BAC

Really? Flo's rankings, released today, has them both at 165. Do you know something we don't?

Really wanted to see Mel Miller v Jayden James. Le sigh.

Yeah we're on the same page. I was thinking Jax places 1st-5th, Bo somewhere from R12 to as high as maybe 4th, and Miller can with a match or two, maybe R16. I don't think I'd give a match to anyone else, but that's still enough to place to 20. (Last year, 21 points would've been the cutoff... e.g. ASU was top 20 with one AA -- Schultz 3rd -- and Maryland was top 25, just outside the top 20, with Jaxon Smith taking 6th.)

Yeah, I favor McHenry, a 2x Cadet world champ in his own right, but I just can't convince myself it wouldn't be competitive. Helen's no stranger to wrestling men -- as a teen, she pinned the defending state champ at MD states -- and that was long before Helen was, well, Helen. McHenry has another year of eligibility (at Cal Baptist now?) so maybe it doesn't work, but I'd love to see a match with a dude who's legit but not so much stronger that it's a farce. Deshazer maybe? There's definitely not any women we can throw at Helen and have a competitive match, that's for sure.

Helen Maroulis v .... Kurt McHenry? Picking McHenry since he'd be a smaller 57kg, but maybe it's still too lopsided. Even so, it would be cool to have a good MvF match, and Helen's a good candidate since she's at a lighter weight. Trick is to find someone who's good/old enough that it doesn't seem like you're poking fun at the strength/gender gap, but also not someone who's going to just maul her. Would put some butts in the seats, that's for sure.

As of today, Flo's rankings have McCort's 3 as the top 3 P4P wrestlers in the country. Time will tell if they achieve the same level of accomplishment as, for example, the Davidson trio, but if you're evaluating "best 3" from the standpoint of how good they are while in high school, I think you have to put the McCort trio as #1. I'm not sure if another high school has ever had 3 #1 ranked guys at their weight at the same time (at least not based on fishbane's list), let alone the top 3 P4P. Honestly it wouldn't shock me if this McCort team (on the strength of these 3) placed in the top 20 as a team in NCAAs in March, if they were allowed to compete.

Cole Mirasola still has 4 years of eligibility. He beat out all these guys at U20s this past summer. That's a pretty good reason to not go to PSU if you're a top HWT recruit with hopes of being a 4 year starter. On top of that, with the logjam at 197 with Conner Mirasola and Josh Barr, it seems that Connor's main role the next 3 years is to serve as a backup for both Barr and his brother at HWT. That's a pretty solid backup. I doubt PSU is putting much effort into recruiting heavies this year, and probably not next year either. I suspect recruits see it the same way.

This is fair. You and Truzz make a good point that the win over Sujeet should be seen as a legit upset. I went back and looked at his recent results and realized I'd forgotten about a couple of Sujeet's wins. Respect.

My top 2 are Levi and Zahid. Zahid's improvement was really just jaw dropping. Not just the one sided win over Ghasempour, but the dominating win in the finals against the Japanese guy who had absolutely demolished him 2 years ago. Levi I had as a likely DNP. But he knocked off a world champ, and was just a hair away from a world title. I've been whining for months about how Dake should've been at 79kg until the Olympics, and while that may still be true, Levi definitely shut me up.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I wouldn't include Woods on this list at all, much less at/near the top. His bronze was unexpected, yes. But to me, the only thing surprising about Woods was his draw. Woods was maybe the 7th or 8th best wrestler there, but then when the draw came out, only one of the superior guys was on his side of the bracket, while the other bracket had the other 5 or 6 studs who are likely better than him. It was an extraordinarily fortunate draw that gave him a path to a bronze on Amouzad's coattails. To Woods' credit, he took full advantage of the gift that was given to him, wrestling to his full potential and avoiding any upsets. That's no small feat. But there's nothing I saw in his wrestling that showed me he's better than what I thought going into Worlds. If you draw that bracket 10 times, 9 out of the 10 times there's going to be more than one other stud in his side of the bracket and he doesn't medal. I see Woods as a Joe Colon or Brandon Eggum type guy... he unexpectedly got a shot at the world team and rode his draw to a medal, which is AWESOME, but the odds of him making another world team (let alone medaling again) are slim. Happy to have him prove me wrong.

Don't sleep on Adeline Gray either, who has 6 golds. Previously, a fair argument could be made to put Adeline ahead of Helen for the women's GOAT title. Even now, she's got one more gold than Helen. But Helen has an Olympic gold that Adeline lacks (over Yoshida to boot), and Helen's total medal haul is greater, including three Olympic medals to Adeline's one. For me, this most recent gold puts Helen ahead. But Adeline's a legend, and a great ambassador for the sport.

What an amazing, clutch win by Helen. Watching it, you just knew she was going to pull something out of her bag of tricks. US women's GOAT.

I said this in the other thread but Spencer looked unprepared to me -- as in, unprepared to wrestle high-caliber talent at his weight, since he hadn't gotten the practice reps in before. He doesn't have any training partners that are world-class talents at or near his weight, so he's not sharp. On top of that, he almost never competes overseas, so he's not getting many world-level looks that way either. He came in unready. A related factor is that his coaches are always trying to build up his confidence, telling him how great and unbeatable he is, and that on the rare occasions he loses it's because he "beat himself." But that just saps his incentive to improve, as I think that sense of inadequacy motivates him. Plus, it's not true anyway -- at least not on the world level, where the world's best will scout and beat him if he hasn't meticulously prepared for them, no matter how great Brands says he is. A final factor I'll throw out there, which is far more speculative, is I just don't see the joy. I don't mean that in the "Iowa only cares about winning while PSU has fun" sense. I mean that in the HEW sense. To me, he gives the impression of someone who's wrestling only because he's expected to, and feels obliged to. The positivity in his pre-worlds interviews seems forced. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right, then maybe bringing in better practice partners, competing more, or changing his scenery won't help. Maybe he needs to rediscover what made him love wrestling in the first place, whatever that is -- or if that ship's sailed, then move on to something that brings him more joy, whether inside or outside the sport.

Fun fact: Brooks's the one to take out Hidlay in the topside bracket at NCAAs all four years. Twice in the finals, twice in the semis. If Brooks never existed, Hidlay would be an NCAA legend.

Excluding retired wrestlers (e.g. Taylor), inactive wrestlers (e.g. Gable) and suspended wrestlers (e.g. Brooks), I'd have it: 1. Zahid 2. Dake 3. Snyder 4. Hidlay 5. Carr Next 5 is a mix of Mesenbrink, Lee, Vito, Haines, Starocci. Next 5 after that is a mix of Yianni, Woods, Duke, Jax, Blaze. Then 15-20 I'll go Parris, Mendez, Marstellar, Wyatt, Lilledahl.