The Big Ten has finalized the brackets for the 2025 wrestling championships. The two-day event will be held Saturday and Sunday at Northwestern. Penn State is sending all 10 starters to Evanston. Eight of them are top two seeds. And, five are No. 1 in their respective weight class. With the field set, we now know who each Nittany Lion will face first.
Because the tournament features 14 wrestlers in each weight class but uses a 16-man bracket, only two Nittany Lions will have first-round matches. The other eight will have byes into the quarterfinals.
Freshman Luke Lilledahl will open his tournament in the first round opposite No. 13 Caelan Riley of Illinois. Lilledahl is 16-2 and the four seed at 125 pounds. The Fighting Illini freshman is 3-13 on the year. In February, he lost to Lilledahl by technical fall, 19-4 in 4:19.
Penn State sophomore Braeden Davis has a first-round date with No. 13 Andrew Hampton of Michigan State. Davis is 8-3 on the year and the four seed at 133 pounds. The Nittany Lion beat the Spartan by technical fall back in January. And, Aaron Nagao beat Hampton in the first round of last year’s Big Ten tournament. Hampton is 5-13 this season.
The rest of head coach Cael Sanderson’s team will not know their quarterfinal opponent until after the first round is over.
