The Big Ten Conference announced on Mar. 2 the preliminary seeds for the 2026 Big Ten Wrestling Championships, which will take place March 7-8 at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center in State College, Pennsylvania.
The announcement is significant as it sets the stage for one of college wrestling’s most competitive tournaments, determining which athletes will advance to the NCAA Championships later in March. The pre-seeds were determined using WrestleStat’s Tournament Seeder Program and criteria approved by conference coaches, ranking all starters across ten weight classes.
Remy Cotton (197 pounds) received Rutgers’ highest pre-seed at No. 3. Other top-eight seeds from Rutgers include Anthony White (157) at No. 4, Ayden Smith (125) at No. 6, Andrew Clark (149), Andrew Barbosa (165), and Shane Cartagena-Walsh (184) each at No. 7, and Hunter Catka (heavyweight) at No. 8.
To automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships in Cleveland from March 19-21, each wrestler must finish within a specified threshold for their weight class. The Big Ten leads all conferences with a total of 87 automatic bids out of the available 288 spots nationwide.
A full list of pre-seeds was released for each weight class, highlighting where each athlete stands ahead of the tournament weekend. The complete breakdown includes representation from all Big Ten schools and outlines how many qualifiers are allocated per conference and weight class.
Looking ahead, athletes will compete not only for individual titles but also to secure their places in the national championship field.