Wolverines Kick Off Postseason at Big Ten Championships

» Nine Wolverines earned top-eight seeds at their respective weight classes for the Big Ten Championships, including No. 1 Stevan Micic (133 pounds) and Adam Coon (Hwt).
» Domenic Abounader (184) is a previous Big Ten champion, while Logan Massa (165) and Coon are previous finalists; three Wolverines will make their Big Ten tournament debuts.
» Coon owns an undefeated 23-0 record on the season, while Micic carries a 13-match win streak into the weekend with 11 bonus wins over his last 12 matches.

THIS WEEK
Sat-Sun., March 3-4 -- at Big Ten Championships (East Lansing, Mich.)
Tournament Central | Live Results | BTN Plus: Day 1 | Day 2

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The No. 4-ranked University of Michigan wrestling team (11-3, 7-2 Big Ten) will kick off the postseason this weekend, traveling to East Lansing, Michigan, to participate in the 2018 Big Ten Championships. The event will be hosted by Michigan State University on Saturday and Sunday (March 3-4) at the Breslin Center.

The Big Ten Championships will take place in three sessions over the course of two days. Wrestling will begin on Saturday (March 3) with the first session slated to start at 10 a.m. with the first and quarterfinal rounds of all weights. Consolation action and semifinal matches will take place Saturday evening at 6 p.m. The Sunday (March 4) session will feature consolation finals at noon and championship finals slated for approximately 3 p.m. The finals will be broadcast live on the Big Ten Network, while Rounds 1-3 will be streamed live on BTN Plus.

U-M has won 11 Big Ten team championships (1929, '38, '44, '53, '55, '56, '60, '63, '64, '65, '73) and has produced the second-most individual champions (125) in the conference (Iowa is first with 199). Michigan has finished in the top five in 10 of the past 18 seasons but has not finished higher than fourth place since the 2008-09 season.

Michigan's Projected Starting Lineup

Wgt.	Name	Year/Elig.	Hometown (High School)
125	Drew Mattin	Fr./Fr.	Delta, Ohio (Delta)
133	Stevan Micic	Jr./So.	Cedar Lake, Ind. (Hanover Central)
141	Sal Profaci	Jr./So.	Monroe Twp, N.J. (Monroe Township)
149	Malik Amine	Sr./Jr.	Brighton, Mich. (Detroit Catholic Central)
157	Alec Pantaleo	Sr./Jr.	Canton, Mich. (Canton)
165	Logan Massa	Jr./So.	St. Johns, Mich. (St. Johns)
174	Myles Amine	Jr./So.	Brington, Mich. (Detroit Catholic Central)
184	Domenic Abounader	5th/Sr.	Gates Mills, Ohio (St. Edward)
197	Kevin Beazley	Gr./Sr.	Highland, Mich. (Detroit Catholic Central)
Hwt	Adam Coon	Gr./Sr.	Fowlerville, Mich. (Fowlerville)

WOLVERINE BITES

• Michigan is in search of its 12th Big Ten Championships title in school history, and first since 1973, when the Wolverines sent two individuals to the winner's podium and earned 76 points to beat runner-up Iowa by seven points. U-M owns the fourth-most conference team titles in Big Ten history with 11.

• With 125 conference individual titles in program history (coming from 83 different wrestlers), the Wolverines boast the second most of any Big Ten school behind Iowa with 199. U-M has claimed at least one champion in nine of the last 13 seasons.

• The Wolverines earned nine top-eight seeds for the Big Ten Championships, most notably junior/sophomore Stevan Micic and graduate student Adam Coon, who earned the No. 1 seeds at 133 pounds and heavyweight, respectively. Also seeded are freshman Drew Mattin (8th, 125), senior/junior Malik Amine (8th, 149), senior/junior Alec Pantaleo (3rd, 157), junior/sophomore Logan Massa (7th, 165), junior/sophomore Myles Amine (3rd, 174), fifth-year senior Domenic Abounader (3rd, 184) and graduate student Kevin Beazley (4th, 197). All seeds will be finalized at Friday's coaches meeting.

• Michigan has one Big Ten champion and three finalists among its conference contingent. Abounader, who has never finished worse than third in his previous three Big Ten appearances, captured the 184-pound title in 2015 with a 7-6 decision over Minnesota's Brett Pfarr in the championship match. Massa and Coon have also previously reached the finals; Massa fell to Illinois' Isaiah Martinez, 10-4, in last season's 165-pound final, while Coon fell to Ohio State's Kyle Snyder, 7-4, in the 2016 heavyweight bout.

• Three Wolverines -- Mattin, Amine and Beazley -- will make their Big Ten Championships debuts this weekend. Beazley, who transferred from Old Dominion last summer, earned three top-four finishes at the Mid-American Conference Championships, including runner-up honors last season.

• The Wolverines settled for third place -- behind Penn State and Ohio State -- in the final Big Ten standings with a 7-2 conference record. It was Michigan's second-most conference wins in 12 seasons. U-M finished 8-1 in the Big Ten conference two years ago.

• Coon enters the postseason with a 23-0 season record. He is 11-0 against ranked opponents and 6-0 against wrestlers currently ranked among the nation's top 10 at heavyweight. Coon moved to No. 1 at heavyweight after using a first-period takedown to defeat Ohio State's Kyle Snyder, 3-1, at Crisler Center on Feb. 11. It was Snyder's first collegiate loss since the 2015 NCAA finals; he has won two NCAA titles, an Olympic title and two world titles since. Coon, who avenged a 7-4 loss to Snyder in the 2016 Big Ten heavyweight final, was previously ranked No. 1 during his true freshman campaign in 2013-14.

• Coon used a 21-6 technical fall over Indiana's Fletcher Miller to secure his 100th career win in his first bout of the calendar year (Jan. 7). Coon, who has improved to 110-13 over his four competitive seasons, is the 36th Wolverine wrestler to achieve the feat in program history. Abounader is the next-closest Wolverine to the 100-win plateau with a career 88-27 record over his five seasons at Michigan.

• Micic has claimed bonus points in 11 of his last 12 matches -- since taking fifth place at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational -- with two falls, three technical falls and six major decisions over the stretch. In his only non-bonus win of late, Micic avenged one of his two losses on the season with an 11-5 decision to Ohio State's second-ranked and previously unbeaten Luke Pletcher (Feb. 11). Micic gave up the first takedown, but followed with four takedowns of his own and nearly four minutes of riding-time advantage. Pletcher had defeated Micic, 7-5, the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational semifinals.

• Junior/sophomore Myles Amine also avenged a CKLV semifinal defeat, using a takedown with six seconds remaining to defeat Ohio State's third-ranked Bo Jordan, 6-5. Amine had lost to Jordan in the last two meetings between to the two, including a 6-4 defeat in December.

• Senior/junior Alec Pantaleo earned his second wins of the season against Ohio State's Micah Jordan and Nebraska's Tyler Berger over the last few weekends of the dual season -- two opponents he previously defeated en route to the 157-pound CKLV title in December. Pantaleo defeated Jordan by scores of 10-3 and 12-7 and Berger by scores of 9-3 and 8-5.

• Junior/sophomore Logan Massa earned his second win over a ranked opponent in a two-week span with a 6-2 decision against Ohio State's No. 14 Te'Shan Campbell. Massa also defeated Nebraska's 12th-ranked Isaiah White, 3-1, on an overtime takedown. Massa, who had missed nearly six weeks due to an injury suffered in the CKLV quarterfinals, had dropped three matches to top-10 opponents since his return but has claimed each of his last four.

• Freshman Drew Mattin already owns four wins over All-Americans in his young collegiate career. He earned his biggest win in Minneapolis, rallying to earn a 4-2 tiebreaker win against Minnesota's fourth-ranked Ethan Lizak -- last season's NCAA runner-up -- on Jan. 21. Mattin evened the score with a takedown at the third-period buzzer and added another after choosing neutral in the tiebreaker. Mattin flipped a 9-0 loss to Lizak at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational (Dec. 1-2). He also owns wins over Edinboro's Sean Russell, Arizona State's Ryan Millhof and Stanford's Connor Schram.

U-M Individual Rankings

Wt.	Wrestler	InterMat	TW	Flo	TOM	WIN
125	Drew Mattin	12	14	11	13	17
133	Stevan Micic	2	2	2	2	2
141	Sal Profaci	NR	24	NR	NR	NR
149	Malik Amine	20	21	20	NR	18
157	Alec Pantaleo	8	6	6	6	7
165	Logan Massa	9	11	11	12	11
174	Myles Amine	5	5	5	5	6
184	Domenic Abounader	4	4	4	4	4
197	Kevin Beazley	17	13	14	20	16
Hwt	Adam Coon	1	1	1	1	1