Chris Bono open to idea of NCAA Wrestling Dual Meet Championships

Wisconsin wrestling coach Chris Bono loves the NCAA Wrestling Championships the way they are, but is open to a dual meet championship.

Currently, wrestling crowns its team national championship, and second through fourth place teams, at the individual championships in March. It’s based on scoring from individual wrestlers added up in the end.

But there’s been wishful thinking about a true team tournament and keeping the individual tournament as is.

“You know, first off our NCAA championship right now, I don’t think we need to touch it,” Bono told On3. “It’s the best thing we’ve got going for us, the individual NCAA championship in March. But, I’m a guy that likes change. I like that. If there was an NCAA dual meet championship, I would want to be in it. Even if it’s not sanctioned, I’d like to be in those dual meets. The dual meet matters. We’ve got to figure out how to make it matter a little bit more.”

Dual meets, particularly in the Big Ten, are a big deal. But it only goes so far for the team’s record during the regular season.

At that point, they’re utilized for wrestler’s individual records and seedings for the conference and national tournaments.

“But in the Big Ten, people show up and watch dual meets, you know, they’re exciting,” Bono said. “They’re fired up. The Big Ten Network has record people watching a dual meet on TV … four or five matches a weekend. So the dual meet does matter.”

However, there’s no concrete answer to a need for a team tournament like this, at least right now.

“Do we need a national championship crowned at a dual meet tournament? I don’t know. I don’t know how that works,” Bono said. “But, you know, we don’t need to touch that individual tournament. That’s amazing in itself in what we do and we sell it out every year. But, I wouldn’t mind being in a national tournament (for a) dual meet championship and trying to try to figure out something there.”

Logically, a dual meet tournament might be a way to open up the parity of team champions. Penn State’s been dominant since Cael Sanderson took over, winning all but three national titles as a team at NCAAs since 2010, his first year as coach.

Would Penn State dominate this championship as well? Maybe at the moment. But the Nittany Lions would have to grind it out over, let’s say, a 16-team bracket.

Heck, make it 32 teams, rank the Top 16 and then randomly seed the next 16, kind of like how they used to do it for individual brackets at NCAAs.

A dual meet championship is a nice idea for college wrestling? Will it actually happen? Who knows.

But Bono surely would be open to the idea, as might a few other coaches.