Ho-hum. Another week, another lopsided blowout for the Iowa wrestlers. Mind you, it's not like that wasn't expected -- I called for a 29-6 rout in my preview yesterday -- and it's become de rigueur for Iowa wrestling. That's partially because Tom Brands has assembled an utterly dominant dual meet team -- they're the only undefeated team in the nation (12-0-1) and they've only had three dual meets that were at all close (ISU, a 22-13 win; Oklahoma State, a 15-15 draw; and Penn State, another 22-13 win). It's a testament to Brands' ability to recruit and develop talent that he has such a loaded team: Iowa has top-15 guys at all but two weights. Not many teams can match that firepower in a dual meet setting. Even Iowa's two weak links (149 and heavyweight) would rank as solid options for many teams.
But last night the dominance was also partially due to the severely weakened team that Purdue put on the mat. There were expected to be a handful of interesting showdowns between ranked wrestlers in the dual, but due to injuries there wound up being just one -- #8 Luke Manuel vs. #11 Ethen Lofthouse. In the lone disappointment of the night, Lofthouse the Younger came up short, falling to Manuel in a 6-5 decision in the only match that Purdue won all night. It was an unimpressive effort from Lofthouse who could really have used a win for the purposes of confidence-building and seeding assistance. Beyond that, there really isn't much to glean from this result. Purdue fielded a woefully overmatched team and Iowa did exactly what they should against such a team: destroy them. McDonough ran his pin streak to five consecutive matches and Iowa picked up bonus points in eight of their nine wins (only DSJ failed to do so, which was also a little disappointing, though Salazar is a bit better than his 11-6 record would indicate, too). We didn't learn much about the Iowa wrestlers that we didn't already know, but it was nice to see that there wasn't even a hint of a letdown at least. Let's hope Michigan provides a more interesting challenge on Sunday.
#2 Iowa 37, #23 Purdue 3
184: #12 Grant Gambrall MAJ DEC (12-3) Patrick Kissel (Iowa, 4-0)
197: #8 Luke Lofthouse MAJ DEC (18-6) David Pisarcik (Iowa, 8-0)
HWT: Blake Rasing MAJ DEC (12-3) Alex White (Iowa, 12-0)
125: #1 Matt McDonough FALL (4:27) Camden Eppert (Iowa, 18-0)
133: #8 Tony Ramos MAJ DEC (18-6) Akif Eren (Iowa, 22-0)
141: #3 Montell Marion MAJ DEC (15-5) Jake Fleckenstein (Iowa, 26-0)
149: Mark Ballweg MAJ DEC (10-1) Tommy Churchard (Iowa, 30-0)
157: #7 Derek St. John DEC (9-4) Colton Salazar (Iowa, 33-0)
165: #13 Aaron Janssen MAJ DEC (17-6) Kyle Mosier (Iowa, 37-0)
174: #8 Luke Manuel DEC (6-5) #11 Ethen Lofthouse (Iowa, 37-3)
NEXT: You're my boy, Big Blue -- Michigan at CHA (1pm CST, Sunday). Televised on IPTV and BTN.com ($$$).