James Hackney
Watch Live: NDSU All Access, February 16th @7PM CT
The Tigers take on a young rebuilding NDSU squad before taking on SDSU on Sunday in another long road trip. After dropping their past two duals and having two weeks off, this will be a good look at the team and how ready they are to bounce back. Of the Bison’s ten starters, six of them are freshmen. This dual could end up one-sided, but that does not mean there aren’t some things to look out for. If Mizzou can come out and look dominant that should set themselves up for some positive momentum before an always tough SDSU team.
It sounds like Kade Moore is going to miss some time but current expectations are that he is back in time for Big 12’s. In the meantime there are not too many options for the Tigers at that weight. Trey Crawford hasn’t wrestled at all this season, Korbin Shepherd has been injured, and Zeke Seltzer moved to 141. Eric Lovelace wrestled in early January, but hasn’t wrestled since. There is true freshman Drew Stanfield, who hasn’t used any of his five dates this season. Unless Seltzer makes the move down I think that he is the most likely one to go here with three duals left but we will see what the status of other wrestlers are as well.
In Mizzou’s first four duals they put up over 30 points, with three being over 38. They’ve had similar flashes, with the 39-0 drubbing of Stanford and a 30-6 win over WVU. With the past two losses they haven’t been able to get the same wins. Most of that comes from the strength of competition, but even some of their better wrestlers haven’t been able to score bonus points like usual. NDSU only has two ranked wrestlers and Mizzou is favored against both of them. Even if they’re missing their normal starter at 133, a shutout is possible for the Tigers. The expectation is that they should be able to come in and get a dominant win here which should get them back on track late in the year.
They’re a young team, but the Bison have two ranked wrestlers currently. Gavin Drexler is a redshirt freshman who had a strong start to the year to get in the rankings. He’s had two tough losses more recently but is still a solid well rounded wrestler…
