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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2017

Bo Nickal

St. Louis, Missouri

THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by 184-pound national champion Bo Nickal of Penn State.

BO NICKAL: Thanks for sticking around forever, I guess.

Q. Match management, last year in the NCAA finals you get caught on your back. That out-of-bounds throw. You're initiating action a lot.
This one, a lot different than how Bo Nickal wrestles a lot. Normally it's gun slinging. There wasn't a whole lot of gun slinging. There was match management tonight. What was different? What was the coach's staff message to you?

BO NICKAL: Go out and be yourself, if you wanted to gun sling, then we'd gun sling. But he didn't want to too bad, make it more a tactical match.

Hats off to him, because he's a strong dude, good technique, holds good position. It was hard for me to get to my angles and positions but I capitalized when I needed to.

Q. Talk about your scoring moves and how you were able to get him. Again, you're going against a guy who is pretty much like a brick wall, isn't easy to score on, but you were able to get what you needed to score the points to win this match?
BO NICKAL: I definitely felt wish I would've got to the legs a little more. I felt like once I was to the legs I as going to finish, work on finishing the legs a lot, when I got to the single leg, he sprawled out, I knew exactly what I needed to do thanks to Cunningham, he helped me with that position over my redshirt year I knew what to do from there. And once I got the leg. I knew I was going to get it.

I wish I would have got to the leg a little bit more scored more points had a little more action, but that's all right, I guess a win's a win.

Q. I asked the Coach this but probably more appropriate for you. Not a lot of, I don't know, maybe the first national champion from Texas. What's this mean for the state of Texas and state of Texas wrestling?
BO NICKAL: It's awesome. I'm proud to represent Texas. It's a state that's definitely on the come-up as far as wrestling goes.

You see a lot of -- there's a lot of athletes and the numbers are getting a lot better. And so with the numbers are increasing you'll definitely start to see more better wrestlers, super proud to represent my state and put Texas wrestling on the map a little bit.

Q. Is this the case how you wrestle, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. Don't get double overhook and thrown. Don't get splay hooked. Like I said, you gun sling. Are you just going to do what you do, it doesn't matter, if you're going to gun sling you're going to throw them you're going to splay them you're going to do it?
BO NICKAL: No doubt I'm just going to be myself out there. I feel you don't really lose until you stop being yourself and you lose your freedom. If you're going to go out and lose a match and be yourself, then that's the way it's going to go. But if you're going to go out there and do something that's not who you are really, I mean and even if you win I feel like that's not really even winning. So I'm just going to go out there and be myself no matter what.

Q. Bo, only three other teams had five champions, and you guys did five in a row. So I'm trying to picture your workouts, these five straight weights all the guys that won the nationals in addition to all the other studs in your room. Is that one of the reasons why you guys are so good, is because of the quality of the kids that are working with each other every day?
BO NICKAL: Yes, it's definitely. I think that just excellence breeds excellence. And that's what we're doing at Penn State. So each and every group that we get is top-notch. A kid not only as a wrestler but as a person. And I feel that really is what's going to make the difference over the long run. I mean, there's a lot of talent out there.

But at Penn State we get the right kinds of people and kids with character. That shows. You see kids coming in like Nick Suriano, Mark Hall, Vincenzo, kids coming in, winning at the highest levels.

Some of them weren't even 20 years old to start the season. And that's incredible and I'm so happy that my team got to go out there and win five straight. And I got to kind of put the exclamation point on the end of it. Awesome feeling proud of my team.

Q. To piggyback on that. You said you guys are uber competitive within the room, you like to sit around with Zain look at YouTube videos to try to find new things. How much does it help keep you motivated when they go out and put in these performances with you where you're always trying to one-up them?
BO NICKAL: I wouldn't necessarily say I'm trying to one-up them, but definitely motivates me to go score points for the team. We're a collective unit. We're not going to win national championships unless everybody's going out there performing. So it's something that I really feel does motivate me.

But it's not necessarily, it doesn't motivate me to be better than Zain or Nolf. I just want to be a better version of myself of who I was yesterday. So those guys, I definitely look up to them. And I see those guys, I'm like, that's incredible, I'm so happy. What they're doing wants me to be a better version of myself really.

Q. You may have answered this already. But how much did last year's disappointment drive you this year and how much did you allow it to maybe after the disappointment, how much did it take for you to maybe put it away and move on?
BO NICKAL: I still think about it a lot every day and it's something that I'll probably think about for a long time from now. But with that being said it's not something that I feel really drags me down, it's not something I dwell on.

It's just like a little bit of motivation and I feel that through that loss I've learned a lot and grew. And so when I look back on it, I'm not really going to consider that like a true loss if I grew and learned a lot from that and became a better wrestler and a better person because of it. In the end that's going to be more positive than negative as far as I'm concerned.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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