When the NCAA Championships start on Thursday, the favorite will once again be a Big Ten school — Minnesota.

The Big Ten conference has produced every national champion since 1995, including the defending champion Golden Gophers.

In the last decade the only champion outside the conference was Oklahoma State in 1994.

Oklahoma joins Minnesota as the only other squad that qualified all 10 wrestlers.

Four teams have nine wrestlers competing in Albany, N.Y., Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State and Oklahoma.

Minnesota is attempting to mimic Iowa's run of 20 national championships since 1975.

"When I came to Minnesota, I wanted to be on a team that was working for one thing - a team that was going to be a national championship team," said Damion Hahn, who won the Big Ten championship at 184 pounds. "Now we're proving it."

Iowa has lost four national qualifiers from a year ago, and returns only one All-American, Mike Zadick. Iowa enters the tournament with a great deal of inexperience. Besides Zadick, the only other two wrestlers to compete at nationals were 184-pounder Jessman Smith and 157-pounder Matt Anderson. Iowa wrestling coach Jim Zalesky is worried about how his youth will perform.

"The key for a lot of our guys who haven't been there before is whether they get caught up in all the hoopla or are going in to wrestle," Zalesky said. "To me this is more of a mental preparation than any other time during the year. You just have to worry about yourself and take it one match at a time."

The Buckeyes have found themselves in the top five for most of the season, and will attempt to duplicate their strong performance in the National Duals, where Ohio State dropped the final to Minnesota. The Buckeyes will need strong showings from returning All-Americans Tommy Rowlands and Robert Sessley. Ohio State has three other ranked wrestlers who can achieve All-American status this year, including Keaten Anderson, Johnny Clark and Josh Janson.

Ohio State wrestling coach Russ Hellickson realizes how difficult it is to perform at high a level on back-to-back outings.

"You can peak only twice during the season," Hellickson said. "We peaked once at the National Duals and we look to peak again at nationals. We just try to get guys through the Big Tens. It's like trying to peak at the U.S. Nationals and again at the Olympics a week later, it's just not possible."

The Illini will rely heavily on returning national champion John Lockhart and Big Ten champ Matt Lackey in order to have another finish in the top five. Illinois has five seeded wrestlers in the tournament.

The Big Ten will be well represented again this year, and if history repeats itself, the Big Ten will have another National Championship.