Injury uncertainty drops Braeden Davis in latest rankings

Penn State wrestling is currently a freight train barreling toward another team National Championship this March in Philadelphia. The question from much of the outside world hasn’t necessarily been will the Nittany Lions win the title, but rather by how much.

Cael Sanderson’s team currently has all 10 wrestlers in contention to finish as All-Americans, and many of them are projected to win individual championships. However, some lingering injury issues are creating some uncertainty about whether this year’s team can break the total points record set by last year’s squad at the NCAA Championships.

Tyler Kasak went down last week with an apparent head injury after recently moving up to No. 1 in the InterMat rankings. Kasak’s in-match injury somewhat overshadowed fellow sophomore Braeden Davis, who has now missed three consecutive duals.

Davis has not wrestled since he faced No. 10 Dylan Shawver (Rutgers) on January 24. Sanderson hasn’t provided much clarity surrounding the severity of the injury.

“There’s different kinds of injuries,” Sanderson said Tuesday. “There’s season-ending injuries, there’s things that are going to be a nuisance for him at the Nationals like Carter [Starocci] dealt with at Nationals last year.

“But we don’t have what we feel like is anything like that. There’s a good chance he’ll wrestle this week, and there’s a chance he won’t wrestle this week. But if it were the Big Ten Tournament, he would be ready to rip and roll. He’d be good to go.”

Davis drops in the ranking ahead of a pair of top 15 matchups for Penn State wrestling

© Chris Eutsler / Basic Blues Nation, 2025.

Sitting on the sidelines with a 7-2 record has allowed other wrestlers to jump Davis in the 133-pound InterMat rankings. After remaining at No. 7 for two weeks, Davis dropped a spot this week down to No. 8. He was jumped by Braxton Brown (Maryland), who moved up from No. 11 to No. 6 after upsetting then No. 9 Dylan Shawver of Rutgers over the weekend.

While the slight move in rankings doesn’t mean too much now, it does give a bit of insight into how the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments will be seeded. As we have seen in the past, sometimes, the path is just as important as the quality of a wrestler who makes a deep run in March.

While Davis’s status for the weekend is unclear, what is clear is that his standing in the Big Ten is taking a hit the longer he remains out of the lineup. But Cael Sanderson always has the bigger picture in mind for his wrestlers. We saw it last year when Carter Starocci injury defaulted out of the Big Ten Championships to rest and prepare for the NCAAs.

While it appears that Davis will certainly return to the Penn State wrestling lineup this season, the question remains: when?

Penn State wrestling will face No. 8 Ohio State on Friday in Columbus, followed by a road trip to No. 13 Illinois on Sunday.

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