Wrestleknownothing

Why so negative? I say yes, Iowa.

Could. See the exception to the exception.

Flo, Intermat, and WIN have each had 6 of their pre-season #1's take a lose and they have changed their #1 in 4 weights as a result. Wrestlestat has had 5 of their pre-season #1's take a lose (they are the only ones with Mason Parris as a pre-season #1) and they have changed their #1 in 2 weights. This could be Wrestlestat failing to react to new information, or it could be their failure to over-react to new information.

Is the Hodge Trophy a pinners award? Yes. Except when it is not. Oh, and not really. The first step is to become a Hodge finalist Here the obvious, but unstated criteria is to win an NCAA D1 title in the year you are to be chosen. Exception: Great stories for non-D1 wrestlers. Exception to the Exception: This exception no longer applies. Author's note: Can we just agree right this minute to ignore 2020? I already do not know what you are talking about. Now that you have won a title, do you need to be undefeated? Yes. Exception: No. The only D1 wrestler to win the Hodge with a loss was Brent Metcalf in 2008. That year there were six finalists, but among them only Keith Gavin (Pittsburgh) was undefeated. Unfortunately for Gavin he had only 5 pins to Metcalf’s 12 pins. From the WIN Magazine article, “Metcalf was selected over Gavin and other one-loss wrestlers primarily because of his number of pins, dominance in bonus-point wins and strength of schedule.” OK, so it is a pinners award? Clearly Exception: Clearly not…..in the 12 seasons prior to the current voting structure for the award where there were also multiple finalists mentioned (1995, 2001 – 2011), on three occasions (25%) the winner did not have more pins than at least one of the other finalists. And in the 11 years since the current voting structure was established, on four occasions (36%) the winner did not have the most pins among finalists culminating in 2022 when Gable Steveson won the Hodge with one single, solitary, lone, unitary, non-plural pin. Does that mean it is also a career achievement award? Not always. Exception: But kinda. Sorta. Sometimes. Back in the early days there was some sense of that. After losing in 1995, Les Gutches won as a senior in 1996 with only 8 pins. And in 2016 sophomore Zain Retherford lost a close one to senior Alex Dieringer (who had himself come in second the prior year to senior Logan Stieber, who had himself come in second the prior year to senior David Taylor) in spite of having more pins, more tech falls and a higher bonus percentage. Thems the breaks, kid. You’re young. You’ll have other chances (spoiler: he did). What does it all mean for this year’s crop? Al Davis summed it up best, “Just win, baby.” But what if I have already lost? What Al also said, but no one heard, was that after you win make sure to have a compelling story to sway voters, especially if you lost at any point in your last year. Something like “I became the fifth / sixth wrestler to win four titles in an illustrious career that included some notable events like wrestling through freshly torn ligaments, for example.” So Spencer is the leader in the clubhouse among likely finalists with his unbeaten senior year to date that includes seven pins. Does Roman Bravo-Young’s 3 pins, 3 titles, and 0 loses trump Yianni Diakomihalis’ 1 pin, 1 lose, and 4 titles? Got me. But I think I am going to lean 4 titles over 3. Maybe it depends on the NCAA finals display. That leaves O’Toole and Starocci. Sorry, young’uns but you picked a bad year to have a great year. Oh, and Parris. Yeah, not gonna happen, but we love ya none the less.

Careful. If you type his name three times, he appears.

Emphasis on originally

One. He beat Jared Franek (6 seed) in the blood round. Before that he beat Wyatt Sheets (31 seed) on the back side.

not in our hearts

Snyder did and he never won a Hodge.

I took a look at the Hodge history as I was thinking about Yianni Diakomihalis' chances of winning the award. Reading between the lines, it looks like there was a shift in the way the award is selected starting in 2012. From 1995 to around 2011 it looks like the award was selected by WIN staff and a panel of experts. During this time there was discussion of debates and how decisions were made. In 2012 it looks like there was a shift to balloting. And in 2013 fan voting was added to the process. Fact check me here historians. Based on that I think the 2012 - 2022 history is more instructive than the 1995 - 2011 history. During this period (11 years) there were 61 finalists. Only 9 finalists had 1 lose. But voters tend to frown on 1 lose finalists as none of the 1 lose finalist got more than 4 first place votes. This is in spite of the fact that the 1 lose finalists had an average bonus rate of 73%. On the other hand, none of the 1 lose finalists won 4 championships. So if Diakomihalis finishes with 1 lose he will need Lee to also finish with 1 lose AND for voters to break with precedence both with respect to loses and bonus rate. It could happen, but I am guessing it would be a very close vote.

Uetake wrestled when freshman were not eligible.

I finished this before I finished reading your paragraph.

After reading @nhs67's idea where he references win percentage it got me thinking about another way to approach it. Rather than focus on percentages, what if we focused on totals? And what if we created more scarcity? Things that are scarce are more valuable, even if sometimes the scarcity is artificial. To that end: 1. Only seed the top X. For argument's sake let's say the top 16. [Create more scarcity] 2. Have the same qualifying criteria as we currently do. Conference allocations, conference tournament results determining who gets the allocated spots, etc. [Allows for wrestlers facing extenuating circumstances during the season to still qualify at the end of the season] 3. But to be seeded you need a minimum number of wins (or perhaps matches). If you fail on the minimum then you still qualify, but you may not get a seed. [Replace percentage with sum creating incentives to wrestle more] 4. If not enough qualified wrestlers have the minimum to fill all 16 slots, then rank the remaining wrestlers by the number of wins (matches) and fill the remaining seeds from the list, top to bottom. For example, say only 13 qualified wrestlers have enough wins (matches), they earn the top 13 seeds. Seeds 14, 15, and 16 are then filled with the next three qualified wrestlers with the most wins (matches). Of course, a tie breaker would need to be determined. Here I might lean to a random draw. The benefit of making it random is that it is not game-able. The only way to avoid being subject to the randomness is to wrestle more matches. [Decrease gamification] The win (match) minimum could be wins (matches) in conference matches if you want to promote more dual participation. Or not, if you do not care if they come via Dresser-style last chance opens. Or maybe it is a two tier system where first dual wins (matches) count first and then tournament wins (matches) count next.

two. Dean Heil and Nick Lee. Both in 2018. Heil after he won twice, Lee before he won twice.

What if they vacationed abroad?

We already covered this. New Mexico and North Dakota would dominate. PA would slot in behind Belarus.

It might increase the MFFs. If you have a binary outcome (top 2 are seeded, the rest are not) then none of the consolation matches matter for seeding purposes and should all be skipped, not just the placement matches. The only wrestlers who will want to wrestle a consolation match are those who think they may be on the bubble. You would also see a lot of conference championship matches forfeited because the initial goal of gaining a seed has been achieved. Of course, most of the first place matches will still be wrestled to improve their seed.

He's on the Dake plan?

I wish I was heir to some of that sweet Western Union fortune.

No, but the Cobb Salad was named for my grandfather, Bob Cobb.

@SocraTease proved your point. I should know that I don't know.

OK, let's get the boring team race stuff out of the way first. Though there is a little gift in there from Wrestlestat to @jajensen09. Christmas comes late to Lincoln. For our bonus content this week I thought we would look at the late season surprises. Who are the highest ranked wrestlers that were unranked in the pre-season (using Intermat)? Take a bow Owen Trephan. The NC State heavyweight will be looking to throw his weight around come tournament time. After going 44-17 across his three freshman years (three? ahh, remember Covid? Those were good times), he is 17-3 this season with a 6 match winning streak. But the Keith "He Cannot Be Killed With Conventional Weapons" Richards Award has to go to Illinois' Michael Carr. The seventh year senior has battled back from a number of injuries to return to wrestling (though at 3-0, I am not sure how full that return is yet). You will notice there are no freshman on the list. I filtered them out as they are typically not seeded in the pre-season. So for our double bonus section let's look at the freshmen that have made the biggest jump since early in the season. While Caleb Henson and Levi Haines have the highest current rank at #8, it is Lachlan McNeil who is the Movingest and Shakingest among Movers and Shakers. Entering the rankings at #26, the Tar Heel has jump 14 spots to #12. No news here as it has been well covered, but I had a number reactions to the fact that PSU has three freshman on this list: Wow, that is some strong recruiting. That is also some damn fine coaching. This does not portend well for wrestling fans suffering under the hegemony of Penn State. This may be a good test of the "PSU outperforms at the NCAA's" phenomena. With this many freshmen this highly ranked can they keep the outperformance in tact?

FIFY

How much do you think that influenced the decision to have co-Hodge winners in 2021? I have a nagging feeling that it is the reason for the co-winners.

It is possible. Brent Metcalf won it with a loss. As did Nick Ackerman, but there were extenuating circumstances there. Interestingly, of the 8 finalists that year only 2 were undefeated. If it was the case that there just were not any more that 2 worthy undefeateds that year then maybe Yianni needs a lot more people to take a loss to make it to the finalist list, or maybe the 4th championship trumps other considerations.