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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPSMarch 17, 2012Matt McDonoughST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 125-lb. Champion THE MODERATOR: First question. Q. Matt, you rarely show a lot of emotion usually after a match, but you're obviously very excited about this. What does title No.2 feel to you? MATT MCDONOUGH: I mean, it feels just as good as title No.1, better. I mean, I don't know. It's a new year. It's a new thing. It's a new challenge. There's new obstacles you have to overcome. And throughout the year you don't show a lot of emotion because you're not finishing the way you want to finish. You're not wrestling the perfect match. So you're not completely satisfied, and I still didn't wrestle a perfect match, but that's where you want to be in the end. So you gotta get a little bit of emotion with that when you finally reach your goal. Q. Matt, he was so flexible, that really made it hard to finish shots. What was the key there? What did you do to get that second one after you fought off that one extended one in the first period? And then when you got the one, what did you do? What did you change? MATT MCDONOUGH: You get it on the leg and your mind says, man, he's flexible, he's strong, but your heart‑‑ your heart says I'm not coming away with no takedown.  I'm not getting a stalemate. I'm ending it right here. And that's what you gotta do. You get in those tough situations, you have a second to think. The only thought that goes through your head is: I'm not letting go of this. There's no way he's getting out of this. There's no way. And that's what it's gotta be. Q. You wrestled him already this year. Was something drastically different about this match when you beat him at Penn State? MATT MCDONOUGH: I won in regulation. I won by four points instead of a takedown and overtime and scrambles the whole match. It was a tough match. It was a seven‑minute battle. But you make improvements. You try and widen the gap. It may have been a small jump, but that's still widening the gap. And that's what you're trying to do every single time, is perform better than you did the time before. Q. Iowa is obviously one of the more elite programs in wrestling. You're now a two‑time NCAA champion for the most storied program. What does that mean to you in leaving your legacy at Iowa, and you still have one year left? MATT MCDONOUGH: That thought crossed my mind today, you know, how are you going to make your legacy, how are you going to set your mark in the program. And I was a one‑timer, three‑time finalist. That's good. But I want to be in that group that keeps getting smaller and smaller. And that three‑time NCAA championship group is even smaller. Just like I said my freshman year, moving on to the next thing. It's not over yet. I'm not done yet. I still got a year left to go. And moving forward right from right now on. Q. How much better are you now as a wrestler than the first time you won this tournament? And how come you have to continue to improve to stay on top? MATT MCDONOUGH: Well, according to Dan Gable standards, if you want to win it the next year, you've got to get three times good as you are because everyone else is getting twice as good. So two years, three times, three times better than that. That's nine times better, I hope. Nine times better than I was my freshman year. Three times better than I was last year. Three times better next year. Q. Making 25, that's not something, you know, you just‑‑ you start doing. You wrestled 30 in high school. 25 isn't something you start doing two months out. This is a yearlong thing. Can you talk about the lifestyle it takes to be a 25‑pounder? MATT MCDONOUGH: Regardless of the weight, the sport of wrestling is a lifestyle like no other sport. You have to live it, eat it, breathe it. Every aspect of your life has to include wrestling. And after my redshirt year, I realized what I wanted, and that was to be the very best, and I thought that would be going to 25‑‑ not because I'll get in the lineup, but because that's where I thought I would wrestle the best, I would be the most competitive, and I could improve myself the most. And you gotta be restrictive in your eating. You've got to work on your studies right. You've got to live your life right, and you have to think wrestling all the time. It's your life, you know? You live it each and every day, even in the offseason. And that's really the key to what you're saying as being a 25‑pounder. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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