Wrestleknownothing

My first time there was 2018 when they were celebrating 25 years. They did a limited edition belgian ale that was out of this world. That was dad's beer. No sharing.

If you are ever in southern WI, check out New Glarus Brewing. They have a great set up for summertime. And great beer.

As for your other question, is there an optimal seed for overperforming? Below is how the seeds have unfolded in the last eleven years by relative performance bucket. It looks like the 8 seed is probably the value play. But value is a relative term. It assumes you are "buying" the seed like in a pool. If it just a question of probability of placement, you still want that sweet 1 seed. That said, not only does the 8 seed beat almost 43% of the time, but by doing so it gets into the juicy portion of the scoring curve (see below). While the 25 and 26 seeds are the only ones to outperform their seeds more than half the time, they typically are not jumping into the AA slots where they can really impact team scoring.

Regressing at the individual wrestler level is problematic as the data is not continuous because exact placement only goes to eight. For example, if the 33 seed wrestler wins one match they finish in the 17 to 24 range. But where in that range? Got me. And the discrete jumps are largest for the lowest finishes. Wrestlers who finish 0-2 in (ish) are a group of 9. Wrestlers who finish 1-2 are a group of 8. The round of 12 and 16 are groups of 8. And everything else is groups of 1. So measure to the mid-point of the range and regressed at the team level in an attempt to smooth out some of the discontinuity, but that was pretty unsatisfactory. The R-squared was a paltry 0.1255. Here is what that looks like for the 21 teams that averaged 6 NQ per year filtered down to just the years they had at least 5.

That is pretty amazing

Start by reading the very first post in this thread.

this

Correct. He is part of the 2023 graduating class, whereas Lilledahl is part of the 2024 graduating class. Similarly, I would say 2013 was the last year with no true freshman AA's as Garrett took a grey shirt.

OK, now I took the time. In the last ten tournaments only twice has there been a single true freshman AA. Lilledahl this year and Hamiti in 2022. In 2024 there were 6 true freshman AA's (the most) while the rest of the years had between 2 and 4. Shout out to @cowcards for making this so easy to find (https://wrestling.guru/college-men/ncaa-d1/ncaa-d1-database/)

BTW, I haven't taken the time to research it, but there was a single true freshman AA this year (Luke Lilledahl), does anyone know the last time that happened?

I think this chart sums up the impact of the NCAA's decision to take away a year of eligibility from the 2016 high school graduating class (approximately) and transfer it to the 2017 and beyond classes (approximately) in college wrestling. Using Willie's Big Board data, out to his top 100 ranked recruits I show the number of All-American honors won by each high school graduating class. Notes: The 2016 graduating class was poised to become the most decorated of the era before the NCAA decided to cancel the 2020 tournament. As it stands, without their final year of eligibility they were only 1 AA behind 2014, equal with 2015, and 5 AA's ahead of 2013. The 2017 - 2019 classes effectively received an extra redshirt allowing them to complete their careers a year older than they would have otherwise. While not all took advantage of the extra year, enough did that is shows up in the data. Curiously, the 2020 class, the direct beneficiaries of the fifth year, did little with it. While 40 of the 100 still have remaining eligibility, only 11 of the 40 have AA'd in the past. The class of 2020 is likely to finish with 50 - 55 AA's. The class of 2021 is a bloodbath. With only 16 total AA's from 9 wrestlers among the top 100 through four years, it is not looking good. The story can be told by its top 2 ranked high schoolers. Paddy Gallagher and Alex Facundo have zero AA's between them. While Facundo still has two years left (3? who really knows for sure at this point?) and Gallagher still has one, even if they AA out it will be historically low.

Oof. I am not sure I have that energy. But the real problem is I think it would be more than just height. The ratio of torso to height (or legs to height, either way) probably matters. I imagine the difference between wingspan and height is also indicative to a predisposition to be a better wrestler. And where are you gonna find those stats?

Yeah. Me neither.

We have already discussed the democratization of bribery that $TRUMP and World Liberty Financial has allowed. But now there is this. Of course there is. From The Financial Times: "A small group of traders earned a $99.6mn windfall by buying Melania Trump’s cryptocurrency token in the minutes before it was made public, an analysis by the Financial Times has found. Melania Trump unveiled the $MELANIA coin in a social media post late on January 19, just hours before her husband was inaugurated as the US president. In the two and a half minutes before her post went live on Truth Social, two dozen digital wallets bought $2.6mn of the tokens from the crypto marketplace where they had been deposited. The traders profited when Melania Trump’s post sent the price of the tokens soaring. The wallets offloaded most of their coins rapidly, with 81 per cent of their sales taking place within 12 hours." Hey, if we can use crypto for bribery, why not use it to normalize insider trading? If you can use cheap Chinese labor to make bibles, hats, and other tchotchkes to extract dollars from followers, why not use crypto to extract every possible dollar from followers?

@BobDole @Husker_Du WTF

I knew that when I responded, and debated whether to qualify my statement, or not (3 out of 4). I decided to not qualify, but am torn. The tie breaker for me was I could not find any international achievements for Branch. This is certainly not a hill I would choose to die on, more of a hair split on what constitutes THE top. As an aside, I love that his bio on the Wyoming website barely even mentions that he wrestled. There is paragraph after paragraph about the athletes he coached and coaching achievements, but only a few sentences about his wrestling.

The rule reads that the injury occurs before the start of the second half of the season, which is the 10th date for wrestling, AND the injury occurs when the athlete has not participated in more than 30% of eligible dates, which in wrestling is defined as six. He is fine on the number of competition dates (four) but his last competition date was the eleventh for the team, so he participated in the second half of the season. Given that, I am not sure how he gets another year for 2024.

This got me thinking about the ways that Gary Hall Jr. and I are complete opposites. Hall Jr.'s father and grandfather were world class swimmers, too. I do not every recall seeing my father in a pool, and my grandfather was a coal miner. While he passed before I was born, I just can't imagine him in a pool either. Hall Jr. was a drop dead sprinter. World class at 100m and under. Never saw a 101st meter. I was a distance swimmer's distance swimmer. It took me 500m just to get going. Hall Jr. medaled in three Olympics. I once qualified for a lone Olympic Trials. So, I'm real close on this one. At 218 lbs. Hall Jr. needed 6'6" to carry that weight. Very inefficient. I get within a biscuit of that while only using 5'10".

Give me two weeks with Terry and I will have him beating Tom.

It seems like those are examples of guys who faught their body type to get close to the top, but not THE top.

https://usawrestlingevents.com/event/2500181702/schedule May 15 at 7:00 pm EST per above

"With a professional swimming record of zero and zero...." Love it.

It raises the question, what is the perfect body type for wrestling? I heard a TED talk a while back that argued part of the progression of records in sports is attributable to specialization by body type. For example, in the early Olympics the shot putters and the sprinters looked very much alike, now there could not be a more stark contrast in sports. Michael Phelps with his long torso, short legs, big feet, long arms, extreme shoulder, knee, and ankle flexibility is the perfect body type for swimming. Sadulaev also has a long torso and short legs. Is this the perfect wrestling body type? Would Phelps also have been a world class wrestler?

It doesn't look like NLWC has submitted any entries yet. They do like to wait until the end.

The single attribute Donald Trump demands from everyone who works for him is the blind allegiance of a yes man. To turn around and claim he is only following his lawyers' advice is to ignore that they only tell him what he wants to hear.