By Courtney Baumann
Following Iowa’s defeat of South Dakota State on Dec. 4, there were a few questions — especially about the pace of some of the matches. Although the Hawkeyes put up 28 points to the Jackrabbits’ 15, a few were unsatisfied with the way some of the matches went.
Iowa head coach Tom Brands said that although some of his wrestlers — Thomas Gilman, Sammy Brooks, and Sam Stoll, for example — competed well against South Dakota State’s wrestling style, the team as a whole would not get a good grade.
Mentality is the biggest thing when it comes to starting off on the right foot, Brooks said.
“You’re never going to feel your greatest when you’re going out there unless you’re mentally feeling like that,” Brooks said. “If you climbed a couple of mountains then swam in lava, then you had to go out and wrestle, you still have to get yourself mentally ready for that.”
Rutgers comes to Iowa City
Brands said the Rutgers wrestling team is “under-ranked and off the radar.” The Scarlet Knights, which has four ranked wrestlers at 125, 141, 165, and heavyweight, will coming head to Carver-Hawkeye looking to prove themselves on Thursday night.
“We can’t just look at it like, ‘It’s Rutgers … we don’t have to be ready,’” Brands said. “We have to be ready to go or there will be frustration like a week ago.”
Gilman and Brooks will be prepared for their matchups, but they are not so sure Rutgers is as “under-ranked” as their coach thinks the Scarlet Knights are.
Gilman sees every time out on the mat as a chance to prove himself but has to see it to believe it from Rutgers.
“They say they’re up there, they think they’re up there,” Gilman said. “We’ll see.”
Rankings not a huge factor
Brooks has continued to climb in the rankings, thanks to four pins and two technical falls. Flowrestling now ranks the junior No. 9, but the Hawks aren’t particularly concerned with that at this point.
In fact, he does not even remember when he first got into the national rankings.
“Rankings change every week. Things could change, and I could go down, and it wouldn’t really bother me much,” Brooks said. “I’m just trying to stay focused on me and what I’m doing and sort of cut out that noise.”
The rest of the team’s outlook is similar to Brooks’. He noted most of his teammates are not big into looking at rankings, including the rankings of opponents they will be facing.
Iowa has six ranked wrestlers in Gilman (No. 2), Cory Clark (No. 3), Brandon Sorensen (No. 2), Alex Meyer (No. 5), Brooks, and Nathan Burak (No. 4).
Burak is back
Burak was in the lineup for Iowa against South Dakota State, but the team ended up forfeiting that match.
Brands said it was just a precaution because Iowa had the dual locked up; the senior will be back and ready to wrestle against Rutgers.
However, his absence from the meet — whether it becomes a recurring thing or not — is not something that the rest of the team should be worried about.
“It doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup; it shouldn’t affect anybody no matter what,” Gilman said. “Everyone has to take care of his business.”
Burak will be in the lineup on Thursday for Iowa’s last meet of 2015 until the Midlands Tournament in Evanston, Illinois, at the end of this month.
