(from left) Keegan O'Toole, David Carr, Dean Hamiti (Photos/Sam Janicki; SJanickiPhoto.com)The 2023 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Tulsa, Oklahoma, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a state that hasn't hosted nationals since 2014 and a city that has never hosted the DI Tournament. Our Big 12 friends are plenty-familiar with the venue, the BOK Center, as it has become the home of their conference tournament.
Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more.
Here are the previously released previews
125 lb Preview
133 lb Preview
141 lb Preview
149 lb Preview
157 lb Preview
The Top Seed: #1 David Carr (Iowa State)
This is it. This is the big one, the weight class we’ve all been anticipating all year. Three NCAA champions, four finalists, and seven past All-Americans. Leading the charge is David Carr, who is spending his first year at 165 lbs. Carr was a 2021 NCAA champion at 157 lbs and looked to be on track to claim a second heading into Detroit last season. That bid was interrupted by Oregon State’s Hunter Willits in the Round of 16 and Carr was forced to wrestle back for third.
Up at 165, Carr started the year ranked third behind the 2022 champion Keegan O’Toole and 2021 champion Shane Griffith. Carr quickly showed he would be a force to be reckoned with at the new weight with bonus points in four of his first five bouts. His performance at the Collegiate Duals actually looks more impressive today than it did at the time. In his three duals, Carr picked up wins over the eventual EIWA/Pac-12 champions, both top-eight seeds, along with tough freshman #13 Alex Facundo.
All of those wins were nice, but they paled in comparison to the matchup on February 15th, as Carr and the Cyclones went into Mizzou for the most anticipated individual clash of the year against then-number one, Keegan O’Toole. Carr was in control for the entire match and took the 7-2 decision and was in the driver’s seat for the #1 seed.
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