FanPost

Big Ten Breakdown: 133

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125

The Favorite: Tony Ramos. The preseason NCAA favorite has already suffered two losses this season, since then Tony has been doing, well Tony things. Since his losses he has rattled off 14 straight wins, with one of the last two coming against a top ten opponent Mason Beckman. I see no reason why Tony won’t be the favorite for his first conference title.

The Contender: Tyler Graff (assuming he is healthy) comes into this tournament with a very, very long lay off (last match was Feb. 2). He has very similar losses that Tony has on the season (to Colon and Schoop) and he will be every bit a threat to upset Tony in the finals. He is 0-2 in their head-to-heads looking back to last season though so history will not be on his side.

The Dark Horse: Johnny DiJulius is a true dark horse. He had a great start to his season, but this past month he had a couple head scratching losses against Purdue and Michigan and rebounded to a solid win over Oklahoma’s Brewer. Let’s not forget that he also had a nice 6-2 over Colon back in December. DiJulius is a guy who should finish this year on the podium if he can put it together mentally.

An Outside Shot: David Thorn is a guy who only has four losses to the top tier guys. Including Ramos, Graff, Oklahoma State’s Jon Morrison, and Gulibon (which he later avenged). I am not sure Thorn is a guy who will win the conference title, but he could possibly upset Graff and make the finals. He is riding a six match win streak at the moment with four of them bonus point victories.

Jimmy Gulibon is the final name to watch at this weight. He has had a pretty up-and-down season to this point. For instance at one point Gulibon had lost five straight, and at the Scuffle he put together wins over Ryan Mango of Stanford and Thorn. What I am fairly certain of is that Gulibon won’t emerge a champion, I just don’t think he is there yet, but with Ramos, Thorn, and Graff graduating, Gulibon will become contender for the 2015 conference title.

Prediction time:
Conference Finals: Ramos over Graff
3rd place match: Thorn over DiJulius

Unless otherwise expressly indicated by BHGP editors, this FanPost is strictly the viewpoint of the author and is not endorsed by BHGP in any way.