By Ethan Cadeaux (@Ethan_301)
After a rough winter in their inaugural Big Ten season, Maryland wrestling is hoping to build upon their strong recruiting class to have the same success in their new conference that they used to have in the ACC.
The Terps were ACC champions four times in five years from 2007 to 2012, but they know it will be a lot harder to emulate the same success in the Big Ten, inarguably the best wrestling conference in the country.
“Big Ten wrestling as where it is at,” said head coach Kerry McCoy. “It is the premiere conference in wrestling, and we are really looking forward to this year.”
The Terps return five starters and two NCAA qualifiers, as well as a top-20 recruiting class that has been ranked as high as number 12.
“This is an exciting year coming up,” McCoy said about the opportunities the Terps have this year. “We have some good leadership with our seniors and brought in 15 freshmen… It’s going to be a good year and we’re really looking forward to it and excited to get it rolling.”
Although the Terps are reloaded and have some good talent coming back, they still have one of the hardest schedules in the nation, including wrestling off with Iowa and Minnesota, both on the road. In addition, they face Big Ten opponents Nebraska, Michigan State, and Wisconsin all before February.
Big Ten wrestling has won the last fourteen national championships, so Maryland will be facing elite competition across the board. Every Big Ten team Maryland wrestled last year was ranked in the Top 25.
“The goal is to better than last year,” said McCoy. “We have some starters returning from last year, and they should be better than last year since they have had another year to be around.”
Yet, the Terps have a lot of new guys coming in and hoping to challenge right away.
“We have some young, hungry freshman that have come in and are going to push they guys and help us get better,” said McCoy.
The two returning NCAA qualifiers for the Terps are Geoffrey Alexander and Lou Mascola, at the 133-pound and 157 pound weight classes respectively. Alexander has qualified for the NCAA championships in the last three seasons.
The Terps also return Alfred “Baby J” Bannister, who was a redshirt. In wrestling, redshirts are still allowed to compete, and Bannister won 37 times in competition a season ago, which was the most on the team by far.
“The attitude is better, no one liked what happened last year,” said McCoy. “Nobody was satisfied with it, and it is just one of those things that we got better with at the end of the year. Every year we got better and better, but in some cases it just wasn’t good enough. [The team] has put the work in through the Spring and the Summer so that this year, it is going to be different.”
