Missouri gets three No. 1 seeds for NCAA wrestling tournament

Missouri earned three top seeds for the NCAA Division I men’s wrestling championships, which are set for March 19-21 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

The NCAA released the brackets for the tourney Wednesday and also announced the 71 at-large bids to round out the field of 330 wrestlers.

Senior 125-pounder Alan Waters, senior 149-pounder Drake Houdashelt and sophomore 197-pounder J’den Cox enter the meet as prohibitive favorites after drawing No. 1 seeds in their respective brackets.

The Tigers, who have been ranked first in the nation since knocking off Iowa last month in the National Duals Final, are the only team with more than one No. 1 seed.

“We had four goals this season and we’ve got three done,” said MU wrestling coach Brian Smith, whose squad also won Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament championships.

Now, the Tigers’ attention shifts to the ultimate prize — the third national championship in Missouri athletics history. The Tigers won the 1954 national baseball title and 1965 men’s indoor track and field crown.

Missouri was the only team to automatically qualify wrestlers for nationals in all 10 weight classes, but a quartet of Big Ten powers — Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio State — have a full complement of wrestlers after at-large bids were awarded.

“That’s important,” Smith said. “You’ve got to get all the guys out there, because you have 10 guys that can score. It just gives you an advantage at the national tournament.”

The Tigers, whose best finish at NCAA nationals was third place in 2007, are among the top contenders for the team title in what is expected to be a tight race.

History tells Missouri nothing will be handed to them.

“We’ve still got to go do work in St. Louis,” senior heavyweight Devin Mellon, a Lawson graduate, said. “We’ve qualified 10 before and then not placed any. We’ve got to keep our heads on straight and go in there, get bonus points and win matches.”

Missouri qualified all 10 wrestlers in 2012, but none placed in the top eight to earn All-American status and the team finished 26th overall.

A year later, the Tigers again qualified 10 wrestlers for nationals and had five All-Americans en route to a seventh-place team finish.

It seems unlikely that Missouri would get shut out of podium finishes in 2015.

Cox, 33-0, is the reigning champion at 197 and one of four MU wrestlers in history to claim a national title.

Tigers Hall of Famer Ben Askren is the program’s only two-time champion. He wore the national crown at 174 in 2006 and 2007.

Waters, 30-0, is a Park Hill graduate. He was an All-American in 2013 with a fourth-place finish at nationals, but wound up taking a redshirt season after breaking three bones in his foot last year.

Fifteen Missouri wrestlers have earned All-American status more than once in their careers.

That list already includes Houdashelt, 32-1, who finished sixth at the NCAA tourney in 2013 and improved to fifth last year.

Four other Tigers earned seeds for the NCAA tourney.

Sophomore Lavion Mayes, 33-2, is the No. 3 seed at 141; sophomore Joey Lavallee, 22-11, is the No. 9 seed at 157; senior Johnny Eblen, 26-5, is the No. 4 seed at 174; and Mellon, 30-9, is the No. 11 seed.

Missouri’s other three qualifiers — sophomore 133-pounder Zach Synon, 29-11; senior 165-pounder Mikey England, 27-14; and freshman 184-pounder Willie Miklus, 29-7 — are unseeded.

To reach Tod Palmer, call 816-234-4389 or send email to tpalmer@kcstar.com. Follow him on Twitter at @todpalmer.

This story was originally published March 11, 2015 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Missouri gets three No. 1 seeds for NCAA wrestling tournament."