Wrestleknownothing

Nick Lee playing the classics.

One and the same. I just looked at his wrestlestat page. I did not realize he lost to Franek 4 times last year. Will Franek still be his personal kryptonite again this year?

While @BigRedFan reports that Ryan Crookham and Luke Stanich have been holed up in a cave gathering their strength for the coming battles that will decide the war, they remain the two brightest stars on the season. As mentioned in the projections thread, they have come from unranked to the #1 and #2 ranked at their respective weights. But who else is making moves? Below is the list of wrestlers who are 1.) currently ranked and 2.) have made the biggest jump in expected points scored at the NCAA tournament from the pre-season to now. Unfortunately, jumps occur in both directions. We see you, Cooper Flynn (was unranked, is #3) and Vince Zerban (was #13, is #2). In Chris Foca's defense he is the only wrestler listed who changed weights in the rankings (was #2 at 174, is #8 at 184).

“These guys are in great shape and just their core temperature is, on average, lower than the general population. A small spike in their temperature is different than somebody who’s just coming in off the street" Is that a thing? If so, I was not aware of it.

I am a proponent of that, too. Pay your debts. But payment sometimes comes in different forms. Sometimes payment is cash, sometimes it is goods, sometimes it is services. We also live in a country where some necessary jobs are hard to fill. So incentives are offered to fill those jobs. Some of the loan forgiveness is just that, an incentive to get someone to do something they would not have otherwise done. If you agree to take this undesirable job we will pay you in two ways: cash, but not a lot of it, and loan forgiveness. But to get that loan forgiveness, you must first do this thing that you do not want to do, but that serves a public good. For this reason, I have not objected to many of the loan forgiveness programs. For the same reason, I am diametrically opposed to the original Biden plan to blanket forgive loans. That way lies madness.

I pointed this out last week, but it is worth reiterating. The Lehigh Mountain Hawks have been on a roll this season. Based on pre-season rankings, Lehigh was expected to score 19 points at the NCAA tournament, good for 27th, with the largest share coming from Connor McGonagle at 133 as the #8 ranked wrestler in the weight. My how things have changed. McGonagle last wrestled a month and a half ago at the David Lehman Open. And Ryan Crookham (or as it was spelled before his family moved from the old country, Crooham), has taken 133 by the throat to sit atop the rankings. Joining Crookham in storming the rankings are: Luke Stanich, who went from unranked in the pre-season to #2 at 125 (I know, everyone thinks their guy is #2 at 125), Michael Beard, who went from #10 in the pre-season to #3 at 197, Nathan Taylor, who went from #19 in the pre-season to #8 at 285. On the back of these impressive performances this season, the Mountain Hawks now project as a top 10 team with 64.5 points. And with the spread between 4 and 11 so tight this year, I would not be surprised to see them standing on the podium completely pissed off that this is the year the NCAA decided to cheap out on trophies. I mean, with $1.3 billion in revenue in 2023 and $565 million in assets, I understand the NCAA's need to tighten the belt on those fourth place trophies. Have you seen trophy inflation this year? Now can we talk about Missouri? Same graph, different highlight. And the race for the title got "tighter".

And kudos to you for starting a great topic and drawing the information out.

Great color. Thanks for sharing this. I think I speak for everyone when I say we appreciate your historical context and extensive knowledge.

Betting against a meme stock is not for the faint of heart.

That is all true for both parties. Biden is absolutely responding at this time because of an impending election. Republicans are absolutely blocking Biden from giving the people what they want because of an impending election. Games people play.

Good question. I am not aware of anyone doing it. Are there any who have cut and made the team?

I understand your concerns. And I share some of them. Though not as extremely as you. My argument is more mathematical. If I vote for a candidate that does not have a chance to win, I am actually making it easier for the candidate I do not want to win. So in that way a vote for a certain loser is really a partial vote (i.e. timid vote) for the candidate I do not want to win. When all you are faced with is bad choices, you will make a bad choice. I am just trying to avoid a worse choice.

It is true. Using today's price the deal is worth about $3.3 billion to Trump. This deal looks highly likely to go through, too. As a SPAC investor, you put in $10 per share then look for a company to buy. Before the merger is complete they have the option to get their $10 back, plus interest. So if the SPAC is trading at $10ish or less, it is a pretty good sign they will ask for their money back rather than go through with the merger. But DWAC is trading around $43, so that is a pretty good sign the investors will want to go through with the merger. They obviously think Truth Social is worth more than $10 per share. Is one one to look at it. Another way to look at it is anyone who owns the SPAC is a Trump fan and is not exactly doing cash flow analysis to come up with what they think a merger between DWAC and Truth Social should be worth. They just do not care. They just want a piece of Trump. And now they can get it. What would they pay for that? Apparently $43.

How is voting for Green, Libertarian, Socialist, Unified, etc. a sane position? That is a timid vote for the one guy I said I would not vote for.

Amen, brother.

Ironic that the guy doing all the whining thinks others need to toughen up.

Wait. The government banned you? I thought you said it was the owner of this board.

Since they are not, no.

You may want to brush up on the difference between borrowers and lenders.

You are mixing up your seasons a bit. Dieringer edged out Retherford in 2016. Nolf was fourth in Hodge voting behind Retherford, Cox, and Snyder in 2017. He was injured in 2018 and was not listed as a Hodge finalist (probably due to the injury loss).

speak for yourself.

BTW, SocraTease does make an excellent point about Flo's Hodge watch list. It is absurd that Hendrickson is not on the list. But is it? Record is a factor and officially Hendrickson is undefeated. But as Rader points out in his article, since the Hodge is now based on a broad vote, voters have a tendency to not ignore the results of the All-Star Classic. So, strike one. That said, based on just D1 official matches he would probably be top of their list. He is currently fourth on Wrestlestat's list (which uses completely different criteria). But, all Hendrickson needs to do, apparently, is win a title to become a Hodge finalist. Last year all 10 titlists were finalists, even though three of them had a loss (Diakomihalis, Arujau, Brooks) and one of them had two losses (O'Toole).

Your complaint is with PIAA, not Flo. PIAA sold the rights. They did not have to, they chose to.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like more often than used to be the case, we are voting against a candidate rather than voting for a candidate. I know that has been the case for me in the past several presidential elections. But I am of the opposite view. I will hold my nose and vote for Biden because I cannot, in good conscience, vote for Trump.