There was a time when Iowa used to do this.

Win after win, bonus points from every match, completely steamrolling the field at the Big Ten Tournament. These were Hawkeye trademarks during the Dan Gable era of the 1970's, 80's and 90's. But this is 2002, and Minnesota is the new king of Big Ten wrestling.

The Golden Gophers shrugged off an early challenge from Iowa to take their third Big Ten championship in the last four years at the University of Illinois this past weekend. Minnesota racked up 174 points to Iowa's 129 en route to the title. Michigan, Ohio State and Illinois rounded out the top five of the team standings.

The Gophers were also the conference's only team to qualify all 10 wrestlers for next Thursday's NCAA Tournament in Albany, NY. Michigan, Illinois and Ohio State each qualified nine and Iowa eight.

In winning their second straight conference championship, the Gophers showed tremendous balance. During the tournament's first session, Minnesota pushed an unmatched eight wrestlers into the semifinals, despite No. 3 seed Jacob Volkman being upset in the quarterfinals.

Iowa, though, kept pace. Thanks to upsets by Luke Eustice and Luke Moffit, surprise champion at 141 and the tournament's outstanding wrestler, Iowa stayed on Minnesota's tail, and trailed by only one point after the first session.

From there, Minnesota took over. The Gophers went seven for eight in the semifinals, the tournament's most crucial round for team scoring, to stretch their lead to 144-107.

Minnesota then went five for seven in the finals to wrap up its remarkable tournament. Leroy Vega at 125 pounds, Ryan Lewis, the conference's wrestler of the year, at 133, Luke Becker at 157, Damion Hahn at 184 and Owen Elzen at 197 all claimed titles for the Gophers.

Hahn, seeded third, beat both the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds en route to the championship, including an 8-4 victory over Michigan's Andy Hrovat, the country's top ranked 184 pounder, in the final.

Elzen also pulled off an upset, taking down top-seeded Nick Preston in the finals, 9-8.

"Preston made a stupid mistake," Ohio State head coach Russ Hellickson said. "He tried to counter a shot and got taken to his back. Nick himself will tell you it was a stupid mistake. Other than that, he controlled the entire match."

In the only matchup of No.1 and No.2 nationally ranked wrestlers, Ohio State heavyweight Tommy Rowlands got a measure of revenge against top-ranked freshman Steven Mocco of Iowa.

For a third straight time, Mocco and Rowlands went to the overtime tiebreaker. After dropping the last two matches in the same situation, Rowlands won the toss, chose bottom and escaped to take the match and the championship.

"Tommy should be the top seed at Nationals," Hellisckson said. "Mocco was number one and Tommy beat him. The Big Ten is so strong at heavyweight, winning it is akin to winning the national championship."

Both Michigan and Illinois had strong tournaments. An addition to advancing nine wrestlers to nationals, both teams also had a champion, Otto Olson, who remained undefeated, at 174 for Michigan and Matt Lackey at 165 for Illinois.

"Getting nine through was good, but we're kind of disappointed with some of the placings. We made it hard for ourselves," Illinois assistant Jim Heffernan said. "This is a top heavy conference and when you go against the top guys, it gets awfully competitive."

While a fifth-place finish was expected from Illinois, Michigan, which entered the postseason ranked second, wrestled slightly below expectations.

"We didn't do as well as we would have liked," Wolverines head coach Joe McFarland said. "This is the Big Ten, and we knew it would be tough, but we expected to do a little better. But we still go nine guys to NCAA's and that's a whole other tournament. We're just looking forward to having a great national championships."

Penn State (seven qualifiers), Purdue (five), Michigan State (five), Wisconsin (three), Indiana (three) and Northwestern (two) rounded the bottom half of the standings.