I’ll be rolling out 10 individual articles for each weight class starting today with 125.  This weight class brings both overall depth and extremely high end talent.  The story of this weight is the top 4 of Tomasello, Gilman, Dance and Megaludis.  It’s a tired cliche, but whoever is clicking next week brings it home, they’re that close.  

I’m going to break this down into multiple sections. I’ll outline my title contenders.  If you aren’t on that list, I find it incredibly unlikely that you have a chance at the finals, much less the championship.  I’ll also lay out my darkhorses.  Low seeds or unseeded wrestlers that I believe have a great chance to make a run.  Then I’ll get into my bracket breakdown and predictions.

Get familiar with the landscape of this weight by taking a look at the NCAA Brackets Here. 

125 Title Contenders:

Nathan Tomasello, Ohio State
Joey Dance, Virginia Tech
Nico Megaludis, Penn State
Thomas Gilman, Iowa

These top 4 have not lost to anybody outside this top 4 all year.  I don’t foresee that trend changing.  If it happens, I think it may be to Joey Dance.  More on that later.

125 Darkhorses:

For me, darkhorse is a combination of low-non seeded guys with a combination of underrated talent and an ideal draw to out-perform.

(15) David Terao
(12) Paul Petrov
Conor Youtsey
Sean Fausz
(16) Elijah Oliver

Early Upset Potential:

There are a number of seeded wrestlers that I believe are vulnerable in round 1.  From the top, Sean McCabe could make things tough for Oliver.  Templeman against  8 seed McGhee is not an ideal match up for Barlow after an hour weigh in.  You already know I expect Sean Fausz to make a run, it could start against #14 Joshua Rodriguez.  Dalton Macri is someone I’ll hold out hope for until the bitter end.  The talent is there, the unseeded Big Red wrestler will be facing #11 Ronnie Bresser. The big one, the one that had Cowboys fans take a deep gulp, is unseeded (and returning All American) Conor Youtsey against #6 Eddie Klimara.  Youtsey at 12-13 hasn’t followed up his All American year with sterling results. However, he has been wrestling tough and he beat Klimara last year 3-2.

CP’s Final Predictions:

1. Nico Megaludis, Penn State
2. Thomas Gilman, Iowa
3. Nathan Tomasello, Ohio State
4. Joey Dance, Virginia Tech
5. Eddie Klimara, Oklahoma State
6. Barlow McGhee, Missouri
7. Darian Cruz, Lehigh
8. David Terao, American

Round of 12: Paul Petrov, Bucknell (losses to Thomas Gilman and David Terao), Sean Fausz, NC State (Losses to Nico Megaludis and Barlow McGhee), Ryan Millhof, Oklahoma (Losses to Paul Petrov and Darian Cruz), Elijah Oliver, Indiana (Losses to Nathan Tomasello and Eddie Klimara)

So for a change of pace we’ll have the predictions before all the analysis. You see my picks, now I’ll let you know how I got there.  Out of the 8 spot, I like Terao.  Despite losing early to Joey Dance, I like Terao to go on a nice run in the backside beating McCabe, Schram and Petrov in the round of 12.  It’s a tough run with three loseable matches.  He’s 3-0 against Petrov historically.  I look for that trend to continue before losing to Barlow and Cruz in the 7th place match.  

For Cruz in the 7th spot, I think things set up nicely for the former All-American.  Cruz will have a tough round 2 match against the stingy Connor Schram of Stanford.  This is absolutely a match I worry about for Darian, but expect him to get by.  I believe he’ll fall to Dance in the quarter before beating Millhof in the round of 12.  Millhof finds himself in this spot in the bracket because of a loss I believe he’ll suffer to Paul Petrov in round 2.  Though Millhoff pinned him last time around, it was a defensive pin in an extremely close match.  Back to Cruz, though.  After he beats Millhof, I think he falls to Klimara then beats Terao (again) for 7th.

McGhee looks great right now.  He’s been quite re-attack reliant, but I’ve noticed him getting to legs more consistently.  An hour weigh in is difficult for him, but he’s been managing it well. I like him to make the quarters against Tomasello before taking out Sean Fausz in the round of 12.  There are a few scary matches along the way for Barlow.  He’ll need to beat Templeman round 1 then Dylan Peters (who beat him earlier this year) in round 2.  Don’t forget that Fausz gave him a battle in their dual this year.  Fausz has a tank that doesn’t quit and can be problematic on top.  I like Fausz to take out Josh Rodriguez in round 1  before falling to Nico.  Fausz will get through Fleetwood and then Bresser (another upset for Fausz) before losing to McGhee. Back to Barlow, after another tight win I see him beating Terao (who he beat at Vegas) before dropping to Dance.  Interestingly, Dance and McGhee had an OT match at Vegas.  What’s interesting is if Dance is in this match, it means he just dropped his semi to Nico.  We see guys have letdown matches after tough losses, so that cannot be discounted here.  There’s upset potential in that one.  But regardless, I’ll predict Barlow to fall there and to Klimara as well to take 6th

Klimara is a guy stuck between two tiers.  He generally beats the guys he should, but he never ventures towards that upper echelon.  Klimara has a clean run to the quarters provided he can get past Youtsey, who took him out last year.  After falling to Nico in the quarters, I look for him to beat Elijah Oliver in the round of 12.  Oliver is someone I think has great potential.  If he can beat McCabe in round 1, I like Oliver to take out Freddy Rodriguez and Dylan Peters (who I don’t think is clicking on all cylinders right now) before falling to Klimara.  Klimara will beat Cruz before falling to Tomasello in the consolation semi’s. Then I think Klimara takes out McGhee once again.  McGhee was unable to get to legs against Klimara last time around.  I’m not sure things are much different and Klimara finishes in 5th.

Here’s where it gets tough, the top 4. Joey Dance has taken out Tomasello, Gilman and Megaludis in the last two seasons.  However, he has a way of losing the rematch.  He beat Tomasello, then lost the next time.  He beat Gilman, then lost the next time.  Earlier this year he beat Megaludis.  See where I’m going here?  First of all, I worry about Dance’s path to make the semi’s.  While I’m not subscribing to the Freddy Rodriguez upset train over Joey, I do think that the combination of that match, then Terao, then Cruz is a pretty rough road for the 2 seed to make the semi’s.  Consider Gilman’s path of Fleetwood, Lambert and Millhof.  I think that’s a much smoother path to the semi’s.  Joey was getting ridden very tough by Nico before getting the late reversal to force OT.  Neither were very close to getting takedowns at any point.  Joey got the rideout in TB1 for the win.  I don’t see it following that path this time.  Nico will either find his way to a takedown, or ride more intelligently.  This sends Joey to the consolation semi’s where I expect him to take out McGhee before losing to Tomasello for 3rd.  Don’t misunderstand me, Joey can unquestionably win this tournament.  

I won’t waste your time with Tomasello’s path to the semi’s, just understand that he’ll be there Friday night.  So it’s very likely we’ll be seeing another Gilman/Tomasello match.  Last time these two faced it was a one takedown match where NATO finished a sweep single very effectively.  What’s lost is that the two haven’t faced each other in over a year.  What also may be lost is that the story going into that Big 10 title was how Gilman had owned this match up historically.  From several freestyle meetings to their match in the dual, it had been all Gilman.  It cannot be denied that Tomasello has jumped levels over the last year.  However, I think the problems that Gilman posed Tomasello still exist today. It’s a coin flip match, despite Tomasello’s excellence.  I believe it’s Gilman’s time to get it done.  His ability to take ground and control the hand fight could make the difference.  Whether it’s a re-attack td or a finish off his own single, I think Gilman finds away to win this one, if only by a point.  So that puts Tomasello in the consolation semi’s where I think he wrestles back for 3rd over Dance.

Here are a few of the meetings between Tomasello and Gilman:
I’ve already mentioned that I think Gilman beats Tomasello.  I love his path to the semi’s (I think I mentioned that already as well). Gilman is a pit bull in the hand fight who few people can stand and handle his pace.  I discussed why I thought he’d break through against Tomasello, but I’m less sure about his match against Nico.  Like his Tomasello bout, I believe this is a coin flip match.  This time, I think he comes up short.  Many may be encouraged that Gilman was able to get to legs against Megaludis.  The thing is, Gilman will have to try to finish on the splits again. Once again,I think he’ll come up short.  Gilman doesn’t finish quick and clean against the best guys, it takes him time.  Megaludis will continue to present those same problems. I’m not sure if Nico finds his way to a takedown or not, but I just picture him finding a way to win somehow and put a bow on a career that has had him extremely close to the mountain top.  I think he’ll go out on top.  That was my prediction at the beginning of the season.  And despite a loss to Dance and two to Tomasello, I think he puts it together this weekend.  These 4 are separated by miniscule amounts.  No combination of these 4 in any order is not explainable or possible.