Ten Missouri Tigers wrestlers head into the NCAA Championships in Kansas City
Mizzou wrestling coach Brian Smith was seated for “Dune: Part Two” with his son when the brackets for the NCAA wrestling championships were released.
“My phone was buzzing, but I ignored it because you’re not allowed to take it out at the movie,” Smith said. “So I say to my son, ‘Hey, let’s go to a movie.’ And then he’s like, he starts looking and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to know the brackets in the middle of a movie, you’re gonna distract me!’”
That’s especially funny because Smith noted he actually fell asleep during the first “Dune” movie and needed to be updated on some of the storylines during previews for the sequel.
But with that distraction came some good news.
Nine Tigers earned automatic bids to the NCAA championships following last week’s Big 12 championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A total of 10 MU wrestlers qualified for the NCAA championships, the annual event that this year takes place Thursday-Saturday, March 21-23, at Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center.
This is the fourth consecutive season Mizzou’s produced nine or more qualifiers and the second straight with all 10 starters qualified.
Keegan O’Toole claimed the No. 1 seed in the 165 class after an undefeated 19-0 season and 165-pound conference title. O’Toole is on the quest for a third national championship.
“It’s just the striving for, not perfection, but striving to make improvement,” O’Toole said. “If you focus on, ‘I want to win this and I want to get this and I’m good,’ I don’t think that’s a very good indicator of how you can develop as a person both in and out of (the) sport.
“I don’t care if I win another wrestling match in my entire life. I just want to enjoy it and I want to improve every day.”
Alongside O’Toole’s Big 12 victory, the Tigers placed fourth with 115.5 points at the conference championships, but a pair of medical forfeit losses between redshirt juniors Noah Surtin and Logan Gioffre started to loom over the team at the BOK Center.
“With the team and everything, I wanted to just fight through it,” Surtin said, calling the medical forfeit “just a precautionary measure” with nationals around the corner. “With the coaches and the trainers, we talked about it, and we said it would probably be the smartest to not (compete).”
So what about MU’s health heading into the NCAA Championships?
“I’ve seen guys with ... you know, all these shoulder braces, everything ... you just go and battle and you just forget about it,” Smith said. “And you can have pain and surgery afterwards. It sounds kind of crazy, warrior-like, but it is.
“It’s a tough, tough sport. It’s a combative sport. You’re gonna have injuries. Now you’ve just got to wrestle through it.”
Regardless of the medical forfeits, Surtin and Gioffre were among the automatic bids in their respective classes. This is Surtin’s third season qualifying for nationals and Gioffre’s first.
“We’re going in to score some points, have some fun and show what we’ve been doing all year,” Surtin said. “Show the preparation, show the hard work and show the time we put in. And we’re ready to go.”
Also among Missouri’s qualifiers are the Elam brothers, Rocky and Zach, with a special connection to the upcoming championships.
Both graduates of Staley High School, the Elams will close out their seasons in their own backyard at T-Mobile Center.
“One of the main reasons I wrestle is for the people surrounding me,” Rocky Elam said. “There’s nothing better than having the people I do it for come watch me and it be in my hometown.”
This year’s nationals also serves as the final stop in the farewell tour for Zach Elam, and what better way to end a storied career than at the place it all began?
“I don’t want to dwell on it too much or think about it too much, because I don’t need to put unnecessary pressure on myself,” Zach Elam said of his final matches being in his hometown. “I’m just going out and doing what I do, you know, what I’ve done for the last six years, five years.”
Zach, a five-time nationals qualifier (and five-time third-place finisher at the Big 12 championships, which he joked is “more impressive than first five times” on Twitter/X last week), finished last season as an All-American in sixth place in the 285-pound division. Rocky secured his All-American position for the third time in the 197-pound class.
While nine Tigers had secured a spot for the next weekend in Kansas City, Kade Moore patiently awaited his fate ahead of the selection show. Moore missed all of February with the Tigers but returned to the mat in Tulsa. However, an early exit at the tournament meant his only hopes were to be at at-large bid for nationals.
With Moore thinking his season was potentially over, there was some confusion as to why Smith called him into practice earlier this week. But it all made sense once Smith gave him the word that he was in.
“’Second life, man, let’s go,’” Smith said of his message to Moore. “’You’re playing with house money.’ The way I look at it ... just go out there and let it fly, because when he does, he’s really good. And I’m excited he got that opportunity.”
Tickets for NCAA championships can be purchased through a link on the VisitKC website.
“People are going to be there and watching and say, ‘Holy cow, wrestling, this is one of the cooler NCAA events I’ve ever been to,” Smith said. “And I didn’t realize it was this big a venue and it takes over the city for five days.”
Here is the full list of qualifiers for Mizzou and their anticipated matchups:
Mizzou wrestling qualifiers and first-round matchups
125 championship
No. 13 seed Noah Surtin vs. 20 seed Steve Poulin (Northern Colorado)
133 championship
No. 26 seed Kade Moore vs. 7 seed Nasir Bailey (Little Rock)
141 championship
No. 21 seed Josh Edmond vs. 12 seed Wyatt Henson (Lock Haven)
149 championship
No. 28-seed Logan Gioffre vs. 5 seed Ty Watters (West Virginia)
157 championship
No. 17 seed Brock Mauller vs. 16 seed Teague Travis (Oklahoma State)
165 championship
No. 1 seed Keegan O’Toole vs. winner of 33 seed Jack Thomsen (Northern Iowa)/32 seed Jake Logan (Lehigh)
174 championship
No. 22 seed Peyton Mocco vs. 11 seed Austin Murphy (Campbell)
184 championship
No. 11 seed Colton Hawks vs. 22 seed Gavin Kane (North Carolina)
197 championship
No. 12 seed Rocky Elam vs. 21 seed Mac Stout (Pitt)
285 championship
No. 6 seed Zach Elam vs. 27 seed Josiah Hill (Little Rock)
