On Gabe Dretsch's victory
"We were favored in three, they were favored in three, and there were four kind of tossups, and that was one of the tossups. We had to win that one. Dretsch lost to him last year, beat him once, and also beat him in Omaha this year, so it gave him some confidence. I think that helped a lot."
On having the No. 1-ranked heavyweight in the country
"Heavyweight is one of the neatest things to have because it's always the clincher weight … and it's where you can get extra points. And then when you have the best guy in the country there, at least going into the last match, every time you've got a shot to win. That's a big deal confidence wise with the team. Even if you give up a couple along the way, in the end you've got (Cole) Konrad. And the beauty about Konrad is that he's a competitor. He wants it come down to him … and that's the sign of a great competitor. 'Give me the ball. Pass it to me. Let me be the guy who gets the win.' You feel good when you have Konrad there."
On whether or not he was surprised by the outcome at 197 pounds
"Yeah, I think that first five-point move made all the difference. They actually wrestled in the junior college national finals two years ago. I think that five-point move made all the difference. If you take that away it's a completely different match. I think it's more of a tossup match. I would like to see them wrestle again. I think this was only Yura's third, fourth, or fifth match this year, so he has a long way to go. But he's showed some good things this year so far."
On the next meeting with Oklahoma State
"We won't be at full strength, but we'll have CP (Schlatter) back by the Nationals Duals. They'll have (Nathan) Morgan and we'll have CP back. It will be a battle again."
On whether or not Mack Reiter will be back for the National Duals
"Probably not. Reiter will probably be back at the end of January. That's what we're shooting for."
On Dustin Schlatter's performance
"You always count on Dustin. Dustin is a guy who can score points … that's what's great. In a dual meet like this every point is important. Whether it's one point or two points, Dustin has the ability to score a lot, not necessarily pin guys, but he can get a lot of points and a lot of tech falls, and that makes a difference. In fact, when you look at the match, everybody expects Dustin to win, but I was impressed with the way he wrestled, the intensity, the emotion he wrestled with. He wrestled hard. He went out there to wrestle, instead of hanging around. He wrestled hard."
On freshmen Jason Ness and Mike Thorn
"I told the guys, Ness is a great example of the way we want our guys to wrestle. You get down behind two points, it doesn't make any difference ... you come back. I think Ness kind of summed that up tonight. And even Thorn, he wrestled hard the whole time. That's what we want out of our guys. I told them before, two things that are important, wrestle with emotion and a lot of intensity. You can make a lot of mistakes and go a long way in life if you just have those two things."
On Manuel Rivera not facing Nathan Morgan
"It's a match-up that we would have liked to have seen. But you have to remember, it's just December 6. It's a long season. We have three more months left. This is just the start. It's good for wrestling because it will get a lot of people talking. There will be people on the forum tomorrow talking about what ifs. What if Morgan was there? What if CP was there? And that's good … because what you want is people talking about wrestling. So when you have something like this, it's good."
On whether there was any doubt that Dustin Schlatter would wrestle last season
"No, we decided to wrestle him way before. Actually, he came up and spent the summer with CP and trained with him to get ready to wrestle his freshman year. We kind of knew that we needed him for the team. And we knew how good he was and that he could compete right away. Dustin prepared for the year. He's a pretty exceptional athlete. He's laid back. He has a really good demeanor about him that helps him in wrestling. It keeps the pressure off him."
On the importance of Jeremy Larson not getting pinned by Johny Hendricks
"That's the beauty of wrestling. A lot of people talk about it being an individual sport, but when you get in a dual meet like this, every point is important. So Jeremy not getting pinned is a difference of two points … and it could have come down to that if some things had fallen differently. So all those things are important. And the other thing about it is … when a guy fights that hard, as Larson did, it helps Dretsch when he walks out onto the mat, too… he gets fired up. When you see a little bit of sacrifice or intensity before you, it tends to get you going. Even though you lose, it's important the way you lose. Like Thorn, even though he lost, he was battling the whole time."
On the game plan against Brandon Mason
"Mason is really good on top. The game plan was to take him down in the first period … because once you take him down, then when he gets on top it doesn't make any difference … because he gets on top, riding point, and then he tries to get away. That's how he wins a lot of his matches. When you take him down, you usually beat him. So that's the game plan not only with us, but pretty much with everybody in the country against Mason."
On what he learned about his team
"We got beat by Hofstra because we weren't ready. We've been talking about it … and we had a lot of different practices last week. With our intensity and our focus, we realized we weren't there. It was a good team effort. It wasn't great. We had highs and lows. Some guys wrestled really good … and some guys didn't. But it's good to get back on the right footing."
On Iowa State
"It's going to be a good match. Same thing with Oklahoma State. Great match-ups at a lot of weights. I haven't looked that far ahead yet. But it's a probably 6-4 or 5-5 match. So it's the same thing all over on Friday night."
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