Valley of the giants: Wrestlers host Iowa, Minnesota in Big Tens

Follow Curtin Road toward The Bryce Jordan Center and you'll arrive at a four-way intersection.

Go straight through the light until you reach the arena and you'll hit a juncture that's a bit more temporary.

Starting tomorrow morning, three major teams from one major conference will converge on one very major title as the Big Ten Wrestling Championships come to University Park for the first time ever.

The Hawkeyes have won 24 straight Big Ten titles to lay claim to the NCAA's longest conference winning streak in any sport. Ever.

But a stacked Minnesota team and an overachieving Penn State squad will give the defending champs a long, hard run for their money.

"To me there are three teams in the hunt," first-year Iowa coach Jim Zalesky said. "Whoever performs best is going to win the tournament."

Led by national champions Mark Ironside (134), Jeff McGinness (142), Joe Williams (167) and Lee Fullhart (190), Iowa has the brass to back the bravado.

Ironside has won Big Ten Wrestler of the Year honors the past two seasons in addition to being named the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler last year. His is just one of many impressive resumes that could help the Hawkeyes repeat -- again.

"The main thing for us is we need to have 10 guys win," Zalesky said. "In the Big Tens you have to have a balanced attack. If you don't have all 10 guys scoring points for you, it's going to be real hard to win."

Balance is where Minnesota enters the picture.

The Golden Gophers, who won this year's National Duals at Iowa, finished the dual-meet season with nine of their 10 starters ranked nationally.

The only spot at which Minnesota wasn't ranked was 118 -- a weight which has since been filled by 1996 Olympic silver medalist Brandon Paulson.

The Gophers are led by Tim Hartung (190) and Shelton Benjamin (HWT) in the upperweights and Jason Davids (142), Chad Kraft (150) and Josh Holiday (158) in the middleweights.

"Our goal is to wrestle aggressive and dominating," Minnesota coach J Robinson said. "If we wrestle like we did at National Duals, everything will take care of itself."

Iowa's got the legend, Minnesota's got the lineup. So what's Penn State got?

The element of surprise.

The Nittany Lions, who beat both the Hawkeyes and Gophers during the dual-meet season, panned out to be one of the nation's premier teams despite working with a lineup that included no national champions and no All-Americans.

Promising wrestlers -- among them Jeremy Hunter (118), Jamarr Billman (142), Clint Musser (150) and Glenn Pritzlaff (167) -- turned out to be full-fledged stars for the Lions this season.

Penn State coach John Fritz said his team isn't the kind to be intimidated by Iowa or Minnesota.

"I sure hope they're not intimidated," Fritz said. "I think they're pretty mature about it. Anybody can beat anybody, that's the way you have to approach competition. They're pretty good about it."

Fritz is one of the few coaches who isn't counting out the rest of the Big Ten. He said teams such as Purdue, Illinois and Michigan could waltz in unnoticed and walk away in a blaze of glory.

Illinois finished third at last year's tournament, one spot ahead of Penn State.

"This is the first time since we've been in the conference that there are six teams that have a chance of winning it," Fritz said. "Iowa's not a shoo-in. Michigan's been wrestling real well recently and Illinois and Purdue could have a hot tournament too.

"That's part of wrestling I kind of like, the spontaneity of it," Fritz added. "You have to be ready for everything."