Underrated ncaa brackets

[Antitroll2828]

Randomly stumbled upon this the other day but 2014 125 doesn’t get talked about enough

5 of the top 8 won ncaa titles , Delgado 1st 2x , 2nd Nashon Garrett , 3rd Nico Megalaudis , 5th Corey Clark , 7th Darian Cruz …combined those guys have 11 final appearances and 6 titles ..throw mutiple time AA and yearly top 5 guy Joey dance  , 2x AA Conor youtsey , 2x AA bradley taylor , AAs Dylan peters, earl hall, Tyler cox, Dave terao , Eddie kilmara , jarrod Patterson 

 

just a stacked weight all around has to be up there with the top brackets 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

The absolute PERFECT example of what I've come to call "The Delgado Effect." If Jesse wrestled for your team, you would've loved him to death. Super quick, supreme technician, humble, respectful and on and on.

But he got picked on endlessly on themat.com because of what you see in that bracket.

His chief rivals were some of the best wrestlers for schools with the largest internet presence. Nashon Garrett went to Cornell, Nico Megaludis was a Nittany Lion, and Corey Clark was a Hawkeye.

And before all of that there was Matt McDonough.

Crazy bracket. 

 

[Crotalus]

25 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

The absolute PERFECT example of what I've come to call "The Delgado Effect." If Jesse wrestled for your team, you would've loved him to death. Super quick, supreme technician, humble, respectful and on and on.

But he got picked on endlessly on themat.com because of what you see in that bracket.

His chief rivals were some of the best wrestlers for schools with the largest internet presence. Nashon Garrett went to Cornell, Nico Megaludis was a Nittany Lion, and Corey Clark was a Hawkeye.

And before all of that there was Matt McDonough.

Crazy bracket. 

 

I think he got picked on because a lot of us don't like the leg pass all day version of offense. That said, he at least always continued to work towards a score and didn't lay on his back like Dean Heil did.

[Gus]

41 minutes ago, Crotalus said:

I think he got picked on because a lot of us don't like the leg pass all day version of offense. That said, he at least always continued to work towards a score and didn't lay on his back like Dean Heil did.

Delgado and Heil were cut from the same cloth. Incredibly frustrating to wrestle and cheer against but they were operating within the set of rules at the time.

[Wrestleknownothing]

Not necessarily under rated, but I was looking at brackets from 2010 - 2022. The most busted bracket I could find was in 2016 at 174 pounds. 

The podium contained the 11 (1st Myles Martin), 12 (5th Nathan Jackson), and 13 (8th Alex Meyer) seed along with an unseeded wrestler (4th Lelund Weatherspoon).

Does anyone know of a more busted bracket prior to 2010?

Note: My finishes are mid-point of the range where they got knocked out if not an AA.

[11986]

22 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Not necessarily under rated, but I was looking at brackets from 2010 - 2022. The most busted bracket I could find was in 2016 at 174 pounds. 

The podium contained the 11 (1st Myles Martin), 12 (5th Nathan Jackson), and 13 (8th Alex Meyer) seed along with an unseeded wrestler (4th Lelund Weatherspoon).

Does anyone know of a more busted bracket prior to 2010?

Note: My finishes are mid-point of the range where they got knocked out if not an AA.

can't open wrestlingstats right now for some reason but the bracket when Mark Branch won 167 his freshman year was a busted pretty good. I think he and other finalist were both unseeded (only seeded to 12 then?) and pretty sure either the 1 or 2 seed DNP. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by 11986
edit

[Wrestleknownothing]

7 minutes ago, 11986 said:

can't open wrestlingstats right now for some reason but the bracket when Mark Branch won 167 his freshman year was a busted pretty good. I think he and other finalist were both unseeded (only seeded to 12 then?) and pretty sure either the 1 or 2 seed DNP. 

1994

 

[fishbane]

[fishbane]

[Wrestleknownothing]

Now for the Most Chalk (Chalkiest?) I could find

2013 at 133

Honorable Mention to 2011 at 174

Edited February 17, 2023 by Wrestleknownothing

[wrestlingphish]

29 minutes ago, fishbane said:

This bracket kicks ass not just because of the bustedness of it but the schools involved as well.

[fishbane]

unseeded finalists

[Wrestleknownothing]

4 minutes ago, wrestlingphish said:

This bracket kicks ass not just because of the bustedness of it but the schools involved as well.

I hadn't noticed that, but you are spot on.

[11986]

52 minutes ago, fishbane said:

Henry Milligan went on to be a decent amateur boxer, made Olympic trials. Also think he played multiple sports at Princeton. 

[Warm Up Champ]

2000 184:  Cael Sanderson, Brandon Eggum, Daniel Cormier, Andy Hrovat, Rob Rohn, Vertus Jones, Doug Lee, Cash Edwards.

2001 184: Cael Sanderson, Damion Hahn, Daniel Cormier, Rob Rohn, Josh Lambrecht, Andy Hrovat, Doug Lee, Cash Edwards, Viktor Sveda,.

[fishbane]

54 minutes ago, Warm Up Champ said:

2000 184:  Cael Sanderson, Brandon Eggum, Daniel Cormier, Andy Hrovat, Rob Rohn, Vertus Jones, Doug Lee, Cash Edwards.

2001 184: Cael Sanderson, Damion Hahn, Daniel Cormier, Rob Rohn, Josh Lambrecht, Andy Hrovat, Doug Lee, Cash Edwards, Viktor Sveda,.

Isn't the choice between these two obvious?  The only difference is Eggum and Jones in 2000 vs Hahn and Lambrecht in 2001.  I'd say Hahn and Lambrecht>Eggum and Jones.  Nate Patrick was also in both brackets (2 seed in 2001) and Scott Justus who would be the 1 seed the following year in a bracket that is better for the busted discussion.

[CHROMEBIRD]

How does that 125 bracket compare to the year Metcalf won it with Schlatter, Burroughs, Caldwell, O'Connor, Churella forget who else but I remember it being pretty loaded?

[fishbane]

38 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

How does that 125 bracket compare to the year Metcalf won it with Schlatter, Burroughs, Caldwell, O'Connor, Churella forget who else but I remember it being pretty loaded?

That bracket (149, 2008) gets all the attention.  I always thought 157 from 2009 was as good or better and most of the hype surrounding 149 was from ultimately how they developed later on and was not there before the bracket was wrestled like 133 would have been in 2020.

That's 8 NCAA titles and an additional 5 finals appearances.  Every wrestler at least wrestled in an NCAA final and 6/8 won it.  That's mostly retrospective though.  The only guy with a title at this point was Schlatter and the only one with a finals appearance was Churella who lost in the 2007 final.  Ryan Lang, 2nd at 141 in 2007, was in this bracket and DNPed as well as Don Fisch (5th 141 2007).  Jake Patacsil, Adam Hall, and Bryce Saddoris were also in the bracket and went on to AA later in their careers.

This bracket only features three wrestlers that would ultimately win 4 NCAA titles and 4 other finals appearances.  The difference is that most of that had happened before this bracket was wrestled.  Gillespie had won a title at 149 in 2007 and many of those guys from 149 in 2008 were in that and Poeta and Lee were the returning finalists from  the previous year.  Also J.P. O'Connor placed in the 2008 149lb bracket moved up and DNP.  Cyler Sanderson was a returning AA (7th 157) who DNPed. Finally Adam Hall, Jason Welch and Justin Gaethje were in the bracket too.

Edited February 17, 2023 by fishbane

[ionel]

No one seeded

seems underrated to me, but the OW perhaps overrated.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[fishbane]

10 minutes ago, ionel said:

No one seeded

 

seems underrated to me, but the OW perhaps overrated.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This has been a pretty unpredictable year.  Still I suspect this will shake themselves out before NCAAs and we won't seen any unseeded finalists in Tulsa.

[Warm Up Champ]

1 hour ago, fishbane said:

Isn't the choice between these two obvious?  The only difference is Eggum and Jones in 2000 vs Hahn and Lambrecht in 2001.  I'd say Hahn and Lambrecht>Eggum and Jones.  Nate Patrick was also in both brackets (2 seed in 2001) and Scott Justus who would be the 1 seed the following year in a bracket that is better for the busted discussion.

Was looking more at underrated, not busted.  I know that Cael is in here, but there is some great depth overall.  Multiple Olympians, and a world silver medalist.  

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Here's a screenshot from an interview of 3x All American Jordan Blanton. These are the folks who were in his brackets. There were some battles between these guys:

[jackwebster]

9 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Here's a screenshot from an interview of 3x All American Jordan Blanton. These are the folks who were in his brackets. There were some battles between these guys:

Parity for sure. But save for Ruth and the Stanford kid, we got death by a thousand yawns. Brutal.

Edited February 18, 2023 by jackwebster

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

54 minutes ago, jackwebster said:

Parity for sure. But save for Ruth and the Stanford kid, we got death by a thousand yawns. Brutal.

Parity can be exciting. Even if the score is 1-1 in the third period, and it kinda sucked getting to that point, the drama has built up.

Of course, the drama is mostly felt by fans of those wrestlers. Everybody else is ugh, and I get that.

On another subject, I didn't provide actual brackets, and I feel bad about that, but not bad enough to tackle my laziness. Cheers!

[jackwebster]

37 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Of course, the drama is mostly felt.

Oh, make no mistake: I was there for every second cheering on Perry's stalling, flinching every time Evans stacked him up in that water fall position, and swearing to everyone who'd listen, "No way he was flat!"

Edited February 18, 2023 by jackwebster