Wrestleknownothing

Another interesting story is COVID. A lot of COVID going through the aquatics events....and it is fine. The latest to announce a positive test is 200 breaststroke silver medalist Zac Stubblety-Cook. ZSC is at least the eighth swimmer to test positive. And five Aussie women's water polo players tested positive. It is nice to see this being a marginal story at most.

Yowza. The Australian women's 4x200 free team had the fastest prelim time by almost 7 seconds. And they did it without the two fastest 200 free swimmers ever, who also happen to be the gold and silver medalists in these games. They could conceivably go 8 seconds faster in the final.

The talk about Boise State in the UVU thread got me thinking about the unseeded era* wrestlers who said to hell with the seeds, I got this. Who were the unseeded wrestlers to go undefeated at the NCAA Tournament? I am glad you asked. There were nine of these titans of optimism and over-achievement, starting with Oklahoma's David McGuire in 1967 and ending with Oklahoma State's Mark Branch in 1994. These wrestlers were all participating in 8 and 12 seed tournaments. The 16 seed era was very short, lasting only five years, and did not produce any unseeded champions. The "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges" (or Seeds) Banditos: But what of the teams? Which teams consistently produced from the unseeded portion of the bracket? We can answer the question at least two ways. Based on sheer volume, Oklahoma put a whopping 30 wrestlers on the podium without the benefit of a seed. Iowa State, Iowa and Oklahoma State round out our top four. But they are also four of the programs with the most wrestlers in the tournament (sorry PSU fans, but they just failed at putting US on the podium. I blame Cael Sanderson in spite of the obvious objection). The Seeds Don't Matter Schools: The other (better?) way to look at this is based on rate. How often did a school/coach get their guys over the psychological hump of being told you do not deserve a seed? The Han Solo "Never Tell Me The Odds" Schools: How fitting that a faith-based school sits atop the list. Maybe I should rename it The George Michael "You Gotta Have Faith" Schools? * I am defining the unseeded era as 1967 - 2018. In 1967 we had 8 seeded wrestlers for the first time and in 2018 we had unseeded wrestlers for the last time.

There were: 7 Deputy National Security Advisors. 6 Communications Directors 5 Deputy Chiefs of Staff (one position only) 4 Chiefs of Staff 3 Deputy White House Counsel 2 Assistant to the President and Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives Buts sadly no partridges and no pear trees.

And his VP turnover is 100%... and counting.

Can we get the men's college wrestlers to go to the women's swimmers for media training? Sarah Sjostrom and Katie Ledecky gave two of the best post race interviews ever.

The 800 is pretty close to a lock also. The only person to beat her in the last decade plus, Summer McIntosh, is not swimming it in this Olympics. The 4x200 is always competitive. It will be a dogfight with the Australians and Chinese. The Aussies are favored followed by the Chinese.

Katie Freakin Ledecky

gotta think there are some women's volleyball players give their success there too?

Venture Capital

While I hate quoting myself it is too late to edit, so this will have to do. I think I mis-stated something above. I think it is just the NCAA's portion of the back pay that will come from skimming off the basketball tournament. The school's portion will have to come from their budgets. But one other provision got me thinking. Part of the settlement is designed to effectively eliminate pay for play. Since the pay for play payments are by far the biggest portion of NIL as it is currently practices, that would have the practical effect of putting a cap on NIL payments which would free up NIL money that would have otherwise been used to pay millions for a QB. In that scenario it may be better for boosters to use their NIL money to help offset the extra $20+ million the schools need.

After a very quiet morning session (three sets of heats) we get a jam packed evening session with five finals and three semifinals. Finals Women's 111 free Men's 200 fly Women's 1500 free Men's 200 breast Men's 100 free Semis Women's 200 fly Men's 200 back Women's 200 breast While all of the races are important (it is swimming after all, the highest form of sport) the Women's 1500 is the biggest deal with Katie Ledecky the prohibitive favorite, though she swam a slowish prelim and was only 4 seconds better than the second best time.

The payments that @MPhillips and I posted above are for past offenses. Think of them as back pay to the athletes. Many athletes who are no longer even in college will be receiving these payments. That money is coming from skimming off of the Men's basketball tournament and will be paid out over the ten years following approval of the settlement. So when I said wrestlers may get $50 that is actually $5 per year for ten years. The ~$20+ million per year to pay then current athletes is a different story. This will need to come out of each school's budget. The schools can raise money from boosters, investors, or any number of sources, including increased tuition. PSU seems to be getting a jump start on this. I got an email last week inviting me to a webinar with Cael Sanderson to discuss the importance of fundraising.

You flatter me. Thank you for the kind words. But my money is still on Mesenbrink.

Wrestlers can expect to get about $50 on average, or less, from the $2.576 billion settlement.

All programs have a conference for wrestling

While it may seem ironic on its face, and fun to point out, it really is less so given that Biden had to get re-elected every few years, and did so in a variety of capacities/offices. Supreme Court justices never have to face even one election, which is a good thing, but should logically be combined with either a term limit, an age limit, or both.

Perhaps listen to the clip before posting. He does not say a word about term limits in it.

The liberal ethos as expressed by their cultural icon, Stephen Colbert, is that America didn't need to be great again because it never stopped being great. He even spoofed the idea with a book title "America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't".

A resounding yes. Youth will be served.

was that before or after this weekend?

Trump is going full populist while also undermining his own statements. Also known as Being Trump. Over the weekend in Nashville at a crypto conference he told the audience he would: Establish a strategic national bitcoin reserve (would require a new law) Never sell the bitcoin (then how is it a reserve?) Fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler (head of an independent agency not currently allowed to be fired by the President) Three years ago he told Fox News bitcoin was a scam and he was not a fan. Even allowing that people do change their minds his other quote has me, shall we say, skeptical. In his Nashville remarks, Trump said that he had heard from former Republican Presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy that the crypto community “involved” 175 million people. “So when they heard that, they said, ‘let’s be nice to them, at least until after the election.’” Once again Trump catches himself saying the quiet part out loud.