No. 1 Missouri Tigers poised to make run at first NCAA crown
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by Craig Sesker USA Wrestling
Missouri coach Brian Smith addresses the media during the NCAA Championships press conference on Wednesday at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. Austin Bernard photo.
ST. LOUIS – Confident wrestlers are scary wrestlers.
Those were the words of Missouri coach Brian Smith following his team’s upset win over No. 1 Iowa last month in the finals of the National Duals.
Now Missouri is the No. 1 team in the land and the Tigers are supremely confident heading into the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Thursday through Saturday at the Scottrade Center.
And that’s a scary prospect for the rest of the field as Mizzou seeks its first NCAA wrestling title in school history.
“Everything we do is to win the national title,” Smith said. “The kids understand it and they embrace it. They’ve wrestled really well all year and they’re ready to go. We’re really focused and we’re healthy, and we’re excited to be here.”
Smith is in his 17th season at Missouri. He took over a struggling program with virtually no tradition and no history. His teams struggled during his first three seasons in Columbia.
“I thought if I didn’t win that fourth year,” Smith said, “I may not be living in the state of Missouri.”
Then the Tigers started to turn it around. A short time later, Ben Askren arrived in Columbia and really put the program on the map by winning two NCAA titles and two Hodge Trophy awards before making the 2008 Olympic Team.
Mark Ellis and Max Askren followed with NCAA titles before J'den Cox earned an NCAA championship last year. The team has finished as high as third at the NCAA tournament.
And Smith’s now won virtually every event on his team’s schedule except one.
The NCAA championship.
“I don’t care who’s the favorite,” Smith said. “I truly feel that we can win this thing. We know there are five or six teams that have an opportunity to win this. Every little point is going to matter. If you have a chance to put a guy on his back, you need to try and take advantage of it. It’s going to be a tight race and we know that.”
The pieces are in place for the Tigers to make history this weekend. Plus, Mizzou is wrestling just down the road from its Columbia campus and will have a strong contingent of fans in attendance in St. Louis.
The Tigers have three of the tournament’s 10 No. 1 seeds – Alan Waters (125 pounds), Drake Houdashelt (149) and Cox (197) – this week in St. Louis. Lavion Mayes is the 3 seed at 149 and John Eblen the 4 seed at 174. Teammate Joseph LaVallee is the 9 seed at 157 and Devin Mellon is the 11 seed at heavyweight.
The Tigers qualified all 10 wrestlers for this tournament. Their top challengers are expected to be Iowa, Ohio State, Minnesota, Cornell and Penn State.
“We wrestled a tough schedule all year,” said Smith, whose team went unbeaten in dual meets this season. “Our team has responded the way I hoped they would. They went out there and battled hard and kept their composure and wrestled with a lot of intensity.”
Cox, a sophomore and a returning NCAA champion, is 33-0 this season and has won his last 53 matches. Not bad for a guy who is only 20 years old. Even though he’s only a sophomore, Cox brings a maturity and leadership component to the Tiger squad.
The No. 1 seed at 197 pounds is quick to point out that the NCAAs is “just another tournament” to him.
“It’s a tournament with a little bigger prize at the end, but you can’t let that change your approach,” Cox said. “We’re a great team, we’ve had an outstanding season and our focus is the same as it’s been all season. We just want to go out and wrestle the way we’ve competed all season. You just concentrate on doing your best in that next match.”
Cox was a star recruit coming out of high school, but chose to stay in his hometown of Columbia to wrestle collegiately.
He embraced the “Tiger Style” motto the program lives by.
“Tiger Style is a lifestyle and a mindset,” Cox said. “The mentality in the room is to do more and be the best. With that mentality, that’s what I wanted to follow. I wanted to be inspired by those who wanted to be better.”
Cox kept everything in perspective when his team won the National Duals last month in front of a hostile pro-Iowa crowd of 7,000 fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.
“It’s just another goal checked off the list,” he said. “We have a willingness to get better and we have fun with it. We love to wrestle, we love what we do. Each day we come into the room we try to get better. We work out butts off – that’s what’s special about this team. We’re never done getting better.”
Houdashelt, a senior, will finish his collegiate career at home. He grew up in the St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon, Mo.
“This is exciting to be a part of,” Houdashelt said. “Everyone on our team has stepped up. We just need to keep having fun. We enjoy being around each other and have fun together as a team. We have a very close team and we push each other to be the best.”
Houdashelt is a veteran who has embraced the leadership Smith has brought to the program.
“Coach Smith is amazing,” Houdashelt said. “He cares about each of us, like we were his own kids. He cares so much about us, so we all care about him. We don’t want to let him down when we go out on the mat. He’s an amazing leader and we believe in what he says. No one questions it when he asks us to do something. We trust him to do what’s best for us.”
Cox put the rise of the Missouri program in perspective.
“What’s happening this year is something that Coach Smith and teams before us, and the people that have come through this program before us have been building for 17 years,” Cox said. “What we’re doing now is not just something that happened all of a sudden in a year.”
Ben Askren, a Bellator and One FC champion in mixed martial arts, reflected back on what Missouri has built.
“Missouri didn’t have a good program when I went there, but I felt like Brian Smith was going to build one,” Askren said on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. Brian’s done an awesome job. They showed a lot of composure when they went into a hostile environment at Iowa at the National Duals. They weren’t intimidated and kept their focus, and that really impressed me.
“This team has done an outstanding job and they keep getting better. We were third at NCAAs in 2007, but this team is better. If they wrestle to their seeds, they’ve got a great chance to win this. It would mean a lot for Missouri to win a national title. Not many teams have won this tournament. It would send a message that it’s not impossible to do this if you’re a program who has never won this. It’s an incredible success story to see what Missouri has done.”
Only four schools have won the NCAA team title since Arizona State won it all in 1988. Since then, Iowa has won 12 NCAA titles, Oklahoma State seven, Penn State four and Minnesota three.
“It’s a very small, elite group of teams that have won this tournament,” Smith said. “We’re due. We’re due for a new team to win this. Why not us? That’s the approach our team has had. Why not us? Why can’t it be Missouri? Why can’t it be a new team in the mix? These guys are enjoying this ride and they will wrestle hard in this tournament, I know that.”
ST. LOUIS – Confident wrestlers are scary wrestlers.
Those were the words of Missouri coach Brian Smith following his team’s upset win over No. 1 Iowa last month in the finals of the National Duals.
Now Missouri is the No. 1 team in the land and the Tigers are supremely confident heading into the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Thursday through Saturday at the Scottrade Center.
And that’s a scary prospect for the rest of the field as Mizzou seeks its first NCAA wrestling title in school history.
“Everything we do is to win the national title,” Smith said. “The kids understand it and they embrace it. They’ve wrestled really well all year and they’re ready to go. We’re really focused and we’re healthy, and we’re excited to be here.”
Smith is in his 17th season at Missouri. He took over a struggling program with virtually no tradition and no history. His teams struggled during his first three seasons in Columbia.
“I thought if I didn’t win that fourth year,” Smith said, “I may not be living in the state of Missouri.”
Then the Tigers started to turn it around. A short time later, Ben Askren arrived in Columbia and really put the program on the map by winning two NCAA titles and two Hodge Trophy awards before making the 2008 Olympic Team.
Mark Ellis and Max Askren followed with NCAA titles before J'den Cox earned an NCAA championship last year. The team has finished as high as third at the NCAA tournament.
And Smith’s now won virtually every event on his team’s schedule except one.
The NCAA championship.
“I don’t care who’s the favorite,” Smith said. “I truly feel that we can win this thing. We know there are five or six teams that have an opportunity to win this. Every little point is going to matter. If you have a chance to put a guy on his back, you need to try and take advantage of it. It’s going to be a tight race and we know that.”
The pieces are in place for the Tigers to make history this weekend. Plus, Mizzou is wrestling just down the road from its Columbia campus and will have a strong contingent of fans in attendance in St. Louis.
The Tigers have three of the tournament’s 10 No. 1 seeds – Alan Waters (125 pounds), Drake Houdashelt (149) and Cox (197) – this week in St. Louis. Lavion Mayes is the 3 seed at 149 and John Eblen the 4 seed at 174. Teammate Joseph LaVallee is the 9 seed at 157 and Devin Mellon is the 11 seed at heavyweight.
The Tigers qualified all 10 wrestlers for this tournament. Their top challengers are expected to be Iowa, Ohio State, Minnesota, Cornell and Penn State.
“We wrestled a tough schedule all year,” said Smith, whose team went unbeaten in dual meets this season. “Our team has responded the way I hoped they would. They went out there and battled hard and kept their composure and wrestled with a lot of intensity.”
Cox, a sophomore and a returning NCAA champion, is 33-0 this season and has won his last 53 matches. Not bad for a guy who is only 20 years old. Even though he’s only a sophomore, Cox brings a maturity and leadership component to the Tiger squad.
The No. 1 seed at 197 pounds is quick to point out that the NCAAs is “just another tournament” to him.
“It’s a tournament with a little bigger prize at the end, but you can’t let that change your approach,” Cox said. “We’re a great team, we’ve had an outstanding season and our focus is the same as it’s been all season. We just want to go out and wrestle the way we’ve competed all season. You just concentrate on doing your best in that next match.”
Cox was a star recruit coming out of high school, but chose to stay in his hometown of Columbia to wrestle collegiately.
He embraced the “Tiger Style” motto the program lives by.
“Tiger Style is a lifestyle and a mindset,” Cox said. “The mentality in the room is to do more and be the best. With that mentality, that’s what I wanted to follow. I wanted to be inspired by those who wanted to be better.”
Cox kept everything in perspective when his team won the National Duals last month in front of a hostile pro-Iowa crowd of 7,000 fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.
“It’s just another goal checked off the list,” he said. “We have a willingness to get better and we have fun with it. We love to wrestle, we love what we do. Each day we come into the room we try to get better. We work out butts off – that’s what’s special about this team. We’re never done getting better.”
Houdashelt, a senior, will finish his collegiate career at home. He grew up in the St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon, Mo.
“This is exciting to be a part of,” Houdashelt said. “Everyone on our team has stepped up. We just need to keep having fun. We enjoy being around each other and have fun together as a team. We have a very close team and we push each other to be the best.”
Houdashelt is a veteran who has embraced the leadership Smith has brought to the program.
“Coach Smith is amazing,” Houdashelt said. “He cares about each of us, like we were his own kids. He cares so much about us, so we all care about him. We don’t want to let him down when we go out on the mat. He’s an amazing leader and we believe in what he says. No one questions it when he asks us to do something. We trust him to do what’s best for us.”
Cox put the rise of the Missouri program in perspective.
“What’s happening this year is something that Coach Smith and teams before us, and the people that have come through this program before us have been building for 17 years,” Cox said. “What we’re doing now is not just something that happened all of a sudden in a year.”
Ben Askren, a Bellator and One FC champion in mixed martial arts, reflected back on what Missouri has built.
“Missouri didn’t have a good program when I went there, but I felt like Brian Smith was going to build one,” Askren said on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. Brian’s done an awesome job. They showed a lot of composure when they went into a hostile environment at Iowa at the National Duals. They weren’t intimidated and kept their focus, and that really impressed me.
“This team has done an outstanding job and they keep getting better. We were third at NCAAs in 2007, but this team is better. If they wrestle to their seeds, they’ve got a great chance to win this. It would mean a lot for Missouri to win a national title. Not many teams have won this tournament. It would send a message that it’s not impossible to do this if you’re a program who has never won this. It’s an incredible success story to see what Missouri has done.”
Only four schools have won the NCAA team title since Arizona State won it all in 1988. Since then, Iowa has won 12 NCAA titles, Oklahoma State seven, Penn State four and Minnesota three.
“It’s a very small, elite group of teams that have won this tournament,” Smith said. “We’re due. We’re due for a new team to win this. Why not us? That’s the approach our team has had. Why not us? Why can’t it be Missouri? Why can’t it be a new team in the mix? These guys are enjoying this ride and they will wrestle hard in this tournament, I know that.”
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