This is the 71st annual Division I Wrestling Championships.      
It is the fifth time the championships have been held in Iowa City.    
Iowa has won the national title 3 out of 4 times with Oklahoma State winning the title in 1959 and Iowa winning in 1986, 1991, and 1995.      
ESPN 2 will air the championships at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, March 17 just a couple of hours after the championships are complete.      
This year's event is sold out.    
Iowa has won the last six championships and 9 of the last 10.      
Oklahoma State was the last team to win the title besides Iowa in 1994.      
The last team to win the title beside Iowa or Oklahoma State was Arizona State in 1988 under the direction of Bobby Douglas, now the coach of Iowa State.    
Three teams have qualified all ten-weight classes for the tournament: Ohio State, Minnesota, and Oklahoma State.      
Iowa's Head Coach since taking over for Dan Gable has yet to lose an NCAA tournament.      
Of the top four seeds of the ten class five are freshman, three are sophomores, eleven are juniors, and twenty-one are seniors.      
At 197 pounds the four seeds are seniors.      
Heavyweight is the youngest weight class, with the top two seeds being freshman.      
Ten wrestlers enter the tournament with unblemished records: Stephen Abas, Fresno State, jr., 29-0 at 125 pounds; Doug Schwab, Iowa, sr., 30-0, at 141 pounds; Michael Lightner, Oklahoma, sr., 30-0; Reggie Wright, Oklahoma State, sr., at 149 pounds; T.J. Williams, Iowa, sr., 24-0; John Koschek, Edinboro, jr., at 174 pounds; Maurice Worthy, Army, sr., 30-0, at 174 pounds; Cael Sanderson, Iowa State, jr., 35-0, at 184 pounds; Antonio Garay, Boston College, jr., 8-0, heavyweight; Garrett Lowney, Minnesota, fr., 17-0 at heavyweight.      
Parity was demonstrated in last year's Championships in St. Louis as no school had more than one individual champion.  The tens schools with champions in 2000 were: Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Illinois, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Northern Iowa, and Penn State.      
Last year's event set the attendance record for wrestling with 96,944 fans in attendance.  In 1997, Northern Iowa's UNI Dome set the previous attendance record with 90,064 in total attendance.      
The Division I Wrestling Championships ranked fourth in revenue produced among the 84 championships that the NCAA sponsored last year (including all divisions, men and women.      
Only five championships were in the "black".  Last year's revenue leaders were 1.  Men's Basketball, $7,016,082; 2.  Men's Ice Hockey, $730,858; 3.  Baseball, $509,317; 4.  Wrestling, 266,448; 5. Men's Lacrosse, 156,524.      
Wrestling is the only individual sport to turn a profit with its' NCAA Championship.      
There are 90 Division I schools with wrestling, down from 91 a year ago.    
Wrestling for Princeton, Juan Venturi, at 133 pounds is the lone qualifier from the lone-star state.  Venturi hails from Houston, Texas.      
Four wrestler come to Iowa City attempting to defend their championship title from a year ago:  Eric Juergens of Iowa at 125 pounds, Don Pritzlaff of Wisconsin at 165 pounds, Cael Sanderson, of Iowa State at 184 pounds, and Brad Vering of Nebraska at 197 pounds.      
Last year half of the championship matches went into overtime.  Three were decided in the sudden-victory time period and two were decided by the tiebreaker, :30 second period.      
In the semifinals matches two bouts were decided by sudden victory and two were decided by the tiebreaker.      
Brock Lesnar recorded the only fall in the semifinals last year at heavyweight.      
Next year the National Championships will be hosted in Albany, New York.