Season Preview: 2018-19 Michigan Wrestling

The University of Michigan wrestling program kicks off a new era in 2018-19 under the leadership of first-year head coach Sean Bormet. A two-time NCAA All-American and Big Ten champion at Michigan, Bormet spent the last seven years as the top assistant at his alma mater and was elevated to the head job last March after the retirement of longtime head coach Joe McFarland.

The Wolverines are coming off one of their most successful seasons in recent history after posting an 11-3 dual-meet record and claiming third place at the Big Ten Championships and fourth at the NCAA Championships -- their best finish in 13 years -- behind five All-Americans and two finalists.

Bormet's first lineup will feature a blend of proven success and young talent, and despite the graduation of key members from last year's squad, expectations remain high for the Wolverines in 2018-19.

Stevan Micic
Micic

Wolverine Bites

• Michigan returns seven starters from a season ago, including two-time All-Americans Stevan Micic (133 pounds), Alec Pantaleo (157) and Myles Amine (174) and 2017 All-American Logan Massa (165). Drew Mattin (125) and Malik Amine (149), both first-time NCAA qualifiers in 2017-18, also return.

• The Wolverines will start the 2018-19 season with seven wrestlers ranked nationally at their respective weight classes, including four in the top five according to FloWrestling -- No. 2 Micic (133), No. 4 Pantaleo (157), No. 5 Massa (165) and No. 3 Amine (174).

• Despite the graduation of two 2018 All-Americans, Michigan ranks fifth nationally in the number of returning NCAA points from a season ago with 51 -- six points behind Missouri (57) and two more than Cornell (49). Micic, the NCAA runner-up at 133 pounds, headlines the pack of six returning NCAA point scorers with 19, while Myles Amine posted 15 and Pantaleo added 11 at the 2018 tournament.

• Among the Wolverines' returners, three -- Micic, Myles Amine and Pantaleo -- already own at least 70 career wins. Micic leads the pack with a 74-13 mark, while Amine and Pantaleo are 71-16 and 70-14, respectively. Last season, Adam Coon became the 36th Wolverine wrestler to reach 100 wins, finishing his career with a stellar 116-15 record.

• Michigan welcomed an eight-man freshman class to Ann Arbor this fall. The class, which ranked as high as No. 4 in the national recruiting rankings, combined for 14 high school state titles and includes three wrestlers listed among the top 30 national recruits by InterMat and FloWrestling -- No. 3 Mason Parris (Hwt), No. 7 Joey Silva (133) and No. 28 Will Lewan (157). As of now, all freshmen remain in redshirt; those decisions will be an ongoing process over the first semester.

• U-M also added an offseason transfer in redshirt sophomore Kanen Storr, a Leslie, Michigan, native, who spent his first two seasons at Iowa State and was ranked as high as 11th at 141 pounds by FloWrestling last season. He was a three-time Michigan state champion and four-time finalist.

• Michigan will seek a second straight NCAA team trophy after earning a fourth-place finish -- its best placing since taking second in 2005 -- behind five All-Americans and a pair of finalists in 2017-18. The Wolverines went a perfect 5-for-5 in the quarterfinal round to put five in the NCAA semifinals for just the second time in program history. Michigan boasted five All-Americans -- Stevan Micic, Alec Pantaleo, Myles Amine, Domenic Abounader, Adam Coon -- for the second time in four seasons; it tied the second greatest single-season total in program history.

• The Wolverines graduated their three heaviest starters from last season's lineup in All-Americans Domenic Abounader (184), Kevin Beazley (197) and Adam Coon (Hwt). Abounader and Coon were four-year starters for Michigan; Coon was a three-time NCAA All-American and two-time finalist, while Abounader was a 2015 Big Ten champion and 2018 All-American. All three remain in Ann Arbor as members of the Cliff Keen Wrestling Club.

• Several Wolverines posted solid results in the international styles over the spring and summer months. Pantaleo and redshirt freshman Jelani Embree placed third at both the U.S. Open and World Team Trials Challenge Tournament in the senior and junior divisions, respectively, while redshirt junior Austin Assad claimed third place at the U23 World Team Trials. Micic won bronze at European Nationals before winning the Poland Open in September. He was injured in a semifinal win over Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev in Poland and had to withdraw from the World Championships; Sanayev claimed 57kg world silver a month later. Abounader took silver in his senior-level freestyle debut at the Asian Games, and Coon captured 130kg silver in Greco-Roman at the World Championships -- the first American Greco-Roman world medalist since 2015.

• Bormet's first staff as head coach includes a pair of fellow Wolverine alums, Josh Churella and Kellen Russell, who served as assistant coaches with Bormet for the last four seasons -- a stretch that saw U-M produce 16 All-Americans and three straight top-10 NCAA finishes -- and former Eastern Michigan head coach David Bolyard, the 2017-18 MAC Coach of the Year.

Alec Pantaleo
Pantaleo

Myles Amine

2018-19 Schedule

• Michigan will face eight teams ranked in the NWCA preseason poll, most notably four top-10 teams in No. 1 Penn State, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 6 Lehigh and No. 10 Arizona State. Twelve of 14 Big Ten schools were either ranked or receiving votes to start the 2018-19 season. Michigan earned the No. 4 preseason ranking.

• Michigan will host six dual meets in Ann Arbor this season, including two at Crisler Center -- Lehigh for its home opener on Friday, Nov. 16, and Illinois on Saturday, Jan. 12. U-M established a new program attendance record with its crowd of 8,303 for last season's Ohio State dual at Crisler. U-M ranked ninth among the nation's attendance leaders -- fifth in the Big Ten -- with a 2,615 average crowd size.

• The Wolverines will appear on the Big Ten Network four times in 2018-19 for road duals at Ohio State (Jan. 25), Penn State (Feb. 1) and Rutgers (Feb. 17) and their home meet against Northwestern (Feb. 10). Flowrestling will broadcast the home opener against Lehigh (Nov. 16) -- the company's first live stream from Ann Arbor -- while BTN Plus will cover the remaining four home duals.