Sooners to Open Postseason at Big 12 Championship

NORMAN – The No. 20 Oklahoma wrestling team heads to Tulsa, Okla., for the 2025 Big 12 Championship on March 8-9. The Sooners (8-4, 4-4 Big 12) bring eight wrestlers to the Big 12s who are ranked in the NCAA Coaches Rankings. OU also has eight wrestlers seeded in the Big 12 pre-seeds as the team prepares for the championship.

The conference tournament will be held at the BOK Center in Tulsa. Sessions 1-3 will be streamed via Big 12 Now on ESPN+, while the finals will be televised on ESPNU. This is the 10th neutral-site conference championship for the sport and the ninth in Tulsa.

The Sooners are led by second-year head coach Roger Kish, who will look for his team to improve on a seventh-place finish at last year's championship, which qualified five for the NCAA tournament. OU will also seek to crown its first Big 12 champion since Dom Demas won the 141-pound title in 2021.

In his last four seasons at the helm of North Dakota State, Kish helped three Bison become Big 12 champions — the only three in NDSU program history.

Oklahoma's eight seeded wrestlers are the most under Kish and the most since the 2022 team, which brought nine seeds to the conference championship.

OKLAHOMA FIRST ROUND MATCHUPS

125: No. 6 Antonio Lorenzo vs. Garrett Ricks (WYO)
133: No. 6 Cleveland Belton vs. Kase Mauger (UVU)
141: No. 5 Mosha Schwartz vs. Jordan Titus (WVU)
149: No. 3 Willie McDougald vs. Smokey McClure (UVU)
157: John Wiley vs. No. 6 Vinny Zerban (UNC)
165: Tate Picklo vs. Terrell Barraclough (UVU)
174: No. 3 Gaven Sax vs. Mark Takara (UVU)
184: No. 5 DJ Parker received a bye
197: No. 8 Bradley Hill vs. Kael Bennie (UVU)
285: No. 5 Juan Mora vs. Jack Forbes (UVU)

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE & INFO

The championship is split into four sessions over two days of competition.

Saturday, March 8
Session 1: Preliminary & Quarterfinal Matches — 10:00 a.m. CT
Session 2: Semifinal & Consolation Quarterfinal Matches — 5:00 p.m. CT

Sunday, March 9
Session 3: Consolation Semifinals— 12:00 p.m. CT
Session 4: Finals — 8 p.m. CT

Live stats for the tournament will be available through Track Wrestling's Big 12 hub. Live video streams will be shown on ESPN+ for the first three sessions, with individual mat streams as well as a wraparound feed, and then the finals will be broadcast on ESPNU on Sunday evening.

OU AT THE BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP

Oklahoma has collected 24 overall conference championships and three Big 12 titles, in 1999, 2002, and 2021. The Sooners' three Big 12 championships are the third most in league history.

The Sooners boast 186 individual conference champions in school history, including seven in the past decade, most recently with Dom Demas' 141-pound title in 2021.

Six Sooners have been named the Big 12's Most Outstanding Wrestler at the championship: Dom Demas (2019; 141 pounds), Cody Brewer (2016; 133 pounds), Jarrod Patterson (2010; 125 pounds), Sam Hazewinkel (2007; 125 pounds), Teyon Ware (2003; 141 pounds), and Shane Valdez (1999; 125 pounds).

Current Oklahoma assistant coaches Teyon Ware, Austin Marsden, and Cam Sykora had Big 12 Championship careers to remember. As a Sooner, Ware was a Big 12 champion at 141 pounds in 2003. That same season, Ware went on to win his first NCAA title, capping his freshman campaign with 32 wins. As a heavyweight at Oklahoma State, Marsden captured three consecutive Big 12 titles (2014, 2015, 2016). Under head coach Roger Kish, Sykora became North Dakota State's first Big 12 champion in 2021, edging then-Northern Colorado freshman and current Sooner Mosha Schwartz, 12-10 in sudden-death overtime.

POSTSEASON VETERANS

Kish brings nine wrestlers with conference championship experience to Tulsa, including eight former NCAA qualifiers.

Seniors Mosha Schwartz and Gaven Sax (Big 12), along with Antonio Lorenzo (Pac-12), enter their fourth conference tournaments and lead a team loaded with years of elite experience. All but two of the projected starters are upperclassmen.

Transfer Cleveland Belton claimed the 141-pound Pac-12 title with a fall in 2023 while at Oregon State.

Willie McDougald, Tate Picklo, and DJ Parker are set to make their third trip to Tulsa, while Bradley Hill and Juan Mora are slated to make their second conference tournament appearance.

YEAR 2 OF THE KISH ERA

Roger Kish was named head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners on May 2, 2023 after spending 12 seasons as the head coach at North Dakota State.

In year two under Kish's leadership, the Sooners have seen significant improvement, finishing the regular season with an 8-4 dual record. Additionally, OU's 4-4 conference showing marks the first time since 2019 that the Sooners have finished with a .500 or better record in Big 12 action.

Kish made quite a splash in his first season as Oklahoma's head coach in 2023-24, helping the Sooners secure their highest NCAA finish (23rd) in eight seasons. Additionally, Kish helped elevate Stephen Buchanan to All-American status for the third time in his career. Buchanan put together a dominant 27-3 season, finishing third at the NCAA Championships in the 197-pound bracket to become OU's highest NCAA finisher in eight seasons.

Kish had a 108-70 record in dual meets as the Bison head coach including a 50-30 record in conference duals, becoming the second winningest coach in program history, behind only the legendary Bucky Maughan who led the Bison to four NCAA Division II national championships.

Turning the Bison into consistent winners as a Big 12 affiliate program, Kish's teams had 54 NCAA championship qualifiers in his 12 seasons as head coach including 21 over his last four seasons. He had six wrestlers advance to earn All-America honors. Kish directed the Bison to a pair of NCAA West Regional/Western Wrestling Conference championships (2014, 2015) and two WWC regular season titles (2013, 2015). He was a three-time WWC Coach of the Year.

NCAA ALLOCATION BREAKDOWN

The NCAA announced the pre-allocation spots for the 2025 Division I Wrestling championship with the Big 12 Conference earning 61 bids, the second most behind only the Big Ten.

The bids are spread across all 10 weight classes; five classes received the the most with seven (125, 141, 157, 165 and 184). Three classes garnered six spots (133, 149 and 174) and the remaining three classes were given four spots (197 and 285).

Allocations determine the number of automatic qualifiers each conference will receive per weight class.

UP NEXT

The Sooners who qualify for the NCAA Championships will travel to Philadelphia for the tournament, held at Wells Fargo Center on March 20-22.

For updates, follow @OU_Wrestling on Twitter, or like Oklahoma Wrestling on Facebook.