in the same year since six earned the distinction in 2021.
So even a slightly disappointing run from this team in Philadelphia could result in OSU’s best finish in years and the Cowboys are one of only two teams positioned to produce a large number of All-Americans.
All 10 Penn State wrestlers earned top eight seeds, but no other program could match Oklahoma State’s seven. The other eight programs to send nine-plus wrestlers to the final tournament all produced exactly four top-eight seeds, except Iowa and South Dakota State, which finished with five and one, respectively.
That gives the Cowboys a real chance at a podium push for the first time since 2021 when OSU finished third. In the three seasons since, Oklahoma State finished 14th, 18th and most recently 10th.
2. Can OSU win an individual title?
Oklahoma State hasn’t produced an individual national champion since 2021.Wyatt Hendrickson looks like the Cowboy best equipped to end that streak next week. He heads to Philadelphia as the heavyweight No. 2 seed after going 22-0 this season overall with a 10-0 record against the NCAA field.
Hendrickson’s 18-3 technical fall victory over No. 5 seed Ben Kueter of Iowa is his best win of the season, but it’s hardly abnormal. The first-year Cowboy has won 10 matches by pin and another eight by technical fall this season.
Even when looking only at Hendrickson’s matches against NCAA Championship heavyweights, he’s recorded wins by pin, three by technical fall, and another by injury default.
He also has plenty of experience in this tournament considering this will be his fifth trip. Hendrickson finished third in each of the last two seasons at Air Force before joining the Cowboys for his final year of eligibility.
3. Rematch worth rooting for
Oklahoma State senior Dean Hamiti and Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole delivered one of the season’s epic clashes in their Big 12 title bout. O’Toole needed a takedown in the final 19 seconds to force overtime.Hamiti lost the lead for the first time when the Tiger recorded another takedown with 1:14 left in overtime to secure the win.
Hamiti proved this season that he has what it takes to win an individual national title and should have a good chance to get his shot to rematch O’Toole with the championship on the line. The senior Cowboy is 22-1 this season with a 14-1 major decision victory over the fifth seed in his bracket and a 20-5 technical fall over the sixth seed.
Overall, Hamiti is 10-0 against lower-seeded wrestlers in his bracket earning bonus-point wins in six of those matches. At Wisconsin, Hamiti finished sixth overall in 2022 and 2023 but fell one round short of All-American status last year.
4. Opportunity for Dustin Plott
Oklahoma State 184-pounder Dustin Plott could elevate himself from a Cowboy great to one of the program’s best with a strong showing at the NCAA Championships.But it was clear Thursday afternoon that he wasn’t worried about any of that.
“I feel like years past I had a little more anxiety or maybe a little more not negative, but excitement, build up,” Plott said. “This year, I’m kind of just at peace. I’ve trained, I’ve done everything I could, and I’m confident I’m gonna get the result that I want.”
Plott said even though he’s continuing to work for the rest of the week, “the hay is in the barn” at this point. All that’s left now is to wrestle and see where things finish up.
Should Plott finish eighth or higher, he will leave the group of 61 Cowboys to earn All-American honors three times in their careers to join a group of only 15 to earn the distinction at least four times.
There’s no reason to doubt him. Plott enters the tournament with an 18-4 record including a 2-3 record against wrestlers seeded seventh or higher. Of course all three of those losses this season have come against Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen, who earned the No. 2 seed nationally after defeating Plott 8-1 in the Big 12 title match.
Of course it was also Keckeisen who defeated Plott 14-5 in the NCAA Championship finals last year, but the two won’t meet this year in the winner’s bracket unless they both advance to the championship again.
“Every time I wrestle Parker, he’s going to be a different version of him and I’m going to be a different version of me,” Plott said. “So to try and predict what he’s going to do is probably impossible. … Obviously some stuff carries over match-to-match just because of who he is as a wrestler, who I am as a wrestler, but I don’t really think it is too predictable.”
5. Longshot to watch: Tagen Jamison
Redshirt sophomore Tagen Jamison looks like the Cowboy with the best chance of competing for a championship that isn’t seeded fourth or higher.Jamison (20-4) went 8-4 against wrestlers in his bracket this season with four wins by major decision and one by technical fall.
Jamison might be slightly underseeded given that he beat No. 1 seed Brock Hardy 7-4 earlier this season. Hardy has only lost two other times.
That is Jamison’s only win against a higher seed this season as he lost 5-2 to No. 3 seed Jesse Mendez and twice to No. 5 seed Cael Happel.
However, both losses to Happel came in overtime, with the most recent loss coming during a second set of tiebreakers when Happel managed to escape only four seconds faster than Jamison to secure a 2-2 win following an additional overtime period in the Big 12 Championships title round.
