TALKIN' WRESTLING: IOWA VS. PURDUE GAME THREAD

(reprinting this from Friday...)

#21 Purdue (9-2) vs. #5 Iowa (10-0)

Date: January 6, 2013
Time: 5:00 pm CT
Location: Carver Hawkeye Arena; Iowa City, IA
Television: Mediacom 22 / no online streams
Line: ha

To be the best of my knowledge, video.BTN.com/Hawkeye All-Access isn't doing an online stream for this dual, but it will be televised by Mediacom. Which is annoying, unless you're a Mediacom customer. Hooray for you guys. In any event, I'm not going to do a full write-up for this dual. If Iowa-Ohio State is a five-course meal, this is the after-dinner dessert -- it's a satisfying way to polish off the meal, but it's not a full-blown meal in its own right. Purdue isn't a bad opponent, but they don't have the strength across all ten weights to seriously challenge Iowa. It doesn't help that most of their best wrestlers, like Eppert and Quiroga, are at weights where Iowa has far superior options.

125: Thomas Gilman, who is probably Iowa's third-stringer at 125 this year, beat Eppert 14-4 earlier this year. McD via mauling. This could easily be a pin.
IOWA 4-0

133: Ramos and Quiroga have never met before, but I expect Tony to make their first encounter a rude one.
IOWA 8-0

141: Nelsen is no match for Ballweg.
IOWA 12-0

149: This is one of the matches Purdue has a shot at winning; Lupo is 14-0, though he hasn't faced great competition. Against common opponents, Kelly has been a bit more impressive -- he beat Matt Spataro (Hofstra), 14-2, while Lupo beat him, 7-3. I like the way Kelly is wrestling now.
IOWA 15-0

157: Churchard is really no match for DSJ.
IOWA 19-0

165: As noted earlier, Moore has done well at 165 against unranked opponents.
IOWA 22-0

174: Welch majored Evans' Iowa teammate, Kris Klapprodt, earlier this season; the 'Stache will get some revenge on Klapp's behalf here.
IOWA 26-0

184: Alex Meyer, a true freshman at Iowa, has two wins over Kissel this season; I think Ethen will be fine here.
IOWA 30-0

197: This is a rough-looking weekend for Burak; I think Atwood gets Purdue's only points of the day.
IOWA 33-3

285: Iowa has to get one pin in this dual, right? I'll say Bobby gets it.
IOWA 39-3

Again, use this as your open thread for the Iowa-Purdue meet.