With many UW students heading inside to warm up from the blistering winter cold, the ninth-ranked Wisconsin wrestling team is off to the bright lights of Las Vegas to take part in the 26th annual Cliff Keen Invite.

More than 40 teams will take part in the two-day tournament to be held in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The field includes 12 teams ranked in the top 25, as well as four other Big Ten teams including Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State and Purdue.

Head coach Barry Davis knows this will be another chance for his team to see where they stand against the rest of the pack.

"There's going to be five of the top 10 teams in the country that'll be there, so we'll kind of see a little bit more where we're really at, where we stand overall in the country," Davis said in a press conference Monday. "And it'll be a good chance for our guys to get some good matches in against some highly ranked guys, and so we'll see where we stand overall as a team, as well as individual-wise. It'll be a good test for us."

The Badgers are coming off a big weekend two weeks ago when they defeated then-No. 8 Cornell 21-18. Wisconsin was down 15-18 heading into the final match of the night at 197 pounds. Junior Dallas Herbst registered a pin in the last dual of the night to give UW the match and the upset win.

Last year in Las Vegas, the cardinal and white appeared at the invite and took fifth out of 47 teams. The Badgers were led by third-place finishes from Craig Henning at 157 pounds and Kyle Ruschell at 141 pounds. Herbst also finished fifth at 197 pounds, while senior Matt Maciag placed seventh at 174 pounds at last year’s invite.

The highlight of the tournament will be in the 157-pound weight class, where the second-ranked Henning could meet up with either top-ranked Gregor Gillespie from Edinboro or No. 3 Mike Poeta from Illinois. Poeta is coming off a match where he pinned Henning a little more than a week ago at the National Wrestling Coaches Association All-Star Classic.

"Henning was off to a good start right away until he got pinned last week," Davis said. "But I think it was a little bit of a wake-up call for him. … I think he thinks he can turn it on and turn it off when he has to, and it's not the way you should look at things. You've got to prepare all year long, and I think he thinks, Well, I took second last year, I'll be in the finals again this year."

While this weekend will be a great chance for Henning to get back to his winning ways, it will also be a good tune-up for an early-season Big Ten match at Ohio State in 10 days. As it often is, the Big Ten is one of the premier wrestling conferences in the nation this season.