Wrestleknownothing

What's with the hardon for Cornell?

There were 63 freshmen who qualified for the 2021 tournament, thereby earning the first of five potential bites at the apple. Of those 63 only 25 have earned All-American status at any point since. 7 four-timers 2 three-timers 7 two-timers 9 one-timers Despite this being the fifth tournament they have been eligible for there still many with eligibility left. Everyone's favorite soldier saluter, AJ Ferrari, leads the way with two more years of eligibility after this year. Rocky Elam, Taye Ghadiali, Lucas Byrd, Chris Cannon and Dylan Ragusin have another year if they ask for and get a medical. It looks like only David Key (Navy), and Ben Pasiuk (Army) left a year of eligibility on the table by only using four. Of those finishing up this year Kyle Parco, Cam Amine, Wyatt Hendrickson, Trey Munoz, and Michael Beard have all exercised their freedom of movement by finishing at a school other than where they started the potential five-time journey in 2020 or 2021.

Starocci does not mind physically dominating his opponent, shutting down their offense, and winning by small margins. For most wrestlers those kind of tactics are dangerous leaving little room for error. But Starocci is on an 86 contested match win streak using those tactics. How many of those matches has he trailed in? I doubt it is as high as five. Everyone thinks they are close, but they really are not. Now, what I said was "disproportionate time out of bounds", not "backing up the whole match". Ferrari absolutely spent a disproportionate time out of bounds. He did this even after being told to return to the middle. This is undeniable. And this is what granted Starocci the lead that he never relinquished, or even looked to be at risk of relinquishing.

Of all the freshmen that year I count 63 who qualified for the 2021 tournament. I am going to take a look at how they did. Thanks for the idea.

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And for giggles here is how each services sees the title race:

With the regular season of wrestling completed we have our final rankings before the conference tournaments. We all have a lot of information about every wrestler. Surely a consensus has been formed at this point. Penn State now stands at a whopping 8.8 expected AAs using yesterday's Flo rankings. Even the website owned by a well known PSU antagonist has them at an expected 8.6 AAs. These are both season highs. Is The End Nigh? The end is nigh. Penn State will put an end to wrestling as we know it. After PSU lays waste to the landscape and salts the earth behind them, every other school will cancel its wrestling program within 24 hours in despair. PSU has sown the wind and now they shall reap the whirlwind. Or at least that is what some will lead you to believe. After all, this kind of domination is bad for the sport. It has always been bad for the sport. No sport can sustain a dynasty. And nothing will ever change. Do not bother looking up the history of college wrestling. Just trust me on this point. After all PSU will absolutely, 100%, without any doubt, and with total certainty finish with 10 All-Americans to match the mighty 2001 Minnesota Golden Gophers. After all, all 10 wrestlers are now ranked in the top 8 by both Flo and Intermat. I have even heard tell of a an ancient manuscript found in a cave on Mount Nittany by a foreign traveler that prophesizes the addition of an eleventh weight this year just so PSU can lay waste to that record too. Enter Our Hero But wait. Isn't there a third major set of rankings? One that uses an inscrutable algorithm? An algorithm they may, or may not, take into account phases of the moon, astrological signs, and input from tarot card readers? Indeed there is. And what say you, WrestleStat, seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators? Well, now that is interesting. WrestleStat has PSU at 7.8 expected AAs, 1 full AA lower than Flo. And the source of that difference in expectations can be traced to two wrestlers. Luke Lilledahl and Braeden Davis. WrestleStat has Lilledahl four places lower and out of the AA positions. The comparison is even tougher for Davis at seven to nine spots lower and also loosing in the round of 16. But why is WrestleStat to be believe? Well, it turns out they were the only ones who saw Davis for what he wound up being last year. Prior to the conference tournament they had him ranked 14th (even after he only rose to 5th). Meanwhile Intermat took him from 9th to 1st after the conference tournament. Perfect 10 aka The Bo Derek of Wrestling (for the old men in the crowd) So, who is right this year? Will PSU finish with 10 (or 11?) AAs this year? Or will we see a stumble along the way? For what it is worth, my model gives them a 22.4% chance if Flo is right, but only a 2.3% chance if WrestleStat is right. Braeden Davis goes from a 76% chance to AA as a 4 seed (Flo) to a 19% chance as a 13 seed (WS). Big swing.

Just swap in Angelo.

Why just 2?

Starocci and his brother may be second on that list after this year.

Starocci does alright there too. https://www.wrestlestat.com/d1/rankings/rpi

Only if you agree to show it to me using someone else as the banana.

89.9% still higher than all but four wrestlers against any competition. For the guys want to stick to this "oh, he can't do it against the top guys" narrative, that has not been the case this year. His only non-bonus was against a guy who spent a disproportionate amount of time out of bounds. It turns out that it takes two to tango. Edit: If you limit it to just top 50 wrestlers, Starocci is 8 for 9, or 89.9% (as mentioned above). That drops him down to......well, it does not drop him down. He is still third on the list. But what if we limit it to top 33 guys, likely tournament qualifiers, well at 83.3% (5 of 6) he drops to....again, he does not drop. Still third.

Sadly, not without a huge amount of manual labor. On an unrelated note, I have an unpaid internship opening available.

No he did not. Maybe that is better for his potential football career.

Given that Ferentz was in attendance it would not surprise me if the conversation was generated by Kueter, meaning maybe Kueter approached Ferentz to say he had an NIL offer on the wrestling side that he needed to make a decision about. Ferentz may have then advised him to take the money because he was not in the near term plans for the football team. If that were the case I could see Ferentz going to see how he is doing at wrestling since the door was not completely closed on the football side.

Team Leaders. That title is not exactly accurate as I am only including the average of every team's top 33 wrestlestat ranked wrestler. So for context I include the number of ranked wrestlers. That is a pretty big gap between 1 and 2.

Among WrestleStat top 33, everyone with at least 75% bonus rate.

You should read this guy's posts. He says Kueter is already an AA.

That speaks to whether he should sit out this year. It does not speak to whether he will wrestle four more years after this for Iowa. I have no reason to believe he will wrestle anywhere else. especially given what he said in his post match interview with Sparks, but money.

Both are true (ish). While Ferrari was the more active wrestler, by a lot, he also spent a lot of time on his knee. Not 80%, more like 30% of the first period by my count. Some of that was after being in a tie, and some was before. I do think it is stalling to drop to a knee outside of a tie. And I do know that Ferrari was far more active than Plott last night. But stalling is not about the weight of evidence. It is not unusual for the wrestler with a lead to stall, and to get called for it. Happens all the time. No one can reasonably argue that just because you are the most active and take all the shots you are immune from stalling. Bo Nickal answered a question, just not the question that was asked.

Was it a slide by? I could have sworn he just telleported behind.

If ever there was a deserved exception to my hypothetical/desired rule change HE would be it. I have nothing but for his accomplishments.

I agree. The situations are different. But I was commenting on the likelihood of Brands making the move without a wrestleoff. That seems unlikely given how they handled Schriever-Teske.

My thoughts were the same. Ayala was clearly comfortable in those positions and scored from them, so maybe switch things up. But by that time he was pretty gassed from the ride. All in all, it is very valuable experience against a guy who is a national champ threat. Learn from it and get better.