#WrestleNYC: NCAA Media Day

NICK GWIAZDOWSKI: It's an honor to wrestle here. It's a home state of mine, come back home state, my last tournament. It's a special place and I have a lot of people coming out.

So really looking forward to a lot.

Q. Nick, there's been a lot of talk about the legacy you could leave as a three-time champ, heavyweight, one of the best of all time. Can you talk about the ending that could shape up for yourself in your home state, how important it is for you wrestling in your home state, wrestling at Madison Square Garden, the big lights, the big stage, quality opponent, potentially the biggest match of the tournament? What are your thoughts on that?

NICK GWIAZDOWSKI: I think about it sometimes when I'm in training and just at home and other times. But there's a path to it. And sometimes I look forward to having the opportunity to do. It's pretty special when people say you win this next tournament you could be one of the best ever in the weight class, especially with the people I've watched and competed against in this weight class and overall in the NCAA. But what you talked about being here in my home state of New York and potentially against a quality guy like that, it just makes everything better. It's like you see two best guys go at it for the last time and you find out who is the better one. Stuff like that. As a fan you look forward to it, I think. But also as an athlete, cuz you really test yourself and see what you have within you, see where you're really at. And I think that's something that tells a lot about the person you are.

PAT POPOLIZIO: Excited to be here. My home state couple of guys on the roster from the state of New York. We're pretty familiar with our surroundings. It's just a great opportunity to be in a historical venue and just excited to get out there and compete and put on a good show for everybody that's here for this weekend to watch.

Q: Coach Popolizio, we had Nick Gwiazdowski in here earlier. What's it been like to coach a heavyweight of that caliber, because he has a chance obviously to be in pretty rare company if he wins this weekend. You might address what he's been like for you.

PAT POPOLIZIO: It's been a special relationship. Obviously I've known him for a very long time, had the same high school coach. I've been able to build that relationship for a very long time with him. But he's done some special things for the sport of wrestling. And it's just another weekend for him. But he's fun to watch. When you watch heavyweights wrestle, a lot of times the match is a little slower. But he goes out and he tries to attack as much as he can and put as much points out there on the board. And it makes it fun to watch. And that's been good for college wrestling in general. And he's doing a lot of things right to put himself in this position to compete here in the state of New York. So that will be fun.

Q. Pat, coming into the year, I think a lot of us thought you had the chance to have a really good team. Has this year sort of progressed the way you thought it would progress, and how do you evaluate your guys, their confidence level coming into this tournament and the potential to achieve a team trophy beyond that?

PAT POPOLIZIO: I think when you look at where we were when we started the season, each week we tried to gain confidence as a team. And, more importantly, the individuals that were starting to have success, that kind of got contagious with us. And where we're at as a program to be able to compete with some of the teams we're able to compete with this year, really, ultimately, set the tone for the ending of the season going into the ACCs, built a ton of confidence for us. It's a different ballgame out here, but it's still wrestling.

Our guys are very confident at this point. They did it themselves throughout the season. So just gotta go out and do what they've been doing all year, and the competition stays the same. We wrestle a very tough schedule this year. So we're familiar with a lot of guys that we're going to see throughout the tournament, just like everybody else.

But it's been -- for us it's been a very exciting year. Kind of things kind of explode a little quickly as far as the success with this team. And just we're thankful to be in the situation we are with the team that we can compete with.

Players Mentioned

Nick Gwiazdowski

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