Flo's Quarter-Century Team (Recency bias?)

[Gus]

125- Lee

133- Vito

141- Stieber

149- Zain

157- Dake

165- JB

174- Zahid

184- Brooks

197- Cael

285- Gable

[Wrestle620]

In some of these who gets in the top 4 is more interesting than who's # 1. 

At 125 I think Flo probably got the top 4 right, but there's a case to be made for some other guys. For me, Jesse Delgado is right on that bubble. Not as fun to watch as McDonough but he was an absolute nightmare to try to finish on, beat some real hammers (Nahshon, Megaludis, Cory Clark), and like McD had an injury-plagued senior year.

[BruceyB]

52 minutes ago, Gus said:

174- Zahid

I just went back and looked. I did not realize that Zahid was a controversial headgear pull away from being a likely 3x NCAA champion that would have been denied a chance to win his 4th. Great call.

[scourge165]

11 hours ago, Winners Circle said:

• I think Ruth at his peak beats 184 version of Brooks' peak. Brooks was better at 197. If you remember, Marcus Coleman beat a 184 Brooks. 
• 141 I'm not sure Zain could go here. Yes, he beat Stieber, but he only wrestled one NCAA tournament here and finished 5th. 
• I think a junior year, 157, JB beats Nolf. But I won't fight you on it. 
• I won't argue with you about Starocci over Askren. I could see the argument for both (Askren 2 Hodges vs Starr 4 titles).
• Also, not to nitpick, but you reference a couple times that you're prioritizing college careers, which I did as well. But then you also mentioned that Vito got the nod from you in part because he won a WT. 

Yeah, Coleman beat Brooks. Letts beat Ruth. Coleman got...pretty lucky and scored 5 and had to hang on for the win. 
I don't think that swings it much. Letts took a 7th, Coleman took a 5th and a 7th. 

I think Ruth was great. He made it look so easy...I just think Starocci and Brooks stayed in such great position, they VERY rarely got scored on. 

141-Yeah, that's fair. I was just trying to get the best 10 on the team. Could have put Dake there, but...neither should be at 141. It's gotta be Yianni, Stieber or Ware and... I don't know how to pick between Yianni and Stieber. I'll go with...Yianni and that's just because I think he's a tougher matchup for Stieber, but it's really 1 and 1A. 

Nolf-JB would have been interesting, but I think JB was just starting his ascent then. He went to Junior World's that year and took a 10th. He was still becoming...Jordan Burroughs. 

Askren-Starr, I've always said that I don't think you should rank a guy based purely on titles won...I don't think there's much of a gap here. I guess I just thought of those two and then how I thought that match would go...which would be Starocci staying in good position and IMO, winning a 1 TD match. But I could be wrong. I'd have thought Mark Hall would end up here at one point, but then he couldn't beat Valencia. 

 

13 hours ago, Winners Circle said:

Also, not to nitpick, but you reference a couple times that you're prioritizing college careers, which I did as well. But then you also mentioned that Vito got the nod from you in part because he won a WT. 

Well...I said I'm prioritizing their College careers and then said I'm only going off College. 

Meaning, I'm taking a guy who won a couple titles over a guy like...Fix who took a World Silver AND that I'm limiting it to what they did during those 4 years(or 5 years, or 6) but I'm not including Burroughs illustrious career post-College and I'm putting more weight on how awesome Vito looked vs RBY and Fix vs the WC, but I'm not ignoring the WC... or how Brooks beat a guy like Amine who took a Bronze. 

 

The guy who gets screwed the most on mine is Snyder(but he did pay for it...ba‑dum‑tss).

No, cheap shot, but he's a 2/1/1/1 and he's one of the 4-5 best College Wrestlers, but he Wrestled at a Weight class with two absolute studs in Stevenson and Cael. 

The other guy is Lee, but I've always thought Abas was underappreciated(this thread is telling me otherwise). Just so incredibly slick. 

[Gus]

9 hours ago, BruceyB said:

I just went back and looked. I did not realize that Zahid was a controversial headgear pull away from being a likely 3x NCAA champion that would have been denied a chance to win his 4th. Great call.

Zahid at his best could go toe to toe with anyone. Those 174 weight classes were tough with Zahid, Mark Hall, Myles Amine, Bo Jordan, Daniel Lewis, Jordan Kutler, David McFadden, Taylor Lujan, etc.. Before getting suspended in 2020 Zahid was on a tear as well at 184.

[fishbane]

Today on FRL Pyles briefly revisited 125/Spencer Lee and he said something like they should only evaluate Lee's "4 year window" which he regarded at 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.  He reasoned Lee was as good as it gets during that time and it was before the injury redshirt.  

Often the current wrestlers will have extra years that need to be adjusted in some way when comparing past wrestlers who were largely on the same 4 in 5 track but surprisingly that isn't really necessary with Abas.  Abas did the old school double redshirt using an Olympic year.  After graduating high school, Abas's NCAA career went Redshirt-4-1-Olympic Redshirt-1-1 and Lee was 1-1-COVID-1-Redshirt-6.  So they were both in their 6th year out of high school at their last NCAAs.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

11 minutes ago, fishbane said:

Today on FRL Pyles briefly revisited 125/Spencer Lee and he said something like they should only evaluate Lee's "4 year window" which he regarded at 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.  He reasoned Lee was as good as it gets during that time and it was before the injury redshirt.  

Often the current wrestlers will have extra years that need to be adjusted in some way when comparing past wrestlers who were largely on the same 4 in 5 track but surprisingly that isn't really necessary with Abas.  Abas did the old school double redshirt using an Olympic year.  After graduating high school, Abas's NCAA career went Redshirt-4-1-Olympic Redshirt-1-1 and Lee was 1-1-COVID-1-Redshirt-6.  So they were both in their 6th year out of high school at their last NCAAs.

But Lee was forced to miss an NCAA tournament (in which he wrestled the entire season and was healthy and in prime shape) whereas Abas chose to miss both of his seasons.  Also, Lee was competing in a field with a lot of other sixth years,  Abas was not.

[fishbane]

7 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

But Lee was forced to miss an NCAA tournament (in which he wrestled the entire season and was healthy and in prime shape) whereas Abas chose to miss both of his seasons.  Also, Lee was competing in a field with a lot of other sixth years,  Abas was not.

This is a bit of a mischaracterization of 2020.  If I recall Lee had torn an ACL in the 2019 NCAA final with Jack Mueller, so he would have been wrestling with 1 ACL.  He also medically defaulted out of Midlands where he would have faced Pat Glory.  Glory finished the season undefeated and was the 2 seed that year.  Which brings up the point that Lee was largely untested that year.  The only wrestler he faced that season that AAed in 2018,2019, 2021, or 2022 was Nick Piccininni.  This was in part because of all the guys that sat out with an Olympic redshirt (Suriano, Arujau) like Abas did in 2000, but even relative to the field that year he had a weak schedule.  His only opponents that where seeded in the top 10 at NCAAs were Piccininni and Devin Schroder. 

This brings to mind Pyles's earlier point that the Big Ten schedule would be tougher than what Abas faced wrestling for Fresno State.  The Big Ten was tough at 125 Lee's first two years (Lizak, Rivera, Suriano, and Tomasello), but 2020, 2021, and 2023 it was pretty weak.  The top guys were Ramos, McKee, Barnett, DeAugustino, Cronin, Foley, and Schroder.  The extra years with the older guys did not add much difficulty compared with the first two.  I think Abas would have been untroubled by such a schedule.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 hours ago, fishbane said:

This is a bit of a mischaracterization of 2020.  If I recall Lee had torn an ACL in the 2019 NCAA final with Jack Mueller, so he would have been wrestling with 1 ACL.  He also medically defaulted out of Midlands where he would have faced Pat Glory.  Glory finished the season undefeated and was the 2 seed that year.  Which brings up the point that Lee was largely untested that year.  The only wrestler he faced that season that AAed in 2018,2019, 2021, or 2022 was Nick Piccininni.  This was in part because of all the guys that sat out with an Olympic redshirt (Suriano, Arujau) like Abas did in 2000, but even relative to the field that year he had a weak schedule.  His only opponents that where seeded in the top 10 at NCAAs were Piccininni and Devin Schroder. 

This brings to mind Pyles's earlier point that the Big Ten schedule would be tougher than what Abas faced wrestling for Fresno State.  The Big Ten was tough at 125 Lee's first two years (Lizak, Rivera, Suriano, and Tomasello), but 2020, 2021, and 2023 it was pretty weak.  The top guys were Ramos, McKee, Barnett, DeAugustino, Cronin, Foley, and Schroder.  The extra years with the older guys did not add much difficulty compared with the first two.  I think Abas would have been untroubled by such a schedule.

That's a lot of writing to MISCHARACTERIZE everything.  Was 2020 nationals cancelled or not?  Did Lee ever lose to Pat Glory? Did Lee tech the fearsome Vito in freestyle during that 2019-2020 season?  Did Lee lose twice at NCAA during his second season (like Abas) or ever? (No)

And if Lee places at Worlds in September, the argument is over.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

I think that some of us have some "primacy effect" to counterbalance the recency bias.

[Husker_Du]

i can't, for the life of me, understand how some of you are putting Gable over Snyder.

are y'all doing this based simply on your eyeballs? 

[nhs67]

11 minutes ago, Husker_Du said:

i can't, for the life of me, understand how some of you are putting Gable over Snyder.

are y'all doing this based simply on your eyeballs? 

I think it's a match, either way.

How do you think the match goes?  Best Collegiate Folkstyle HWT version of each?

[OMW]

2 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

That's a lot of writing to MISCHARACTERIZE everything.  Was 2020 nationals cancelled or not?  Did Lee ever lose to Pat Glory? Did Lee tech the fearsome Vito in freestyle during that 2019-2020 season?  Did Lee lose twice at NCAA during his second season (like Abas) or ever? (No)

And if Lee places at Worlds in September, the argument is over.

Technically, Lee was pinned in his 4th NCAAs and then defaulted 2 rounds to place 6th.

Typically a wrestler that places 6th has 3 losses in a tournament.

Abas placed 4th his freshman season with 2 losses (both to Juergens from, ironically, Iowa).

[Husker_Du]

57 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

I think it's a match, either way.

How do you think the match goes?  Best Collegiate Folkstyle HWT version of each?

i don't look at it that way (perhaps i'm not looking at it the way i should)

i'm looking at very simply 3 > 2

who would win at their peak...idk.

who would win now??  we might find out soon  

[BruceyB]

Everyone on team Abas is bringing up Lee's loss to Ramos is using one of the biggest upsets in NCAA wrestling history to explain why Lee wasn't better than Abas. The reason that this was one of the biggest upsets is because everybody believed that Lee was untouchable at this weight. Does losing one match change how great of a wrestle he is? No. That's why after healing up for a year, he went on to make the Olympic Finals.

Likewise, anyone knocking Abas for not winning as a freshman is ignoring the fact that winning as a freshman in that era was exponentially rarer than it is in today's NCAAs. 

There isn't a right or wrong answer here, and you can justify it either way. But people are really digging through the weeds to find reasons to deny how great either of these wrestlers are. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 hour ago, OMW said:

Technically, Lee was pinned in his 4th NCAAs and then defaulted 2 rounds to place 6th.

Typically a wrestler that places 6th has 3 losses in a tournament.

Abas placed 4th his freshman season with 2 losses (both to Juergens from, ironically, Iowa).

But, Lee only lost once...

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

32 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

Everyone on team Abas is bringing up Lee's loss to Ramos is using one of the biggest upsets in NCAA wrestling history to explain why Lee wasn't better than Abas. The reason that this was one of the biggest upsets is because everybody believed that Lee was untouchable at this weight. Does losing one match change how great of a wrestle he is? No. That's why after healing up for a year, he went on to make the Olympic Finals.

Likewise, anyone knocking Abas for not winning as a freshman is ignoring the fact that winning as a freshman in that era was exponentially rarer than it is in today's NCAAs. 

There isn't a right or wrong answer here, and you can justify it either way. But people are really digging through the weeds to find reasons to deny how great either of these wrestlers are. 

I have no major problem either, but this earlier post is the first time I saw someone say that Lee was underwhelming in 2019-2020.  He won the Hiodge AND the SULLIVAN! Yes, "very mid." Not to mention he demolished a strong field at the US Open, including a tech over Vito--- during the folkstyle season (wearing no knee brace).

[nhs67]

1 hour ago, Husker_Du said:

i don't look at it that way (perhaps i'm not looking at it the way i should)

i'm looking at very simply 3 > 2

who would win at their peak...idk.

who would win now??  we might find out soon  

Ah!  Well there it is.  They did say specifically that they set no criteria so whoever was dwelling on it could determine their own.

Edit: That said, I can't get the videos of Akgul absolutely toying with Snyder when he visited tOSU to train out of my head.  I think peak Steveson is better than that Akgul, particularly in Folkstyle.

Edited Thursday at 01:20 AM by nhs67

[Husker_Du]

i wouldn't use videos of practice to make an 'all time' assessment.

Gable lost his last match. his two ncaa losses were to 1-timers. 

[Jason Bryant]

Another angle:
Who was Lee’s worst in-season loss?
What about Abas?

There’s at least two instances where Lee lost before a final and didn’t wrestle back. Abas was only in one consolation bracket and wrestled it to completion.

[Mr. PeanutButter]

2 hours ago, Jason Bryant said:

Another angle:
Who was Lee’s worst in-season loss?
What about Abas?

There’s at least two instances where Lee lost before a final and didn’t wrestle back. Abas was only in one consolation bracket and wrestled it to completion.

What was the second instance? Other than NCAAs, I can only recall him defaulting out of Midlands (no loses) and the US Open the year he lost to Matt Ramos but he didn't lose officially there either 

[fishbane]

4 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I have no major problem either, but this earlier post is the first time I saw someone say that Lee was underwhelming in 2019-2020.  He won the Hiodge AND the SULLIVAN! Yes, "very mid." Not to mention he demolished a strong field at the US Open, including a tech over Vito--- during the folkstyle season (wearing no knee brace).

If you're referring to what I said, that wasn't it.   I disagreed with your assessment that that season Lee "wrestled the entire season and was healthy and in prime shape."  He wrestled with one ACL having torn the other one in the 2019 NCAA final.  He defaulted out of the Midlands choosing not to wrestle Pat Glory.  How is that healthier than 2019 where he wrestled the entire year save for part of one match with two ACLs.

My suspicion is that is that Lee wasn't healthier or better in his Hodge winning seasons (2019-2020 and 2020-2021) than the others, but that he wrestled an abbreviated schedule against much weaker competition.

[fishbane]

7 minutes ago, Mr. PeanutButter said:

What was the second instance? Other than NCAAs, I can only recall him defaulting out of Midlands (no loses) and the US Open the year he lost to Matt Ramos but he didn't lose officially there either 

He defaulted out of Midlands twice.  In 2020 he did it without losing.  He also did it his freshman year after losing to Ronnie Bresser.

[Jason Bryant]

He defaulted out of Midlands twice.  In 2020 he did it without losing.  He also did it his freshman year after losing to Ronnie Bresser.

I’m not taking any freestyle events into consideration here @Mr. PeanutButter - this was the instance I was referring to - it also points out the weakest L.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

6 hours ago, fishbane said:

If you're referring to what I said, that wasn't it.   I disagreed with your assessment that that season Lee "wrestled the entire season and was healthy and in prime shape."  He wrestled with one ACL having torn the other one in the 2019 NCAA final.  He defaulted out of the Midlands choosing not to wrestle Pat Glory.  How is that healthier than 2019 where he wrestled the entire year save for part of one match with two ACLs.

My suspicion is that is that Lee wasn't healthier or better in his Hodge winning seasons (2019-2020 and 2020-2021) than the others, but that he wrestled an abbreviated schedule against much weaker competition.

If I recall correctly, Lee was on a "pitch count" that season and really gearing up for the Olympics.  I think he wrestled day 1 and shut it down by design.  He is absolutely not afraid of Patrick Glory.

You are completely ignoring what Lee did to the US Open field, and especially Vito on December 21, 2019 while not wearing a knee brace.  Midlands was 8 days after outscoring his opponents 50-4 in a field that included NaTo, Nahshon, Cory Clark, Zain Richards Vito, Zach Sanders, Nick Suriano, and Darian Cruz.... but he was afraid of Patrick Glory?

Other Midlands facts that you misrepresented.

1.  He was not facing Glory in the semis.  He was facing Michael DeAugustino.

2.  Patrick Glory struggled mightily in his own semi, needing sudden victory to defeat the immortal Brock Hudkins.

Lee actually wrestled in in what was supposed to be an Olympic year; how many matches did Abas win at Midlands during his Olympic redshirt?

Misrepresentation and PRIMACY EFFECT.