On March 7-8 the Big 12 tournament goes down at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State will look to tie a program record with their eighth straight conference title, and for the first time in a while the Cowboys will have some serious competition for that achievement in the likes of Northern Iowa and Iowa State.

Here’s a look at the lightweights in the first part of my two-part preview of the tournament.

125: Can Nick Piccininni make it four?

Oklahoma State’s Nick Piccininni has owned this weight class in the Big 12 to this point in his career. His freshman year he took out NDSU’s Josh Rodriguez, as a sophomore he pinned NCAA finalist Zeke Moisey in the first period, and last year a win over North Dakota State’s Brent Fleetwood gave him his third title. Here he’ll look to join a pretty elite group of Oklahoma State wrestlers who have won four Big 12 titles. Johnny Thompson, Jordan Oliver, Chris Perry, Alex Dieringer, and Anthony Collica are the only five wrestlers who have donned an orange singlet to do this before.

Hear Piccininni talk about his wrestling career at Oklahoma State:

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Piccininni will have a target on his back and there’s certainly some pressure that will be associated with that. Iowa State’s Alex Mackall currently sits third in Flo’s Big 12 rankings; Piccininni majored him fairly comfortably in the dual, but he was pushed by UNI’s Jay Schwarm, OU’s Christian Moody, and a few others throughout the season. As I write this, NCAA tournament allocations have yet to be announced, but there will probably be five, and possibly six, spots up for grabs with the five seed all the way to about the eight seed all being fairly competitive. Guys like Christian Moody, who probably are on the outside looking in at the moment, won’t want to finish out their careers watching the NCAA tournament from the stands. There should be some battles for those final bids at this weight class.

133: This could get wild!

Throw out the record books for this one . . . who knows what’s going to happen? 

The two favorites at this weight are going to be All-American and Big 12 finalist from last year Montorie Bridges of Wyoming, and Taylor LaMont of Utah Valley, who pinned Bridges in the dual earlier this season. But there is a ton of young talent at this weight class and basically everyone has been beating everyone all season. 

Oklahoma State true freshman Reece Witcraft has beat Bridges, Todd Small of Iowa State, and OU’s Anthony Madrigal; he also has losses to Jack Skudlarczyk and Mosha Schwartz. Bridges is arguably the most talented and credentialed guy at this weight, but has the losses to Witcraft and Lamont. Jack Skudlarczyk of UNI has split with Taylor Lamont and beat Witcraft, but lost to Todd Small. Small has wins over Lamont and Skudlarcyk, but losses to Madrigal and Witcraft. You’ve also got guys like Mosha Schwartz and Cam Sykora who have been pretty consistent in beating most of these guys throughout the season, but both went 0-2 vs the top two in Bridges and LaMont.

Here's Witcraft vs Bridges earlier this year:

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What I’m basically here is all bets are off at this weight. You could conceivably see a true freshman like Reece Witcraft blowing up the bracket and taking the crown and you could also see veterans like Taylor Lamont and Montorie Bridges holding steady and picking up their first conference titles. You could also potentially see just about everything in between. Bonus here is you have guys like Witcraft and Lamont who really like to let it fly. This weight should be a fun one to watch.

141: Can anyone knock off Demas?

OU’s Dom Demas will likely be the #1 seed here. He’s won in close fashion vs most of the top half of the field here, but he’s won. . . . He beat Dusty Hone in each Bedlam dual, he knocked off Ian Parker and Michael Blockhus in OT, and only suffered one loss vs the field this season. Crazy thing is, one of his very few losses this season came from the middle of the pack in WVU’s Caleb Rea, who pinned Demas in the first period of their dual. 

It’ll be interesting to see if Hone, Parker, or Blockhus can step in and steal the crown from Demas. They’ve all kept it close with him this year. Can anyone get over the hump and pull the upset?

Demas vs Droegemueller in Big 12 action:

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Rounding out the top five of this group is Durbin Lloren of Fresno State. That group should all receive allocations for the conference but I think we’ll see guys like Rea and Carlson from South Dakota State let it all hang out to try and snag that automatic bid.

149: How healthy is Degen & can Boo bounce back?

This weight doesn’t have near the parity that we’ve seen at 133. 

With wins over Max Thomsen, Andrew Alirez, and Henry Pohlmeyer, Boo Lewallen should come in as the #1 seed. His last time out he went up against Pat Lugo at Iowa and was pinned in the first period. He’ll have to shake that off here against a field that includes the three guys already mentioned and last year’s Big 12 runner-up Jarret Degen, who he did not wrestle in the ISU dual as Degen was injured. 

Boo is a native Oklahoman. Hear more about his story:

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The interesting thing to watch will be how seeding plays out beyond the #1, which will clearly go to Boo. Max Thomsen has a few wins over Degen and Henry Pohlmeyer beat Thomsen, so I think Pohlmeyer will be the guy at #2, but they will also need to factor in Alirez who only has losses to Boo Lewallen and Jaden Abas this season. It could end up going Pohlmeyer at #2, as Pohlmeyer has a win over Thomsen this year, with Abas at #3, which will likely drop Thomsen and Degen to #4 and #5 and will set up a pretty good quarterfinal there to set up a semifinal with Boo Lewallen. 

Seeding and matchups will mean a lot at this weight. The top five here are all really close and when they start getting into these quarter and semifinal rounds, we could really see some battles.

157: There’s David Carr & everyone else.

Similar to 149, you’ve got a really clear #1 here. Freshman phenom David Carr only has one loss on the season to top-ranked Ryan Deakin of Northwestern, and he comes in at a weight that only returns one NCAA qualifier from last season.

This weight in the Big 12 conference is a much-improved group from last year, though. 

Get to know David Carr a little bit more:

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Naturally you add Carr here and another very solid freshman in Jared Frank of North Dakota State, who may come in as the #2 seed. Justin Thomas of OU will return to defend his crown and Wyatt Sheets of Oklahoma State comes in with a full head of steam after knocking off Caleb Young of Iowa last weekend and going 6-0 in the last month with wins over Thomas and Mizzou’s Jarrett Jacques. 

This weight will get a few more NCAA allocations than it did last year, so when you add in Jacob Wright from Fresno State and Keaton Geerts from Northern Iowa, you could expect some fireworks on Saturday to grab those last few NCAA bids.

Seth Duckworth is a Stillwater-based writer who covers Oklahoma State University wrestling for Pistols Firing Blog, the best OSU news and community site on the internet. Follow Seth on Twitter.