The sting of Ohio State’s upset home loss to Pittsburgh didn’t sour Tom Ryan’s perspective. 

Ryan spoke of the defeat while delineating the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

“The biggest takeaway from the loss is the difference between those two,” he said. “We gain knowledge as a result of anything we go through. Wisdom is the correct application of knowledge — applying what we learned in the future so we don’t do it again. 

“I thought we were flat. You can’t show up that way against a tough team. We got going slowly. We looked flat and tired. That's not only on the student-athletes. Some of that is on us as coaches. 

“You assess after every match; you assess after a win, but you really assess after a loss. You dig even more deeply. This forced us to do that, and hopefully we’re wiser moving forward. Hopefully we apply what we learned.”

Ryan didn’t hesitate to share what he felt was learned.

“Maybe we underestimated them,” he said. “That’s a possibility. As a staff, maybe we could have given them a longer break after (the Cliff Keen Invitational in) Vegas. Maybe some of it’s on the wrestlers themselves. Maybe they didn’t sleep enough. Maybe they didn’t rest enough during the week. Maybe their nutrition and mindset coming in wasn’t right. 

“At this level, if you’re off just a little bit, that’s all it takes sometimes. Coming off the long weekend in Vegas, the long trip, I don’t know — they just looked flat. As a staff and as a team, we’ve gotta take what we learned and apply it to what we do moving forward.”

Ohio State entered Sunday’s dual with a 4-0 record that included three straight shutout wins after a season-opening 24-12 victory at Virginia Tech. But the Panthers notched six match victories and captured a 21-13 win in Columbus. 

“It’s on us,” Ryan said. “We had this match circled, knowing we’d be coming off a long trip and weekend the week before. Pitt has a good team and we didn’t do what we needed to do.”

Among those who lost their individual bouts was Jesse Mendez, who entered the match ranked #3 in the nation at 141 pounds. Pitt’s Cole Matthews handed Mendez his first loss of the season with a last second takedown to win, 4-2.

“First off, Cole Matthews is really good,” Ryan said. “I think Jesse was the aggressor most of the match but made a tactical mistake at the very end. We had riding time, had (Matthews) flat on his belly, and in Jesse Mendez fashion, Jesse wanted to pin him. So he gets a bar arm. One, he didn’t need, and puts a half in and he kind of rolls with him and Matthews gets out with seconds left.

“Now we’re still winning with riding time, but Jesse kind of protected a bit with five or six seconds left and got taken down.

“I love aggression. We preach aggression, and nine times out of 10, aggression wins. But, there’s so much good wrestling in this country, and no matter who you are, if you make a mistake, you’re vulnerable. We made a tactical mistake at the end.”

Despite the first blemish on his sophomore star’s season record, Ryan isn’t worried.  

“Jesse is fine,” he said. “He ran that night, was up the next morning working on things — there’s nothing to be alarmed about. It’s that ‘you win or you learn’ thing.

“There’s no reason to catastrophize the loss,” Ryan said. “We just have to gain wisdom from it.

“We just have to apply what we learned.”

Three Weight Classes Up for Grabs

As the season approaches the halfway point, auditions continue in three separate weight classes for the Buckeyes.

“The big thing for us is figuring out who our best guys are at 125, 165 and 184,” Ryan said. “Who the regular starters will be in those weights is yet to be decided.”

Each wrestler who had the chance to advance his claim on one of the undecided weight classes this past weekend fell to his Pitt foe. At 125, Brendan McCrone lost to Colton Camacho 14-9, Isaac Wilcox lost a major decision to Holden Heller 10-2, and Gavin Hoffman was upended by Reece Heller, also by major decision, 12-2.

Injury Report  

Nick Feldman, Carson Kharchla and Rocco Welsh are nursing recent injuries. 

Feldman — who has what Ryan described as a “lower-body injury” — was injured in the consolation semifinals while wrestling in Las Vegas. Kharchla absorbed a leg injury in his 11-7 victory over Pitt’s Luca Augustine.

Ryan said Welsh “has looked fantastic,” but the true freshman suffered an injury last weekend at the Cleveland State Open. Welsh was dominant in all four of his matches, earning a technical fall in each, but he was injured in his semifinal win and was not able to wrestle in the finals.  

All three are questionable for the upcoming Collegiate Duals on Tuesday (Dec. 19) in Nashville.