My quick thoughts:
125 - Love the draw. Very nice having Sanders as the 6 rather than Nicholson (former DM Roosevelt). He's shown he can handle Sanders - his length is too much for the diminutive Gopher.
133 - Another nice draw. He's beaten both Grey and Fanthorpe. I was hoping to see Gomez on the other side of the bracket for 2 reasons. 1) Gomez is "due" against Dan; and 2) IMO, Gomez has the best shot of anyone at knocking off Ness.
141 - VERY nice draw. The top half of this bracket is a grinder with Humphrey, Dake, Bailey and Krom. Even the freaking unseeded guys are tough - Drouin placed 6th in 2009, Ciasulli's no slouch, Mangrum was a top 10 overall recruit in the 2008 class, and Jensen is dangerous (pinned both Krom and Prater this year). Marion's side is much easier. Parks is the weakest #2 seed in the tournament. Marion's beaten both the top seeds on his side of the bracket.
149 - Metcalf will be in the finals. Will Palmer? I could easily see Ruschell take him down (2-3 career record vs. Palmer). They had a close matchup in the Big 10 semis (Palmer won 2-1).
157 - As expected, a tough draw. But at least he was drawn in against another unseeded guy in his 1st round matchup.
165 - Terrible draw. I'm surprised he was dropped below Vallimont. It's RIDICULOUS how much emphasis the seeding committee puts on the conference tournaments. His first round matchup is tough - Jones is the youngest of 3 Jones brothers (2 oldest were 3-time AAs). Vertus went 3-2-2 and Greg was a 3-time National Champ. If he gets past that matchup, he's got Alex Meade - inconsistent but uber-talented freshman. Morningstar looked terrible against Meade in the Okie State-Iowa dual. Even if Star was 100% healthy, I'd be thrilled with him getting past these 2 guys and into the quarters.
174 - Good draw. I really like the fact that Dwyer is on the opposite side. Will have an interesting quarters match against Bennett. Jay beat him 6-1 at Midlands, but it wasn't as dominating as the score indicates. Jay pulled off a 5-point move in the 1st period and didn't do much the rest of the match. Bennett's only a freshman. It will be interesting to see how much he's improved since their first matchup.
184 - As I said in my seeding predictions, I like Phil's draw better than what it would be as the 7 or 6 seed. He should win again in the rematch against, Caputo. #1 Smith has an interesting 1st round with Ward. Ward's fallen off significantly since his early season success, but he definitely has the talent to knock off Smith.
197 - If they were going to drop Beatty so far, I wish they would have dropped him to the 10 seed. Beatty has 2 tough matchups right out of the gate. 1st round against Okie State will be a tough one and Yohn is IMO one of the most underrated guys at this weight. What other 197 pounder uses legs on top? Plus Beatty's on Varner's half of the bracket. Ugh.
HWT - This bracket was drawn up by a bunch of morons. Rey as the 3 seed?!?!?!? That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A record of 28-4 (W over #10 Russo, #8 Tomei; L to #2 Rosholt, #1 Zabriskie, #12 Steele). I'm outraged. I might pick Wade to beat him in the 1st round out of spite. Erekson's got a tough first round matchup against Jack and then should have Steele in the 2nd round. Steele's no joke, but lucky for Dan he's pretty beatup (was a Med Forfeit out of EIWAs with a high ankle sprain). Then he's got freaking Dudziak. That quarters matchup could be the pseudo national championship. Everhart has a MUCH nicer bracket. One silver lining: I'm glad Dan's on Zabriskie's side rather than Rosholt.
