Wrestleknownothing

Oh, you want to say it. You need to say it. Maybe start by going someplace remote and just whisper it into a cup. We can build slowly. Maybe use it at a party, or with the cashier at Starbucks. But it is probably best to start by saying both words with a pause in between and then work on shortening the pause by an imperceptible increment each day. It will be like watching a baby grow, but in reverse, Kyle Dake style. You won't even notice the tiny difference, but one day you will wake up and the two baby words have grown up into one big word. Trust me, it is liberating. I have a five year plan where I expect to hear it on the PA at the 2028 NCAA tournament.

You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man.

I think so, yes. 22 of 30 who won 3 of 4 took the loss freshman year.

Shall I add Anthony Cassar as well?

Yep. 9 for 9. Pretty amazing.

Mea Culpa Forgive me data for I have sinned. There are sins of commission and sins of omission. I have committed the latter. My original data table was missing FOUR undefeated wrestlers (thank you @Jason Bryant for catching my error). You should never trust me again. Read everything critically. That said, trust me, this time I got it right (I hope). FYI, top quartile is now top 6.

In the early days of the tournament it was a very regional national tournament as travel costs were a big issue, so not everyone was there. They even took the profits from the tournament to rebate portions of the train fair for all of the participants (55 1/3 cents in 1929). As a result some brackets were tiny. We even have a third place finisher who went 0-2. All in all, it is really hard to make the case that all of the best are at a tournament when there are physical and financial impediments.

1964 Oklahoma had 6th seed Jerry Stanley (147) and unseeded Mike Sager (137) win titles. 1976 Wisconsin had 5th seed Jack Reinwand (126) and unseeded Pat Christenson (167) win titles.

They did via the win %.

A pox upon me. I used the wrong data set for my starting point. I started with the highest scoring wrestlers at the NCAA tourney. Gray was not among the top 222. I will fix this.

After reading a thread on HR about where Spencer Lee stands in the pantheon of four timers I decided to take a look at 100%ers instead. Since 1928 there have been 20 wrestlers who won all the titles they were eligible for (yes, I am including Spencer Lee and Yianni Dikomihalis because it is a 100%-slam dunk-guarantee they will win their fourth - you heard it here first). For these 20 I looked at a variety of metrics that I thought were important. For dominance I looked at bonus points per NCAA match (using today's scoring system), pinfall %, and career win %. But I also wanted to measure permanence. In the early days they wrestled very few matches. And I think this matters. It is easier to win 25 straight matches than it is to win 100 straight. So I included total NCAA matches wrestled, total career wins, and total career pinfalls. Some metrics favor the old and some favor the new. To adjust for this reasonable people might weigh these metrics differently than I did. Or include other metrics. Or exclude these metrics. There are choices. What I did was count the number of times a wrestler appears in the top quartile and sort by that count. To break ties I sorted by the average rank. I fully expect Iowa and Cornell fans to absolutely hate this post. Homework: How do you feel about where the two newest four timers stand? Would you include three for three wrestlers in your list? Why or why not?

youse got dat right

Feels very Midwest. I'll allow it.

There are times I have such a difficult time reading your sentences. I think the smudges at the end are too distracting. And one correction. I am more than occasionally misguided.

Is there room for a second bum?

Amen, brother.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

Pinfall has majesty. Exclamation points have no magic to move men's souls.

It was hard to watch. Up 2-0 and lose 2-5. Oof.

Last year @BerniePragle and I spent time inputting the results for 2010 - 2022 by year, weight, seed, and school. Unfortunately I did not include bonus points. Doing bonus points by seed is a LOT more work than just doing it the way we did. What we came up with was an expected advancement and placement points per seed rather than a score that reflects what they would get if they wrestled exactly to their seed. This recognizes the fact that seeds and results can be very different things. For example, from 2010 - 2022 a #1 seed's max points would be 20 plus bonus, but the actual average is 16.81 points. This reflects that the average finish for a #1 seed is between second and third. It looks like this: Now, if you are willing to do the same with bonus points by year, weight, seed, and school and share it would be greatly appreciated.

I worded this very poorly. A better way to say it is: if you rescored the 1997 tournament using today's scoring, Iowa would have 175.5 rather than 170.

5th place is worth 2 more points today than in 97, 6th place is worth 3 more points, giving PSU 5 more placement points given your assumptions. The only other difference is that Iowa had a single match termination which was worth 1 point. Today it would be worth 1.5 points.

No, I just took a look at the brackets on Wrestlingstats.

PSU scores 5 more placement points plus Van Ness' 1.5 to 2. The issue PSU would still have is they are not a big bonus point team. Iowa scored 34 bonus points in 97. PSU will get about half of that.

No such thing anymore.