• Sooners open NCAA meet today

Will Rowe had a wild ride at the Big 12 Tournament two weeks ago in Stillwater.

Afterward, Oklahoma coach Jack Spates said, “What can I say about Will Rowe?”

He had put in an up-and-down performance. He won his first match over Oklahoma State’s Ryan Freeman 7-4, then lost by a 24-9 technical fall to Nebraska’s Jordan Burroughs.

With a berth to the NCAA National Championship on the line, he pulled out a 16-13 win over Missouri’s Josh Wagner to finish third.

It was a victory, but it wasn’t exactly what Rowe wanted.

“My goal is never just to place,” he said. “ I wanted to win it.”

But he’s at the big dance, and that’s all that matters. He’s one of five Sooners that will be competing today when the national tournament starts at 11 a.m. The others include Joey Fio at 125 pounds, Zack Bailey at 141, Josh Weitzel at 184 and Joel Flaggert at 197.

Rowe wrestles at 149, after being at 157 the last two years. He’s an NCAA tournament veteran, having qualified the last two seasons, but he’s never placed.

“I want to be an All-American,” he said. “I think about it all the time. I always think about it.”

As OU coach Jack Spates put it, the Sooners are going into the tournament a bit “light.” OU has five wrestlers in, but it was banking on more.

“We had some strong points, but we were anticipating more,” Spates said of the Big 12 Tournament. “Frankly, our expectations aren’t as high as they normally are.”

OU does have a reputation at the NCAA Tournament. Since 2000, the Sooners have finished third four times and fourth twice. The only time the Sooners finished out of the top 10 was last year, when they finished 22nd.

But unless OU’s five wrestlers perform some extraordinary things, the Sooners probably won’t finish as one of the top teams in the country.