boconnell

That doesn't stop the pin. Only the Air Force coach throwing a brick while his guy was pinning created the review. Glad the refs let common sense rule.

What about when a lower seed from Air Force sticks a higher seeded Michigan guy? How do strength of schedule and conference play in there?

Yep. He didn't even consider trying to initiate an attack in OT.

Wrestlestat has him at 1-5 against guys ranked in the top 45, so not sure there was any way to seed him higher.

Good job addressing a non-problem.

You are correct that in basketball they give you an unopposed opportunity to score. I am not sure that is the same as choice in wrestling, but it's close. In football they give yardage. That's not anything like choice in wrestling.

Plus Carr had both hands on O'Toole's near hand and kept him from covering the near leg while he was reaching for the far one. I thought that was obviously not a TD. But I agree Carr's 3rd period TD was a bit questionable. It certainly 'looked' and 'felt' like a TD, but not sure how it's supposed to be officiated. O'Toole was holding a leg but was laying on his hip while being folded in half with both legs trapped. Do we have a ref that can weigh in on that one.

I agree. I was rooting for Carr and both were stalling. Both also seemed unnecessary.

On both takedowns he was so patient. Never slow enough to get stalemated, but never fast enough to give O'Toole much to scramble with.

Refs at 157 and 165 were super talkative. I don't like it. Just call things correctly. I did think both refs got the calls right.

Good match. Seems like Carr can get to O'Toole's legs mostly when he wants to. Can't see a rematch going the other way.

Period 1 was Carr staying on the edge and O'Toole lightly chasing. O'Toole eventually got a deep shot but couldn't finish.

The challenge brick is mostly terrible. The refs rarely admit a mistake, the coaches throw it indiscriminately in the finals, and it kills the flow of the match.

That was an absurd call on review. I guess he just didn't want to admit he was wrong, because it was clear.

I believe it's been good for him. 197 is his obvious future, regardless of how strong the weight class is or isn't. He was only up last year because of Ferrari. He's wrestling where he wants to be and where he should be. This was not a team motivated move. They had Haas for 197 if Surber wanted to wrestle up. He obviously didn't.

I agree a leg cradle is being a douche. I think any decent coach should deal with a wrestler doing stuff like that. I don' think a ref should have anything to do with that situation.

It also seems you just answered the original question.

This is a disingenuous answer. You pretending that being a jerk is equal to unsportsmanlike conduct is playing make believe. Tons of stuff is being a jerk but doesn't come close to the level of unsportsmanlike conduct. The actual rule says unsportsmanlike conduct, includes, but is not limited to, such acts as failure to comply with the direction of the referee, pushing, shoving, swearing, taunting, intimidation, baiting an opponent, throwing ear guards or any other equipment, spitting, the clearing of the nasal passage in other than the proper receptacle, repeatedly dropping to one knee to break locked hands, indicating displeasure with a call, failure to keep shoulder straps up while on the mat and failure to comply with the end-of-match procedure. The closest application for a leg cradle (or for being a jerk in general) would be taunting or intimidation. But any ref that is trying to parse evil intent from appropriate actions is guilty of massive overreach. If the wrestler isn't actually doing something wrong, it is not the job of the ref to try to figure out if the right actions somehow have wrong intent.

Can you penalize being a jerk? Should you? Should we penalize all moves that you can't do against a state champ?

I do have a better comparison. I'd compare how he did in 2022 against 2022 heavies, not how he did in 2022 against 2023 heavies. Or I'd look into the future to see if any of his opponents this year are in the 2024 top 12 at 197.

He had 3 wins over the current top 12 heavyweights. He didn't have 3 wins over top 12 heavyweights. By your logic if any of the guys he beat this year get good next year at 197, that would matter.

I can do you one better. At the regional tournament we had a kid with a lead get slammed by a wrestler from the host school. The host school's trainer declared him fit to go. We ended up losing the match and immediately the trainer came over to look at him a 2nd time and said he had a concussion and had to withdraw from the rest of the tournament. He had no good reason for why he didn't have one 5 minutes earlier and was allowed to continue, but couldn't continue then.

The biggest problem is more mandatory stall calls have made refs ignore non-mandatory ones. 5 seconds on the legs is stalling, but 4.5 seconds 5 different times is 22.5 seconds of legal riding time. If a guy continuously drops for 4 seconds, call stalling. Not attempting a mat return is a stall, but letting him stand for 4 seconds and then pushing him out of bounds isn't stalling on top. The problem isn't the rules, the problem is refs refusing to call obvious stalling.

Coming into that match he had 2 MD, 1 Fall, and 9 DEC wins against wrestlestat top 50 opponents. So you are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong. He did turn the michigan kid.

He's very good. But he's not very good at getting bonus points. He can't turn guys from top, so if you don't get taken down to your back, he has a hard time racking up points.