Nebraska’s new transfer portal pick-up Vincent Robinson is also registered to compete at the Senior level — he has two year of eligibility remaining.The Seniors wrestle Greco-Roman on Thursday and Friday, while freestyle will take place Friday and Saturday. The U20 division — which has a number of current and future Huskers — will compete Saturday and Sunday. Once their seeds come out, we’ll have a preview up for them as well.Now for a deep dive into each Senior US Open entry for the Huskers and their potential paths.

Here are the brackets using only the seeded wrestlers.US Open Senior Men's Pre-seed Brackets – 57kg, 61kg, 65kg, 70kg *These are incomplete and only include the seeded wrestlers pic.twitter.com/Hf93iXYefa— notawrestler (@notawrestler_x) April 21, 2026Senior US Open Entries57 kg3-seed Liam CroninAn All-American for the Huskers in 2023, Cronin has pretty quietly put together an impressive Senior-level resume since graduating.Last year, Cronin earned a bronze medal at the Pan American Championships for Team USA and made it to the US Open final where he fell to Penn State’s Luke Lilledahl via technical superiority. At Final X, Cronin wrestled Stanford’s Nico Provo for true 3rd-place and won a 10-3 decision, earning him a spot on the US National Team (top 3 in the country at each weight).With just the top 8 seeded, nothing is really known up until the quarters where Cronin would likely face 6-seed Eric Barnett — a three-time All-American for Wisconsin and 2018 Fargo Junior National Champion in 2018 in freestyle.With a win over Barnett, Cronin would face 2-seed Luke Lilledahl out of Penn State, which will be a tall task after their last meeting.

Lilledahl is a world champion at the U17 (2022), U20 (2024) and U23 (2025) level — completing the triple crown of age-level freestyle wrestling.With an upset over Lilledahl, Cronin would face Olympic silver-medalist Spencer Lee in the final, an even taller task.Unseeded Vincent RobinsonNebraska’s newest addition via the transfer portal, Robinson is slick on his feet and seems to have a style tailored to freestyle, so it’s exciting that he’s competing this year in the international style after not doing so for many years.A Fargo All-American in 16U in 2021, Robinson hasn’t done much freestyle since. As a redshirt freshman at NC State in 2025, Robinson shocked the wrestling world and won an NCAA title at 125 pounds.

He followed that up with a 4th-place finish at NCAAs this past season.Robinson’s path through the tournament is an unknown, as he’ll be randomly drawn in. With Lee and Lilledahl entered, Cronin and Robinson are long shots to win, but their performance will tell us a lot going forward.65 kg5-seed Brock HardyOne of Nebraska’s most accomplished freestylers is Brock Hardy. A two-time Fargo champion in high school, Hardy took some time off from freestyle between his LDS mission and his start in college, but Hardy returned to freestyle in 2023 when he won the U23 National Championship and went on to earn bronze at the U23 World Championships.In 2025, Hardy was a finalist at the World Team Trials — he beat Seth Gross in a wild 19-16 match and took down high school phenom Bo Bassett 12-7 on the way to the finals where he lost to Real Woods 10-6.

Bassett is considered one of the favorites at this weight, but you can watch their match from last year below. In my opinion, Hardy’s length, rubber-knee ability, and his chest wrap really gave Bassett problems in this matchup that Hardy was leading 12-3 with under a minute left.Looking into Hardy’s path, not everything is known about the early-round matchups, but if seeds hold he’ll face Penn State redshirt freshman Nate Desmond in the Round of 16. Desmond was a three-time Pennsylvania state champion and one of the nation’s top recruits in 2025.

With a win over Desmond, Hardy would move on to the quarters to face 4-seed Jesse Mendez who just completed his career at Ohio State as a two-time NCAA Champion. Hardy and Mendez wrestled seven times in college with Mendez winning six of those. It’l