Daily Trivia (NCAA Tournament Edition)

[jdalu75]

On 2/16/2024 at 9:30 AM, jdalu75 said:

Who are the only two wrestlers to win an NCAA title while losing a match at that year's tournament?

Wrestleknownothing messaged the correct answer to me yesterday but suggested not posting the answer until today.  So ---

Ted Anderson of Central Oklahoma in 1936 and George Lewis of Waynesburg in 1948. 

It can't be done under current rules, so the answers come from tournaments that didn't use those rules.  The 1936 and 1948 tournaments used the Olympic bad-mark system and also Olympic weight classes and rules.  Losing a bout earned 2 or 3 bad marks; winning a decision earned 1; winning by fall, forfeit, or default earned none.  Things we'd consider weird happened; for instance, in 1936 Lehigh's Dick Bishop lost a decision but his opponent was the one eliminated -- the guy hit his bad mark limit (5), Bishop advanced and finished 4th.

In 1936 Rudy Ashman (Lehigh) beat Anderson in the first round at 123 pounds but was injured and couldn't continue.  Anderson won the rest of his bouts and won the title. 

1948 was more complicated. Paul McDaniel (Oklahoma State) came into Round 5 at 125 pounds with 1 bad mark; Rometo Macias had 4, Gene McDonald had 2, Lewis had 1.  Five bad marks eliminated a wrestler; these were the last four guys alive.  Lewis had beaten Macias and McDonald already.  So Macias pinned McDonald, who was eliminated; McDaniel beat Lewis by decision.  Now Macias had 4 bad marks, McDaniel 2, Lewis 4.  Macias and McDaniel had not yet wrestled, so in Round 6 Macias decisioned McDaniel, leaving both wrestlers with 5 bad marks.  There was no Round 7.  Lewis, with 4 bad marks, was the champion.  McDaniel, having lost to Macias, was 3rd.

One odd note: none of these guys wound up wrestling in the 1948 Olympics.  That honor went to Iowa State Teacher College's Gerry Leeman, who'd been eliminated in the 4th round.  Leeman took silver at London (so .... no better than 5th at NCAAs, 2nd in the World).

[MNRodent]

I have a trivia question that I hope someone can help me clarify.  Although I was at this NCAA tournament, I don't recall seeing the event in question, I just remember people talking about it afterwards.

What 2 former D1 college teammates (both All-Americans at some point) wrestled each other 3 times in the same D1 NCAA tournament?

[gimpeltf]

4 hours ago, MNRodent said:

I have a trivia question that I hope someone can help me clarify.  Although I was at this NCAA tournament, I don't recall seeing the event in question, I just remember people talking about it afterwards.

What 2 former D1 college teammates (both All-Americans at some point) wrestled each other 3 times in the same D1 NCAA tournament?

I believe I can explain why- not sure I could come up with names/year.

I was working the event- I believe this was in the 90s.  At the time we had a prescribed formula for assigning anklet colors. It was largely based on uniform/school colors. I think we did a 1-5 where 1 was red going out to 5 being green. Then we'd compare the colors and the more red would wear red. If it was tied the top wrestler got red. 

I'm pretty sure the one school was Nebraska. The other might have been Minn or Wisc. Reddish but still a 1. The formula assigned Nebraska green because it was bottom on the bracket. There was confusion about a stall call and they couldn't resolve it so they rewrestled. 

[MNRodent]

9 hours ago, gimpeltf said:

I believe I can explain why- not sure I could come up with names/year.

I was working the event- I believe this was in the 90s.  At the time we had a prescribed formula for assigning anklet colors. It was largely based on uniform/school colors. I think we did a 1-5 where 1 was red going out to 5 being green. Then we'd compare the colors and the more red would wear red. If it was tied the top wrestler got red. 

I'm pretty sure the one school was Nebraska. The other might have been Minn or Wisc. Reddish but still a 1. The formula assigned Nebraska green because it was bottom on the bracket. There was confusion about a stall call and they couldn't resolve it so they rewrestled. 

Thank you, that is the event I was thinking of. I couldn't think of the technicality that caused them to re-wrestle, but I believe you got it.

Does anyone have a guess at the two wrestlers that wrestled 3 times at the same NCAA tournament? They were teammates the year before and they were both D1 All-Americans (just not both that year).

 

 

[cowcards]

Which wrestler had 10 years, without military service, between national tournament appearances?

[gimpeltf]

13 minutes ago, cowcards said:

Which wrestler had 10 years, without military service, between national tournament appearances?

[bnwtwg]

3 hours ago, cowcards said:

Which wrestler had 10 years, without military service, between national tournament appearances?

Stevan Micic

[cowcards]

I'll give you a clue:

He was an NAIA runner-up before his break and an NCAA runner-up the year he came back. 

 

[cowcards]

Al Blanshan of Minnesota-Mankato: D1 Runner up in 1959 and came back 10 years later to be a D2 runner-up and D1 qualifier in 1969. NAIA national Champ and runner-up as well.

[cowcards]

We all know about the Finesilver brothers from Duke. 4 brothers all qualifying for the national tournament for the same school. Did you know that's not the first time 4 brothers have wrestled AND qualified for the national tournament for the same school.

There was actually a set of 6 brothers to do it!!

Who were the brothers and what team?

[Jason Bryant]

Al Blanshan of Minnesota-Mankato: D1 Runner up in 1959 and came back 10 years later to be a D2 runner-up and D1 qualifier in 1969. NAIA national Champ and runner-up as well.

Interviewed Al last year for Rummy Macias’ 100th birthday. Interesting guy.

[MNRodent]

On 2/17/2024 at 5:06 PM, MNRodent said:

I have a trivia question that I hope someone can help me clarify.  Although I was at this NCAA tournament, I don't recall seeing the event in question, I just remember people talking about it afterwards.

What 2 former D1 college teammates (both All-Americans at some point) wrestled each other 3 times in the same D1 NCAA tournament?

The answer to this is Steve Baer, Nebraska and Tim Harris, Minnesota.  It occurred in the 126 bracket of the 1995 NCAA D1 championships. They wrestled on the winner's side, but this had to be re-wrestled on a technicality, and they met again in the 5th/6th match.  They were teammates at Minnesota the year before.

 

[cowcards]

44 minutes ago, Jason Bryant said:

Interviewed Al last year for Rummy Macias’ 100th birthday. Interesting guy.

Did he mention why he took the time off? I just read a few little snippets about him coming back. I can't remember what he was doing in the meantime. 

[cowcards]

10 minutes ago, MNRodent said:

The answer to this is Steve Baer, Nebraska and Tim Harris, Minnesota.  It occurred in the 126 bracket of the 1995 NCAA D1 championships. They wrestled on the winner's side, but this had to be re-wrestled on a technicality, and they met again in the 5th/6th match.  They were teammates at Minnesota the year before.

 

Do you remember the situation that caused it? I believe I read that Baer was incorrectly awarded an extra point that sent it to overtime where he pinned Harris. So they re-wrestled and Baer pinned him again. Had the error not occurred Harris would've advanced.

Do I have that correct?

[Jason Bryant]

32 minutes ago, cowcards said:

Did he mention why he took the time off? I just read a few little snippets about him coming back. I can't remember what he was doing in the meantime. 

I thought it was military service, I'll have to check again. 

BTW, these questions are great. Even though I have tons of the data at my disposal, some of these questions don't jump out at me and when you post something that I have to look up, it often leads me down a different rabbit hole. Every educational, not just for me, but for everyone. 

It's important that we share our "pre-internet" history of the sport, because there's a lot of great stories and situations that unfolded in those times. 

Edited February 23 by Jason Bryant

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, cowcards said:

We all know about the Finesilver brothers from Duke. 4 brothers all qualifying for the national tournament for the same school. Did you know that's not the first time 4 brothers have wrestled AND qualified for the national tournament for the same school.

There was actually a set of 6 brothers to do it!!

Who were the brothers and what team?

I love this one.

[PortaJohn]

1 hour ago, cowcards said:

We all know about the Finesilver brothers from Duke. 4 brothers all qualifying for the national tournament for the same school. Did you know that's not the first time 4 brothers have wrestled AND qualified for the national tournament for the same school.

There was actually a set of 6 brothers to do it!!

Who were the brothers and what team?

The Cuthbertson brothers? 

[MNRodent]

3 hours ago, cowcards said:

Do you remember the situation that caused it? I believe I read that Baer was incorrectly awarded an extra point that sent it to overtime where he pinned Harris. So they re-wrestled and Baer pinned him again. Had the error not occurred Harris would've advanced.

Do I have that correct?

I was at this tournament, but can't recall watching their first match.  Upthread a bit, Gimpeltf said it had to with confusion of who was red or green, resulting in uncorrectable scoring.  That seems to be what I remember people talking about at the time. 

[cowcards]

5 hours ago, PortaJohn said:

The Cuthbertson brothers? 

None of them qualified for nationals and they wrestled for multiple teams. I know of Scott, Chase, Michael, and Kyle. Is there more?

[cowcards]

22 hours ago, Jason Bryant said:

I thought it was military service, I'll have to check again. 

BTW, these questions are great. Even though I have tons of the data at my disposal, some of these questions don't jump out at me and when you post something that I have to look up, it often leads me down a different rabbit hole. Every educational, not just for me, but for everyone. 

It's important that we share our "pre-internet" history of the sport, because there's a lot of great stories and situations that unfolded in those times. 

I agree. There are so many awesome stories that have been lost to everyone. Hope I can bring a few back to life. 

I looked it up again and he worked in a canning company for a bit and then became a policeman. Figured he only had a semester or so to get a degree and decided to wrestle too with is last semester of eligibility.

[cowcards]

Now a clue - They all hail from the state of Idaho and wrestled for a program that no longer exists.

[11986]

13 minutes ago, cowcards said:

Now a clue - They all hail from the state of Idaho and wrestled for a program that no longer exists.

Hansen brothers BYU?

[cowcards]

3 hours ago, 11986 said:

Hansen brothers BYU?

You've got it! 

Can you name another set of (only) 4 brothers that wrestled at the national tournament for BYU?

[flyingcement]

2 hours ago, cowcards said:

You've got it! 

Can you name another set of (only) 4 brothers that wrestled at the national tournament for BYU?

Fehlbergs?

[cowcards]

Fehlbergs was correct. 

This is going to be a 2 answer question:

Back in the 20'-40's not wrestling in HS and being discovered during college intramural wrestling tournaments or because someone played football was decently common. However, as time has gone on that happens less and less. 

Name the last wrestler that didn't wrestle in HS but qualified for the national tournament?

AND

Name the 2x National Champ wrestler who was an all-state basketball player and only started wrestling in the military.