Five Sooners Primed for NCAA Championships

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Oklahoma wrestling team heads to Kansas City for the 2024 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships at the T-Mobile Center following a seventh place finish at Big 12's. Head coach Roger Kish brings five qualified wrestlers and one alternate to NCAAs in his first season in Norman after presiding over Big 12 Conference affiliate member North Dakota State the last 12 seasons.

The Sooners are led by two-time All-American Stephen Buchanan who enters his fourth NCAA tournament after finishing third at the 2022 NCAA Tournament while wrestling for Wyoming. He is joined by fellow four-time qualifier Josh Heindselman and two-time qualifiers Jace Koelzer, Willie McDougald and Jared Hill.

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 21
Session 1: Pigtails & First Round - 11 a.m. (ESPNU)
Session 2: Second Round & Consolation First Round - 6:00 p.m. (ESPN)

Friday, March 22
Session 3: Quarterfinals & Consolation Second & Third Rounds - 11 a.m. (ESPNU)
Session 4: Semifinals & Consolation Fourth & Fifth Rounds - 7 p.m. (ESPN)

Saturday, March 23
Session 5: Consolation Semifinals & Placing Matches - 10 a.m. (ESPNU)
Session 6: Finals - 6 p.m. (ESPN)

SEEDING AND FIRST-ROUND MATCHES

133: No. 29 Jace Koelzer vs. No. 4 Dylan Shawver (Rutgers)
149: No. 21 Willie McDougald vs. No. 12 Ethen Miller (Maryland)
157: No. 28 Jared Hill vs. No. 5 Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa)
197: No. 8 Stephen Buchanan vs. No. 25 Benjamin Smith (Cleveland State)
285: No. 11 Josh Heindselman vs. No. 22 Matthew Cover (Princeton)

HOW WE GOT HERE

All five of the Oklahoma qualifiers earned auto-bids based on their performances at the Big 12 Championship, with Cael Carlson earning the first alternate in the 165-pound weight class. Carlson will only compete if one other wrestler is forced to withdraw.

The NCAA announced the pre-allocation spots for the 2024 Division I Wrestling championship with the Big 12 Conference earning 57 bids, the second most behind only the Big Ten.

The Big 12 received a minimum of five pre-allocations in every weight class, with the highest being six in the 125, 133, 149, 157,165, 174 and 197-pound weight classes.

Each qualifying tournament was awarded pre-allocations to the national tournament based on regular season performance by conference wrestlers through Feb. 26. The pre-allocations are determined using a sliding scale of a .700 winning percentage, top 30 coaches' rank and top 30 ratings percentage index (RPI) with a maximum of 29 pre-allocations per weight class.

CHAMPIONSHIP PEDIGREE

Since the inception of collegiate wrestling in 1928, Oklahoma has been one of the most dominant wrestling programs in the country. The Sooners have seven team national titles, 67 individual national champions and 277 All-Americans.

In addition to the Sooners' seven national championships, Oklahoma has finished as runner-up at NCAAs 12 times, third most in the country. The Sooners' 40 finishes inside the top four are the fourth-most nationally and OU has grabbed a top-10 spot at NCAAs 64 times (third most) out of 91 championships held.

The NCAA named Oklahoma the fourth-greatest wrestling dynasty in the country in the summer of 2020.
Oklahoma has collected 24 overall conference championships and 186 individual conference champions in school history. The team's most recent conference championship came in 2021, their first in 19 years.

OU assistant Teyon Ware was a four-time All American wrestler for the Sooners from 2003-2006.

50th ANNIVERSARY: CELEBRATING THE 1974 CHAMPION SOONERS

The 1974 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships were the 44th NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships to be held. Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa hosted the tournament at Hilton Coliseum.

Under legendary head coach Stan Abel, Oklahoma took home the team championship with 69.5 points and two individual champions (118 lbs: Gary Breece; 158 lbs: Rod Kilgore). The 1974 Championship remains OU's last team title win.

The first Sooner wrestler to become a four-time All-American, Breece capped his career by winning the 1974 NCAA title at 118-pounds with a tense, low-scoring 3-2 victory over Jack Spates of Slippery Rock. Ironically, Spates would later become OU's head coach from 1994-2011. A two-time national finalist and two-time Big Eight Champion, Breece was a crafty, hardworking wrestler with solid offense and good defense. While in high school, Breece was a two-time Oklahoma state champion. He won his first title for Edmond Memorial in 1968 and his second for Tulsa Memorial in 1969.

As a wrestler at OU, Kilgore was a four-time All-American, won two Big Eight conference titles and two NCAA championships. He was the first OU wrestler to win 100 matches.

TOURNAMENT INFO

The championship will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks, culminating with the finals live on ESPN on Saturday night. Live results and scoring will be available online via TrackWrestling.

For updates, follow @OU_Wrestling on Twitter, or like Oklahoma Wrestling on Facebook.