By Jason Bryant
jbryant@intermatwrestle.com

With a dominating 29-13 victory over Iowa last Sunday, the Minnesota Golden Gophers laid claim to the Big Ten's regular season title, finishing 7-0 in conference duals and an impressive 20-1 on the season.

J Robinson's team opened the season with a one-point loss to Hofstra, but since, reeled off 20 straight wins and beat the #No. 1-ranked team in the nation on two occasions. After the Hofstra loss, Oklahoma State moved to No. 1, and then the Gophers beat the Cowboys, moving Missouri to No. 1.The Gophers then beat Missouri at the National Duals. 

Illinois finished second in the Big Ten with a 7-1 conference mark and Mark Johnson's squad finished 11-1 in duals and finished the regular season ranked in the Top 10 despite spending most of the year ranked in the teens.

Both Wisconsin, Iowa and Penn State started the year off hot, but all finished 5-3 in the conference.

If you're looking at dual records, then Northwestern's 3-5 conference record might appear disappointing. But the Wildcats have tournament strength and aren't as solid top-to-bottom through the lineup as many other squads in the Big Ten, giving Tim Cysewski some matchup problems along the way. Factor in that Ryan Lang was out for a portion of the season and some duals could have gone the Wildcats way.

First-year coach Tom Ryan guided Ohio State to a 4-4 conference record and finished 8-7 overall. Ryan hasn't had his best lineup on the mat, for what seems every dual. T.J. Enright's been out, Jeff Jaggers has been out, Blake Maurer's been out, and Ryan Patrovich transferred back to Long Island. There's still a lot of excitement in Ohio about the program, but not everything is immediate. Ryan knows as he built Hofstra into a top Eastern program after starting out slow.

Michigan, like Ohio State, wasn't fully-stocked in duals this year, with Mark Moos disappearing from the lineup, Steve Luke out for an ample amount of time, Nick Roy and Casey White battling back and forth for the starting spot at 197 pounds. All in all, the Wolverines finished with a 2-10-1 record this season and just one win in the Big Ten.

Something should be said about how tough the Big Ten is. Purdue finished last, dropping all eight conference bouts, but finished the season 10-8. Yes, they were 10-0 in non-conference duals.

More Bigs
Over in the Big 12, Missouri and Oklahoma State were expected to duke it out, with the Tigers viewed as possible national championship contenders. Somehow, Cael Sanderson didn't get the memo. Starting six redshirt freshmen, Sanderson's Iowa State team finished atop the Big 12 in duals and are heading into the post-season ranked second in the nation. 

Missouri has been hit with a nasty flu bug. A subpar performance against Old Dominion showed Tiger fans something might have been wrong and a forfeit-laden 40-8 home loss to UT-Chattanooga proved it.

Oklahoma State finished third in the dual standings, but still find themselves ranked fourth in the nation. It says something about how tough the Big 12 is too. 

Nebraska and Oklahoma have both also been hit with injuries and it was Nebraska beating OU this season which sent the Sooners to the basement of the Big 12. Must be something if you're last in your conference and still ranked in the Top 15. 

Out East
Navy was the lone team in the country's largest Division I wrestling conference, the 14-team EIWA, to finish with an unblemished conference mark. Bruce Burnett's squad went 7-0 in EIWA duals and finished 11-4 on the season. In January, the Midshipmen were toeing the line with Oklahoma State and nearly pulled the upset.

Cornell and Lehigh finished second and third according to EIWA guru John Harmon's standings - and stop me if you've heard this before - and both teams spent much of the season just trying to stay healthy.

Cornell was without Troy Nickerson, Adam Frey and Josh Arnone for long stretches during  the season, while Lehigh started the year without four starters and then lost two more in Trevor Chinn and Mike Galante. 

The EIWA was simply wacky. Cornell beats Penn, Penn beats Lehigh, Lehigh beats Cornell. We could call it parity, but that's another argument.

Army, Penn and Rutgers finished above .500 in the league, while a revived Bucknell team finished 3-3 in conference duals and 12-9-1 overall. The Bison picked up quality wins this season over Columbia and Maryland. 

Princeton and first year coach Chris Ayres finished as one of three winless Division I programs this season as the Tigers went 0-17. Only one place to go now … up.

More East
Edinboro claimed another Eastern Wrestling League regular season title with a 6-0 dual mark. The Fighting Scots were the nation's only unbeaten Division I dual team last year and have won 29 of their last 30 duals over the last two seasons.

Bloomsburg and West Virginia were both 4-2 in conference. Clarion, which finshed 0-fer last season failed to win an EWL dual, but the Golden Eagles and first year coach Teague Moore did pick up seven wins.

Feeling Colonial
If you want the same old story, look to the Colonial Athletic Association where Hofstra won another conference regular season championship, finishing 7-0 in league matches and went 18-4-2 overall. It's likely that the Pride will send eight or nine wrestlers to the NCAA championships, as they look to be a top seed in at least seven weights when the tournament rolls around next weekend in Fairfax.

Old Dominion went 5-1 in conference matches with an addition non-conference win at the Virginia Duals over Rider, who finished 5-3 in conference duals. Drexel won 17 matches and wrestled all 10 conference teams, finishing 8-2. Expect the three schools to fight over the scraps left by Hofstra's champions at the tournament.

JMU, Campbell and Wagner have seen better days - well, at least JMU has. The Dukes, in what appears to be their final season competing on the mats, did what they could to get mat time - wrestling 31 duals and picking up a 7-24 mark.

Campbell finished 2-19-1, but has a slight chance at getting a qualifier to nationals - while Wagner ended up 0-18. Wagner was scheduled to wrestle Delaware State this week, but more administrative blunders kept DSU and Wagner from picking up their only dual win of the year.

Go West
The Pac 10 Conference kicks off with its tournament this weekend, one week ahead of the rest of the Division I world. Cal State-Bakersfield is the host. 

First-year Coach Jim Zalesky scored the best conference dual mark, going 7-1 but the only loss was to brother Lennie Zalesky at UC Davis. 

Davis, Boise State and Arizona State all finished 5-2 in conference.  Have we mentioned teams have been hurt this year? At one point, Thom Ortiz was starting eight non-scholarship wrestlers. The Sundevils are getting back to patching a line-up together, but it's been a rocky road in Tempe this season.

With Pat Pitsch back in the lineup along with Brian Stith, the Sun Devils have at least two All-American contenders.

Kerry McCoy's second season at Stanford ended even, 4-4 in conference duals and 8-8 overall. Cal Poly lost the services of returning All-American Chad Mendes and finished 7-9 in duals - with an injury-plauged loss to Gardner-Webb this season.

Like Princeton's Chris Ayres, Portland State first-year coach Mike Haluska has no where to go but up. The Vikings finished 1-16 this season.

Around the horn
Central Michigan, UT-Chattanooga, Northern Iowa, Maryland and Duquesne all went through their conferences/regions with unblemished dual marks. 

First-year Coach Chris Bono has the UTC Mocs ranked 13th, the highest in school history, after a 16-1 season. 

Maryland won its first regular season ACC championship since 1974 with a perfect 5-0 record in an improving conference. Had the Terps not lost the opening weekend of the season to Bucknell, they could have had garnered more votes in the USA Today/NWCA/InterMat Division I Coaches Poll.

Business as usual for Tom Borrelli in the MAC as his Central Michigan squad, lineup shifts and all, went 16-4-1 in duals and a perfect 5-0 in conference. Borelli has been moving Tyler Grayson, Brandon Carter, Andy Keller, Trevor Stewart and Mike Miller in and out of the line-up between 149 and 165, and two of the most improved wrestlers this year were both Chrisitan and Brandon Sinnott.

Northern Iowa can call itself the first Western Wrestling Conference regular season champion, even though the conference is still not an official qualifier. The only team not associated with the WWC - Eastern Illinois - did wrestle three duals against WWC teams. Utah Valley State's still hanging on, hoping for a reprieve that would allow full-fledged D-1 membership and eligibility for NCAA championships and post-season competition.

The East Region "title" was picked up by Duquesne. The East Region, with its odd geographic footprint, brought all five qualifying schools together for the East Region Duals (done more for qualifier seeding than anything) and John Hartupee's Dukes went 4-0. Liberty, which like Bucknell, is a reinstated program, had the best overall record in duals this year, going 13-7.