The team race is a dead heat on paper, there’s a possibility for two historic feats, and there’s a chance college wrestling fans will get to see two marquee showdowns for the first time this season. 

Here’s a look at five storylines to follow throughout the weekend at the Big 12 Championships in Tulsa. 

Title Race Up For Grabs

Missouri has won 12 consecutive conference titles — one in the Big 12, then nine more in the MAC and the last two since rejoining the Big 12 — but Iowa State and Oklahoma State have plans to snap that string. 

The Cyclones are chasing their first championship since 2009 when Cael Sanderson was at the helm in Ames. Oklahoma State is trying to get back on top after watching Mizzou celebrate each of the last two years. 

Based on seeds, Iowa State and Oklahoma State are dead even with 126.5 projected team points — 11 more than Missouri. South Dakota State (105) and Northern Iowa (86) round out the top five on paper. 

The Cyclones have six wrestlers seeded first or second — as many as Oklahoma State (four) and Missouri (two) combined. The Cowboys are counting on top-to-bottom balance with nine wrestlers seeded fifth or better and Luke Surber, who placed third a year ago at the Big 12 Championships but dropped to a #7 seed after wrestling an abbreviated schedule this season. Along similar lines, Mizzou is looking for returning conference finalists Brock Mauller (seeded fifth at 157) and Peyton Mocco (seeded fourth at 174) and returning champ Rocky Elam (seeded third at 197) to outperform their seeds. 

Fix, Carr Chasing History 

Oklahoma State’s Daton Fix and Iowa State’s David Carr are bidding to make Big 12 history this weekend as the conference’s first five-time champions. 

Fix, the #1 seed at 133, has compiled a 115-6 career record with the Cowboys and has not lost a match against a Big 12 opponent. He’s 13-0 this season with nine bonus-point victories. 

Carr is seeded second at 165 behind two-time NCAA champ Keegan O’Toole of Missouri. The Cyclone senior owns a 117-5 career record and is 19-1 this season. 

Along with Fix and Carr, Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen is chasing his fourth Big 12 title at 184 pounds and has another season of eligibility. 

Will We See Carr vs. O’Toole Part 4?

For Carr to reach the top of the Big 12 podium for the fifth time, he’ll have to navigate through a star-studded 165-pound bracket that includes five of the top 14 in the national rankings, four All-Americans and two NCAA champs. 

Carr and O’Toole have formed one of college wrestling’s great individual rivalries during the past 13 months. The Iowa State senior scored wins in the first two meetings last year, including an overtime fall in the Big 12 finals. 

O’Toole got on the board in the series a couple weeks later with an 8-2 victory in the NCAA finals. 

Their first opportunity to collide this season didn’t happen. Missouri was battling injury and illness issues during the final week of the regular season and O’Toole was one of seven starters absent from the Tiger lineup when they wrestled at Iowa State. 

O’Toole claimed the #1 seed. His side of the bracket includes Oklahoma State’s eighth-ranked Izzak Olejnik and #14 Giano Petrucelli of Air Force. On the bottom half of the bracket, Carr could get paired up West Virginia’s seventh-ranked Peyton Hall in the semifinals. 

Heavyweight Clash 

Air Force’s second-ranked Wyatt Hendrickson hasn’t lost to a Big 12 wrestler in three years. He’s piled up 33 pins in the last two seasons, including 16 in 20 matches this season. 

Iowa State’s #3 Yonger Bastida has gone unbeaten while peppering heavyweights with leg attacks after moving up from 197 pounds. 

Hendrickson’s prolonged Big 12 dominance and Bastida’s ascent in the national rankings has set the stage for a highly anticipated showdown that could occur in Sunday night’s heavyweight title bout. 

The Big 12 heavyweight bracket includes four others ranked in the top 14 nationally — Missouri’s #5 Zach Elam, Oklahoma’s #10 Josh Heindselman, Oklahoma State’s #11 Konner Doucet and Northern Iowa’s #14 Tyrell Gordon — but Hendrickson and Bastida have established themselves as the top title threats here. If they both do their part to set up a Sunday night showdown, there could be Big 12 team title and important NCAA seeding implications riding on the outcome. 

More Potential Top Five Battles 

Though 165 and 285 might be garnering the brightest spotlight heading into the weekend, two more weights could stage Sunday night rematches between wrestlers ranked in the top five nationally. 

Top-ranked Keckeisen and #2 Dustin Plott of Oklahoma State grabbed the top two seeds at 184 pounds. Keckeisen’s 23-0 record this season includes a 12-6 victory against Plott. 

At 197, fourth-ranked Tanner Sloan of South Dakota State is trying to capture his first Big 12 title after three runner-up finishes, including one when he lost in the finals to Stephen Buchanan. Sloan enters this weekend’s tournament as the #1 seed, thanks in part to a 4-1 win earlier this season against Oklahoma’s Buchanan, who’s ranked fifth nationally.