Eagle26

Hard to follow the scoring. I honestly don’t see anything that would make you think Yagla was the better wrestler other than maybe being so close to the escape at the end. Should’ve been a Dec for Kemp IMO

Yeah that’s bad. It seems so simple to see he wasn’t eligible too. I’d also like to know who certified him? I highly doubt it was someone from the NCAA

Hardy would be the safe bet with Alirez in the quarters. His second round match will be no walk in the park either. I’d say Davis has a chance at beating Byrd if he brings some of that PSU magic

Except if he did it, everyone would have noticed right away.

I think Vak pretty much nailed it but I’ll add my thoughts 1 - No debate IMO semis/blood round 2/3 - Finals or Quarters - I’ll give the nod to the finals because of the production and the prestige, but quarters are usually the more exciting matches. 4-6 - very debatable IMO. I think I’d actually move Round 1 to #4 because of the excitement of it starting, the possibility of a first round upset, and all the small schools represented (who I like to route for). I’d probably put Round 2 next and medal matches last. The medal matches are very high quality matches, but it just seems like they lost a lot of their appeal (in the minds of many wrestlers your either a NQ, AA, or National Champ). Plus we have seen many of the matches up already.

The semis and blood round session is TOO GOOD! I really wish they would split it up. We all know the semis are and the emotion seen in the blood round deserves its own attention!

Several people picking Nolf and I don’t disagree, but wondering what separates him from Nickal? I liked Nolf better, but hard to see much difference in their stats… I would’ve like to see them split the Hodge their senior year.

You have to factor in that Snyder’s world and Olympic medals were not at heavyweight. Taking nothing away from his career … he’s definitely the GOAT “light heavyweight”, but no way is he the GOAT at heavyweight. He lost to Coon his senior year. Gable hasn’t been close to losing a match. Do you really think senior year Snyder would stand a chance against Gable?

I’m shocked how little value gets added for Dake winning without a redshirt. Even Cael lost his red shirt year and we have no idea if he would’ve won NCAAs (pretty likely not). That really sets dake apart for number 2, and beating DT was just icing on the cake

Well, she did say a “big crowd” for OSU would be 4,000. I don’t know their attendance, but she is right that a big crowd for PSU is over 15,000… they had 15,998 at the Bryce Jordan center vs Iowa this year. Most of their duals are at Rec Hall which has a seating capacity of 6500, so that brings down the avg a lot even when they are sold out.

125 - McCrone OHST 133 - Orine NCST 141 - Swartz OKLA 149 - Abas STAN 157 - Scott NCST 165 - Gallagher OHST 174 - Gaitan ISU 184 - Hale PENN 197 - Smith VT 285 - Day BING

I agree Brennan should not be allowed to wrestle. The school should’ve known the situation. I don’t agree that the alternate should get in in this situation though. Wouldn’t all his matches be considered FF wins for his opponents then? So the PAC12 runner up should get in

That’s a good question. I’m not sure the answer to that, but I’d be interested to know. But the real question is: What do we value in the sport more - post season results or total body of work? I think it would be great for the sport to put more emphasis on regular season duals, but we all know that the only thing people care about are post season results. Conference tournaments are the beginning of the National tournament just like Sectional or district tournaments are the start of the State tournament in HS. You earn your qualification during that tournament. It’s the good and the bad thing about this sport that it all comes down to your performance at a couple tournaments. Yes, college gives you an out with the wildcards, but the main thing to get you there is the conference tournament. So IMO, you should not be able to get a 1 seed without winning your conference tournament.

Does total body of work have any bearing on who becomes the National Champion? Or does it go to the guy who performs best at one tournament? Now, I’m not saying ignore the whole season for seeding, but conference tournaments are literally qualifiers for the National tournament. In HS, placement at qualifiers is all that really matters. It’s part of the sport and it’s been that way for these kids wholes lives. I don’t think there’s any circumstance where you should have a #1 seed that didn’t win their conference tournament. It seems the seeding committee has agreed historically. Hopefully, they do this year too.

Is it the first 10% or the last? Maybe I’m wrong but I feel like they rarely give someone a number 1 seed if they don’t win their conference (rightfully so IMO)

The problem is that refs are forced to make a call when someone goes out of bounds. Therefore they hold their calls when someone is playing the edge because they don’t want to do a stall call and then they go out two seconds later and they HAVE to make the call again. So often times no stall call is made even though one guy is clearly playing the edge.

They usually weigh conference championships heavier. Has someone ever been a number one seed who hasn’t won their conference? (legit question - I have no idea). I’d guess it goes to Hardy.

College sports are essentially professional sports now.

Maybe he landed a good NIL deal and is about to hit the transfer portal

We’ve had plenty of freestyle success and a lot of it has been guys right out of college. But the motivation doesn’t have to be wrestling related… it could be for education, culture, experience, money, etc. Plus, you have to consider that most wrestlers who change citizenship are doing it to go to an “inferior” country. The main motivation is to secure an Olympic spot… he’s a gold medal contender for sure, but it’s far from a guarantee he could make Japans team. To be clear, I have no idea if this is his plan… it was pure speculation. But I don’t think you can say there would be no reason for it all.

Yeah, I feel terrible for him. I think he just wanted a respectable retirement. He definitely couldn’t get it at OTT, and now he didn’t have the opportunity here because Nokhodi got caught in a lace. He can’t catch a break to even have a decent retirement

He’s impressive for sure. Looks like he may be trying to attend college here. Maybe he will look to get US citizenship before 2028?

That sucks! JB is done and likely going to retire. Doesn’t get a chance at bronze and doesn’t get a chance to leave his shoes on the mat And the stream cut out in his last match so we couldn’t even see! Not the retirement he deserves!

Crashed for me too! Right during JB’s match

I don’t think it was bad strategy or a lack of variety of attacks. We all know DT has a ton of different leg attacks and his game plan is always to be offensive and keep shooting. He will sometimes give up some points that way but has typically been able to overwhelmingly outscore his opponents twitch this strategy. Sadulaev is just so positionally sound that it looked like all his attacks were not very good. So it may have looked like Taylor just took a bunch of bad shots, but in reality it was just Sadulaev that made them look bad.