The seventh-ranked Illini wrestlers entered Michigan State’s Breslin Center seeking the team’s second Big Ten championship in three years. But the conference’s depth proved too strong.

Head coach Mark Johnson’s team finished with 83.5 team points and a seventh-place finish at the tournament, but the team managed to qualify eight of ten Illinois grapplers for the NCAA Championships.

“This tournament is about toughness – and we didn’t wrestle tough today,” Johnson said. “I’m disappointed about the way we wrestled because I know that we’re better than seventh place.”

The number one team in the nation, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, won the Big Ten Championships for the second-straight year with a final team score of 156. The Gophers crowned four wrestlers and had five other grapplers place in the top five. They finished 56.5 points in front of second-place Wisconsin.

The Badgers finished ahead of Iowa, Penn State and Indiana. Northwestern had three first-place finishers but finished with 84 points, good for sixth place.

The Illini finished with three fourth-place finishes, two fifths, two sixths, one seventh and one eighth.

Despite the seventh-place team finish, the eight individual qualifications provided a bright spot.

Senior Cassio Pero (141) qualified for the NCAAs for a third-straight year and Gabe Flores (125) and Mike Poeta (157) qualified for the second-straight time. Roger Smith-Bergsrud (165), Jimmy Kennedy (133), John Dergo (184), Patrick Bond (197) and John Wise (HWT) also qualified for the NCAAs.

Both Troy Tirapelle (149) and Matt Winterhalter (174) lost their seventh-place matches and were unable to qualify.

The Illini’s top-ranked Poeta (157) had his perfect season ended Saturday afternoon against Minnesota’s C.P. Schlatter.

Illinois wrestled to a 1-1 tie before heading to overtime where Schlatter scored an escape point.

Poeta was unable to rebound. The match was Poeta’s first since Feb. 4 when he defeated Schlatter 3-2 in the Illini’s lone conference loss.

Poeta continued to wrestle in the consolation bracket, but lost Sunday’s third-place match to Wisconsin’s Craig Henning.

The Illini’s two freshmen, Kennedy and Dergo, finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Kennedy won two matches as the second seed, but fell to Mack Reiter of Minnesota. Dergo, the seventh seed, won two of his four matches, including a match against third-seeded Mike Pucillo of Ohio State.

“There are two weeks until nationals and we’re going to work harder than we have all year to make sure we’re not only physically tough, but mentally tough as well,” Johnson said.

The eight Illini wrestlers have two weeks off before traveling to Detroit for the NCAA Championships March 15, 16 and 17.