NCAA's Best Ever?
OSU picked to win fourth straight title
In 1997, John Smith witnessed one of college wrestling’s record-breaking moments. Eight years later, will the coach and his Oklahoma State Cowboys be setting even higher standards?
“I don’t like to think in those terms,” said Smith, the former Cowboy national champion who is beginning his 14th season as OSU’s coach. “I’d like to have a season in the end that is comparable to last year.”
But as the 2005-06 season opens, no year in Stillwater, Okla., can compare to what Smith’s Cowboys did last year when Oklahoma State dominated the 75th NCAA tournament in St. Louis, Mo., with five individual championships, two additional All-
Americans, 153 total points and a winning margin of 70 points over the second-place team.The only program that had better performances than the 2004-05 Cowboys was Iowa and Smith was present at the NCAA tournament in 1997, when the Hawkeyes scored an NCAA record 170 points — Iowa also scored at least 155 points in three other tournaments, including the 1986 team that set the victory margin at 73.25 points — in Cedar Falls, Iowa, just miles from the hometown of Dan Gable, who ended his coaching tenure that year with a 15th team crown.
Not that Smith is ready to retire, but his Cowboys will shoot for their fourth consecutive championship — and an NCAA record 34th team title — at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Okla., which is less than ten miles from Smith’s hometown of Del City, Okla.
Sound familiar?
“The biggest difference I see is the number of teams that really have the opportunity to win the championship,” Smith said. “I really think (at the 1997 NCAAs), although they considered us one of the favorites to win, deep down, it was going to take a lot more than what I had in order to win in Iowa that year.”
Smith said he sees several teams that could make a run at the Cowboys next March.
“What you are seeing this year are a lot of teams bringing back their full rosters and that’s exciting,” Smith said. “You have some guys on those teams who fell below what they should have done. If some of those teams turn those things around, this thing could be a race.
“I believe there are teams with the capability of putting together one of the best seasons that they’ve ever had in history. Oklahoma, in particular, is an extremely solid team right now and so is Michigan.
“But I do believe we have the opportunity to control that by what we do.”
Even Smith understands why the Cowboys should be considered a prohibitive favorite.
“That’s where we want to be, especially at the end,” Smith said. “With this many returning All-Americans, it puts us in that position that we’ve earned and now we have a season to see if that is a fact.”
Smith admitted that the Cowboy’s biggest foe in 2005-06 could be themselves, considering he has four seniors who may be looking past their OSU careers.
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