Iowa Wrestling - Austin DeSanto's knee injury
Although we can’t 100% rule out the possibility of a long-term absence, there isn’t any smoke coming from Iowa City that DeSanto’s injury is season-ending.
Here’s one more thing we know about DeSanto, per Brands: He has been extremely healthy throughout the course of his wrestling life. Dealing with pain is new for the 21-year-old junior. That means DeSanto's mental strength could be as important as knee strength in his potential build-up toward the be-all, end-all March 19-21 NCAA Championships in Minneapolis.
One school of thought would be to keep DeSanto out of Iowa's final three duals — while working strength back into his knee in practice — before returning at the March 7-8 Big Ten Conference Championships at Rutgers. That'd give him 36 days between bouts.
That type of plan shouldn’t hurt DeSanto’s NCAA seeding. If he could stay in the 4/5 range, he'll have an excellent path to the NCAA semifinals. That was the exact approach Penn State 157-pounder Jason Nolf used after suffering a late-January knee injury in 2018. Nolf returned at Big Tens, got to the semifinals, then forfeited to preserve that knee for the NCAAs. Nolf was still rewarded with a No. 3 seed and went on to win an NCAA title.
Here’s one more thing we know about DeSanto, per Brands: He has been extremely healthy throughout the course of his wrestling life. Dealing with pain is new for the 21-year-old junior. That means DeSanto's mental strength could be as important as knee strength in his potential build-up toward the be-all, end-all March 19-21 NCAA Championships in Minneapolis.
One school of thought would be to keep DeSanto out of Iowa's final three duals — while working strength back into his knee in practice — before returning at the March 7-8 Big Ten Conference Championships at Rutgers. That'd give him 36 days between bouts.
That type of plan shouldn’t hurt DeSanto’s NCAA seeding. If he could stay in the 4/5 range, he'll have an excellent path to the NCAA semifinals. That was the exact approach Penn State 157-pounder Jason Nolf used after suffering a late-January knee injury in 2018. Nolf returned at Big Tens, got to the semifinals, then forfeited to preserve that knee for the NCAAs. Nolf was still rewarded with a No. 3 seed and went on to win an NCAA title.