Iowa, ISU and UNI in 2012 NWCA National Duals

The University of Iowa Hawkeyes will return to the National Wrestling Coaches Association/Cliff Keen Division I National Meet Championships and will compete in the Midwest Regional against Iowa State, University of Northern Iowa, Oregon State, Virginia Tech and Wisconsin at a site to be determined the weekend of Feb. 11, 2012.

The Hawkeyes will return to the competition after a year away from the event. The Hawkeyes won the NCAA Division I bracket in 2010.

Twenty-four teams will compete in four six-team regionals with the champion advancing to a Final Four the following weekend on campus of one of the participating teams.

Cornell University will host Central Michigan, Oklahoma, Purdue, Illinois and American University in another regional.

Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Cal-Poly, Kent State will travel to Rutgers for their regional.

Oklahoma State will also host a regional tournament, featuring Boise State, Ohio State, Nebraska, Wyoming and UT-Chattanooga.

Teams will have to qualify for the four six-team regionals in 2013. Dual champions in each of the NCAA Division I conferences, expected to be determined by the end of January, will qualify with the remaining spots in the 24-team field filled by at-large selections based on performance during the regular season of that year.

“This new concept is one of three critical components of the strategic plan being developed by the NWCA and the NCAA Wrestling Committee. We need to create more excitement around regular season dual meets, especially our conference dual meets. Every mainstream spectator sport in America has an emphasis on every regular season game/competition which determines their advancement into the post season. Right now the infrastructure of intercollegiate wrestling is geared toward an individual championship at the end of the season and until that changes, we will struggle with growing the spectator and media base on most college campuses,” NWCA President Brian Smith said in an online article at the NWCA website.

Read about the format changes in an article SourceMedia Group News published last month.