boconnell

What about his great grandfather? Were any of his great aunts big ladies?

Who acted like Iowa and OSU have the same level of development? I said it was both the athlete and the coach. Then I said Cael is great at picking the right athletes and developing them. I have no idea how you could read my post and reach the conclusion that I was saying PSU isn't the best at development. But it's very easy to read your original post and reach the conclusion that you are ignoring the wrestlers themselves as a factor. Mostly it's easy because you didn't mention them as relevant and declared that Basset's, Blaze's, and Forest's outcomes were set according to the schools they went to.

Yep. Get the right kids and then coach them up. Both are elements of coaching and Cael is great at both. But you can't ignore the athletes and pretend that it's all about coaching them up. I doubt Bassett's outcomes (or Forest's or Blaze's) change 5% based on where they go to school. These kids have already reached a high NCAA level while training primarily in HS rooms. I am quite sure they could succeed in most college rooms.

It's hilarious that you basically make it all about the coaches. Like Basset won't have a say in whether he is used in a way that wears him out. Like Forrest's or Blaze's improvement won't be more about internal drive than anything else. The way you describe it, these kids are just lumps of clay to be molded entirely by the 3 head coaches. The truth is many kids fail and succeed everywhere. Some wear out at Iowa and others don't. Many flourish at PSU and a few don't. Most of it is up to the young men themselves.

Lockett

What an absurd thing to say about a kid who is good at social media.

Isn't it Dake at 4 weight classes and 6 other guys?

Wait. Are we saying a Hollywood movie wasn't accurate to real life?

Spates is a very good announcer. He's probably not wrong here either. The level of young guys today is nuts. You're not wrong about dropping those guys in this environment and how good they'd be, but the level of wrestling is not comparable over the 50 year gap.

Then that's worse.

Is this a real question? Obviously it's worse to shove a guy than it is to do finger guns to the team that does finger guns.

I'd comfortably give 2:1 odds to the field. I think it's easily twice as likely that Steveson wins than anyone else does.

Then say that Kerk has improved so much in two years that he could make it interesting. Don't claim that the same PSU coaching staff that was there last time will be the difference.

I agree. If Kerk had PSU's staff for their last matchup he would have won.

Those people aren't making predictions. They are sharing lightly held hopes disguised as predictions.