It’s all about the points, Iowa’s Drake Ayala said.

The returning NCAA finalist, who moved up to 133 pounds for this season, opened the season last Saturday at Oregon State with a 26-10 technical fall over Damion Elliot. Ayala gave up an early takedown, then took control of the match.

“My mentality was just to keep scoring,” Ayala said Wednesday. “Even though I get taken down once here or there, that’s fine, but if I keep scoring, that’s when good things happen.”

It was a good start to the season for Ayala, an NCAA runner-up at 125 last season who moved up a weight class. And it was an example of what he says is “wrestling like Drake Ayala.”

“Scoring a lot of points,” he said. “I mean, just pouring it on our opponent, and just having fun doing that. I’ve done that ever since I was a little kid, so there’s no need to stop now that I get to college and we have better competition.”

Iowa coach Tom Brands said he enjoys Ayala’s relentlessness on the mat.

“He just kept going,” Brands said. “Right now, in my mind, I see the Energizer Bunny, something like that. You know, keep it going. Just keep wrestling that way.”

Brands said he saw that aggressiveness as Ayala rallied from the early takedown.

“Something did go against him, he got taken down, and he got back in the match and got the tech fall,” Brands said. “Good for him. Let’s keep it going. Keep that pace.”

Ayala went 27-5 last season, getting through to the national championship match before losing 7-2 to Arizona State’s Richard Figueroa.

“I think what you saw at Oregon State, it doesn’t matter how good the guy is, it doesn’t matter how bad the guy is,” Brands said. “All that matters is Drake Ayala. Goes out and wrestles like he’s capable of doing. And when that happens, he is explosive, he is dynamic, he’s a throttler, he’s a hammer. And those are all good synonyms for dominant wrestlers.”

The aggressiveness, Ayala said, comes from having worked with three-time national champion and Olympic silver medalist Spencer Lee in practice.

“I think any time you wrestle Spencer Lee into practice, you elevate your level,” Ayala said. “So I think it’s good for me to wrestle him just to feel that. I mean, he was an Olympic silver medalist this year, so get to feel that level, you continue to improve.”

The move to 133 hasn’t affected Ayala.

“It’s still wrestling,” he said. “I can’t even really tell the difference in the weight class. I can tell in my workouts and my practices, I’m having a lot more fun and I’m focusing on the right things. So that’s a good thing for me.”

Ayala, ranked third at 133, gets #20 Tyler Knox (2-0) in Saturday’s dual against Stanford at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“There’s nothing to take lightly,” Ayala said. “They’re a talented team, and we got to go in there. That’s the next day down on our calendar. That’s the next big thing. So we’ve got to be ready to go.”

Bonding Time

The trip to Oregon State for the 30-7 dual win featured some “goofy flights,” Ayala said, but it was a good bonding experience for the team.

Ayala told about the early wake-up call the team had on Sunday morning to head back to Iowa City.

“We had a time change (for Daylight Savings Time),” Ayala said. “So we had a time change, and then we left for the airport from the hotel at, like, 2 a.m. They knocked on our doors at 2 a.m., we left at 2:30 and then it was just all of us hanging out in the airport at 4 a.m. with each other. It was a little goofy. It was fun though.”

Tunnel Walk

Saturday’s dual will be the first at Carver-Hawkeye Arena since the construction of the new tunnel between the arena and the Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center.

The Hawkeyes will come out of the tunnel located at the south end of the arena, instead of the usual tunnel entrance at the northwest corner.

“We had media day in there, so I got to see it and stuff,” Ayala said. “And there’s lights in there. It’s cool. It’s different. It’s on the other side of the arena. So that’ll be different too.”

Former Iowa Hawkeyes star Keegan Murray has not exactly gotten off to the start he was hoping for with the Sacramento Kings this NBA season, but he is doing one thing particularly well.

Through Murray’s first seven games of the 2024-25 campaign, he is averaging 7.7 rebounds per game, which is well above his career average of 5.2.

Additionally, Murray’s total rebound percentage is up from 9.1 percent last year to 11.7 percent this season, and his offensive rebound percentage has gone from 4.5 percent to 7.1 percent.

Now, this certainly coincides with Murray playing more minutes at the 4 this season due to the arrival of DeMar DeRozan, who is now occupying the small forward position.

Still, its an impressive feat for Murray, who is in the process of adjusting to a new role.

Offensively, the 24-year-old has not been great, as he is registering 14.4 points per game on 44.2/30.2/85.7 shooting splits.

His perimeter shooting has been rather dreadful, which is obviously a concern considering that Murray’s three-point shooting also dipped last season.

During his rookie campaign, the Iowa product connected on 41.1 percent of his long-range tries. Last year, that number declined to 35.8 percent.

There was hope that Murray, who has a reduced role offensively this season, would see an uptick in efficiency thanks to the Kings now having more offensive weapons. Thus far, that has not manifested.

But, at the very least, Murray is doing a fine job crashing the glass, and he remains a very versatile asset on the defensive end.

AMES – Sixth-ranked Iowa State wrestling is set to begin the 2024-25 wrestling season with a dual meet against No. 20 Stanford.

Friday’s dual meet is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. CT from Hilton Coliseum and will be available on ESPN+.

“We got our hands full this first Friday night, I can tell you on paper, this is the toughest team we ever started out with,” head coach Kevin Dresser said. “I’m in my seventh or eighth year of home openers, and this is the toughest team we’ve got. … They have potentially six out of 10 weights ranked in the top 20, so it’s a lot for us to jump into right now, especially considering we got a really young squad and we’re going to be without a couple of All-Americans.”

The Cyclones are nursing several injuries, and it will have an opportunity to flex its depth early in the season. The Cyclones have penned three true freshmen in their starting lineup for Friday: Adrian Meza (125), Kane Naaktgeboren (157) and Daniel Herrera (HWT). Redshirt freshman Christian Carroll, InterMat’s No. 32-ranked 197-pounder, will also get to start.

“These freshmen that we got, man, I’m telling you, they’re dangerous,” senior Anthony Echemendia said. “They’re hungry, and they’re not going to take a step back for anybody. These guys wanted to be at Iowa State for a reason, because this program is doing great things, and I’m very happy with the freshmen that we have now. They’re going to carry the culture very well.”

There’s plenty of youth in the lineup overall. Eight of the 11 projected starting Cyclones are sophomores or younger, including 133-pounder Evan Frost, who was a NCAA All-American last season.

Additionally, six of 11 projected starters are new to the roster, including Meza, Naaktgeboren, Herrera, Iowa transfer Aiden Riggins (174), Utah Valley transfer Evan Bockman (184) and Oklahoma State transfer Christian Carroll (197).

It’ll be an opportunity for fans to become acquainted with the newcomers.

“We obviously had some wrestle-offs, and we have a few other wrestle-offs coming up here and we got some guys (coming back from injury) that we’re going to get back in the mix here, so they’re going to have to wrestle their way back into this, but it wasn’t a perfect puzzle,” Dresser said of the starting lineup selection process. “The coaching staff, we had hours and hours of meetings of hypotheticals, and sometimes an injury will force your hand a little bit.”

Iowa State wrestling roster and injury updates

Standout heavyweight Yonger Bastida is still recovering from a minor knee sprain that was announced to have him sidelined for 2-3 weeks, forcing him to withdraw from the NWCA All-Star Classic on Nov. 16.

Casey Swiderski, a NCAA All-American last season at 149 pounds, is working on his weight cut.

“We’ve progressed him down slow,” Dresser said. “It’s no secret that he wanted to make the drop to 141.”

Cody Chittum sustained a concussion, and the Cyclones are “leaning towards a redshirt” for the sophomore.

“He’s had a couple in the year, so we got him evaluated,” Dresser said of Chittum. “The evaluation was good, but they’re going to want to sit him for about 4-5 more weeks.”

Kysen Terukina, Paniro Johnson and M.J. Gaitan are working on their return to the mat after minor injuries.

Iowa State’s starting lineup will be one to watch as the season progresses and as more of those wrestlers make their return and finalize their weight changes.

“We’ve got our 141, 149, and 157 – everything can change in a month, but right now, it’s going to be Anthony (Echemendia) at 149, Paniro (Johnson) at 157. Cody will redshirt, and then next year, we’ll look into redshirting Casey, but right now, it’s looking like we’ve got 141, 149 and 157 figured out.”

With Gaitan out, sophomore Connor Euton is the starter at 165 on Friday, but it’ll be a close race between those two moving forward.

“I’m excited to see what he can do, he’s got M.J. and him competing for the same spot, so we’re going to have to turn around and have a wrestle-off here sooner than later,” Dresser said. “Right now, he’s one of our hardest-working guys, and he’s excited to get out there and show all that hard work.”

Cyclones’ probable lineup for dual meet with Stanford

• 125: Adrian Meza, Fr., 0-0 career record, or Garrett Grice, So., 16-5 career
• 133: Evan Frost, So., 37-12 career
• 141: Zach Redding, Sr., 43-24 career
• 149: Anthony Echemendia, Sr., 30-7 career
• 157: Kane Naaktgeboren, Fr., 0-0 career
• 165: Connor Euton, So., 20-4 career
• 174: Aiden Riggins, R-So., 17-15 career
• 184: Evan Bockman, Sr., 58-33 career
• 197: Christian Carroll, R-Fr., 2-2 career
• HWT: Daniel Herrera, Fr., 0-0 career

Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5.