NCAA Wrestling Championships brackets and seedings announced

With a little more than one week remaining until the 2026 NCAA Wrestling Championships, Oklahoma State coach David Taylor has a gauge of where his wrestlers sit.

On Wednesday, weight class brackets and wrestler seedings were released. The event begins March 19 and will last through March 21 at the Rocket Mortgage Field House in Cleveland.

Freshman 133-pounder Jax Forrest garnered the lone top seeding for OSU. Forrest, who forewent his final season of high school wrestling and enrolled at OSU in January, is 13-0 on the year and is coming off an individual title at the Big 12 Wrestling Championships in Tulsa, where he logged four bonus-point victories — three via tech fall.

Nine of 10 Cowboys earned top-10 seedings. The lone wrestler to not attain that feat was redshirt freshman Zack Ryder, who garnered the 22-seed at 184. Freshman Sergio Vega was awarded the 2-seed at 141.

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OSU is coming off its second-straight Big 12 title under Taylor, who is in his second second at the helm. The Cowboys finished the regular season 15-1, with its lone loss coming to Iowa at the National Duals Invitational in November. In Taylor’s inaugural campaign as skipper, OSU posted its best placing in four years at nationals with a third-place finish. There, it produced two individual national champions with Dean Hamiti Jr. at 174 and Wyatt Hendrickson at heavyweight.

The Cowboys haven’t won a team national title since 2006. While the odds are against that 20-year drought ending this season, OSU has been wrestling at its best as of late. And the steady development of six freshmen within the starting lineup over the season's course, to go with dual wins against four top-5 opponents, indicates another strong showing looming for Taylor’s team. 

Here is a look at seedings for each OSU wrestler ahead of nationals:

Individual NCAA seedings

125 Troy Spratley: 5
133 Jax Forrest: 1
141 Sergio Vega: 2
149 Casey Swiderski: 8
157 Landon Robideau: 5
165 Dee Lockett: 5
174 Alex Facundo: 8
184 Zack Ryder: 22
197 Cody Merrill: 7
HVWT Konner Doucet: 7