BAC

Are you really sure your "peak at the football spreadsheet" of a single collective told the full story? Some info here, here, here, here. While 52% of Division I athletes are people of color, they only received 16% of the total NIL compensation as of a couple years ago.

Why stop there? Since Iowa fans ALREADY think Bo's "not the right fit" explanation was "nasty," a "shot" against the Hawks, and "an unethical attack" against the most ethical program since the beginning of time, let's hope Bo now feels liberated to say EXACTLY why, in detail, Iowa not the right fit for what he wants in wrestling, what he wants as a person, and how they are not compatible with his faith journey. Details, Bo, details! They already think you're a liar and a traitor, so no reason to hold back now, right? Your 200K followers want to know! Explain in detail to all the up-and-coming recruits who idolize you, and don't leave out a single description of how Iowa fell short of your expectations. They burned the bridge, so what do you have to lose?

Not a good place? Where did he say Iowa is "not a good place"? I must have missed that. Can you quote that for me? All I saw was him saying it wasn't a good fit, which of course is entirely different since it isn't a qualitative judgment as "not a good place" is. If he said Iowa isn't a good place, then I'll agree he badmouthed them. I also missed where he said it wasn't a good place for him "as . . . a Christian". I'd agree it was harsh if he said Iowa isn't a good place for Christians. But all I saw is him saying it wasn't a good fit for his own faith journey, which is of course personal to Bo. The fact that Bo doesn't think Iowa is a good fit in more ways than one doesn't mean he's taking shots at Iowa. It just means there's a lack of fit on multiple levels. None of it judges Iowa in any way. No more than he previously found (implicitly) that every other program besides Iowa wasn't the right fit, since Iowa was. Come on Vak. If you find it necessary to twist the words of an 18 year old kid to make the case that he's badmouthing Iowa, then that should tell you his actual words don't get you there. Maybe that should be the point where you pause to say, hmmm, maybe this is just grapes at the kid's expense. You want to complain about his pop, I'll give you some sympathy, but you can't possibly think that Bo himself is out there taking shots at Iowa.

Why do you say only Nichols? Lots of independent wealthy boosters out there. But no, not Lubert. Lubert's a trustee, so PSU retains some control over him.

Wouldn't surprise me if some version of those words came right out of Ma and Pa Bassett's mouth just before/after Brands yelled at them to not tell him how to run his program.

OMG This is hilarious. One of the worst takes of all time. He must've called Bo a "traitor" telling a "lie" about a dozen times. Easy there, fella! Not the first kid to change his mind, and won't be the last. But his biggest gripe is Bo "took a shot at the Hawks," and "it was nasty. It was a very nasty thing." Bo "took a shot at men!" he says. Bo's actual words? “This wasn’t easy, but I believe it’s not the right fit for me as a wrestler, a person, or for my faith journey. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I’ll never speak a bad word about their program." Um... saying a program isn't the "right fit" is a nasty shot? That's about the most common word choice I've seen for when a kid wants to explain why he didn't choose a program. But Chael saved the best for his closing. After saying we should give Bo the "grace" to change his mind," he takes it all back: "But when ya took a shot -- ya fired a shot at the ethics of the most ethical program in wrestling's history, excuse me, you do not stand on the moral high ground. Not on this one!" LOL

Agreed. Which is, I suspect, Ma and Pa Bassett's point. It's also why it's hard for me to have a whole lot of sympathy for Iowa here, even if they were in the right. Everyone knows if there's someone Tom wants (or, or that matter, someone Nicolls wants), and money's an object, then Tom/Nicolls will have a little chat, and Nicolls will make it happen. The Bassetts know that too. It isn't always something that goes through Iowa's compliance department, because Iowa can't stop Nicolls from doing what Nicolls wants to do. If Iowa had a squeaky-clean image, then I doubt this would have happened. But once you're known for your willingness to bend the rules, then you attract recruits who like that you're morally flexible. And then when you suddenly won't bend the rules for them, it's a slap in the face. To be clear, I'm not going to defend the Bassetts insisting on getting their kids' flights to Iowa paid for, if that's what happened. Nor am I going to criticize Brands for holding the line there, if that's what happened. But I can't help but think this is the kind of blowback that foreseeable when you have a history of suspect recruiting practices and financial shenanigans. I also wonder if papa Bassett missed the memo on how this works, and the need for the HC to be able to claim ignorance. Had he waited another couple days for Tom/Nicolls to confer after Tom said "no can do, don't tell me how to run my program," he might've gotten a call from an unknown number on Nicolls' burner phone, saying "Don't tell Tom, but I hear you need some plane fare..."

Although I'm not going to say he's guilty of race discrimination (and I'm not aware of any evidence he's singling out Iowa wrestlers on that basis), you do raise a point that I think is too often overlooked, which is -- there is ZERO oversight of NIL donors. Nicolls could literally make a public post saying, "I hate black people so I'll never do a NIL deal with one. But bring on the whiteys, I'll fund you all day." Or, "I'll pay blacks half of what I pay whites." And he could mean EVERY word of it. But as far as I can tell, there's not a damn thing Iowa could do about it. Well, they could claim to "sever ties" with him, but that really means nothing, since the entire point of NIL is that athletes are free to contract with third party donors and the schools/NCAA can't stop that. That means people like Nicolls can racially discriminate, they can mock someone for their disability, they can discriminate against someone for their religion. The only thing that binds them is the letter of their contract, and the university has to watch silently by in horror as donors engage in ugly behavior. As it is, there's a truckload of evidence of racial disparity in NIL deals. It's a basically legalized discrimination. Which is ironic, considering that part of the argument that got us here in the first place was that the NCAA was operating a "plantation" to get "free black labor," etc etc. But whatever. This is the universe people wanted, and that's what they got.

I said hookers and blow. Don't leave out the blow. PS Sads is a punk

Agree with all of this. To your last point, I'm always skeptical when I hear about NIL dollars, but bear in mind that they're over a year away from seeing any of that income. All those flights/hotels could quickly add up, and that's all on a high school teacher's salary. I can see how it's a really big deal. Still, given how sudden this seemingly was, and with the whole family cutting ties, you have to think there was some testiness to the final exchange. Rational people would try to work through this, especially when there's so much invested on both sides in the whole "Bassetts to Iowa" thing. You're right that confirmed facts are very limited, but I'd wager a fair sum that there was a clash of adult egos here, and the Bassett kids are following their parents' lead.

It's ugly, but honestly, Nicolls just saying the quiet part out loud. This is the new reality, where wrestlers aren't just beholden to their coaches, but also to their NIL sponsors. In some ways, even more so. The coach can make you run sprints or do pushups if you screw up, but your NIL sponsor can work the levers in the NIL agreement to minimize your comp if you don't perform to your sponsor's expectations. What's more, many boosters who pay big NIL bucks aren't doing it because it's economically sensible (as it usually isn't). They're doing it so they can have a sense of power and control over their favorite sports team, and/or because they want to be able to brag to their buddies about it and be seen by them as influential. So the quiet part is getting said out loud more and more.

That's kind of where I am. I'm generally a fan of the Bassetts, but Bill himself has a history of recruiting violations, leading to sanctions against McCort that were among the most extreme in state history, and him being removed as coach for a spell (while Jax's dad took over, LOL). From the reporting so far, it isn't hard for me to see him saying, hey Jax's flights are getting paid for, ours aren't, you gotta make this happen." As for Brands, he seems just hard-headed enough to take offense. There's reports he yelled and said "don't tell me how to run your program," or whatever. Not confirmed, but tracks with Brands' personality. It wouldn't shock me if the tenor of Brands' response was as much an impetus of the Bassetts backing out than the actual position he took, which may well have been defensible. You have to wonder if Brands couldn't have salvaged this by taking a less confrontational tone, tell him he'll insist they either explore all legal options or take it up with the NCAA. He could've even said he'd have someone from the AD's or GC's office call him, so Brands doesn't have to pretend he understands the legal nuances of it all. I'm guessing there was a clash of egos here, and Brands opted not to swallow his pride. On the other hand, I have a hunch that that the Bassett parents don't really understand how permissible it is to have travel expenses paid. I personally have a very hard time believing that there's a carve-out for it in NCAA recruiting, as it's an exception that would swallow the rule. My own guess is that some third party donor is paying Jax's expenses on the down-low and that, if a complaint were filed, OSU will be like "zOMG, we know nothing of that, but in any case, we can't stop what our silly donors do." My guess is Bill will learn the practice isn't as widespread as he thinks it is. Ironically, this may limits Bo's choices to PSU, which they can drive to, or OSU, so long as they're willing to keep the "free travel" gravy train going. Of course this is all rank speculation, but hey, that's why I'm here.

That's possible, but where it's an issue as consequential to recruiting as this, it's inconceivable that any competent coach would just drop it right there.

Yes, that's the possibility I was raising. I don't think there's any chance a program as big and internally-regulated as OSU is going to be engaged in obviously illegal practices. The question is, what's the workaround, and how defensible is it? More to the point, why isn't Iowa doing it? If I were in the Brands' position, I'd be telling my AD, "Hey, my competition is doing this, either get approval for this from the GC or file a complaint against the other schools for recruiting violations, because this is not a level playing field." That's a really good question. It would be a different question entirely if Iowa was paying for Bo's transport, but not Mel/Keegan's. I don't want to speculate too much since there's no credible reports about that being the issue. But if it is, then I struggle to defend Iowa here. Yes, on one hand, there's a certain logic to extending the RTC logic to non-commits, since the whole argument is that it isn't about recruiting at all. But on the other hand, doing so just exposes the lie underneath the whole RTC argument, showing that it's an exception that swallows the rule. Once you allow Jax to fly to OK to "help Daton train," then you can build an entire recruiting system around "helping your RTC guys train" by flying in would-be recruits. Might as well make it first class and throw in some hookers and blow on the flight while you're at it, right? Point being: I can't see any good reason why OSU should be allowed to pay for Jax's flights, if that's what's happening. Would be really curious to know how widespread that practice is, and what legal rationale they're using.

If I'm following everything correctly, it seems like this really just reduces to the Bassett family wanting Bo's (and eventually Melvin's) trips to Iowa City paid for as they train pre-college. It seems likely that they want this because they believe Jax's trips are paid for. To me, this raises more questions than it answers. On its face, this would be a very obvious recruiting violation. NCAA rules don't allow schools to pay for the travel of recruits back and forth to campus pre-enrollment. Perhaps that changes under the House settlement -- I don't know -- but it hasn't yet. The question for me is: how is it that Jax is able to have his trips to/from Oklahoma paid for? Is it really as widespread as the Bassetts are saying? Is there some sort of NIL exemption for it? Or are they justifying it by farming the money through RTC, e.g. saying the RTCs are merely "paying the travel costs to bring in practice partners for existing members"? My best guess is the RTCs are used as the vehicle to bypass the NCAA rule. What I can't say, though, is whether this a shady and arguably unethical circumvention of a rule, or if it's on solid legal ground and Iowa is either too cash-strapped do this or too behind-the-times to prioritize this funding allocation. I just can't quite bring myself to mock Iowa for screwing this up without having a better sense of how shady this practice is of ferrying recruits to/from the university. My guess is we'll either see Iowa change their practice to catch up with the times, or start blowing the whistle on programs that do pony up for travel costs. Objectively speaking, it's bad for the sport to have two conflicting legal interpretations on whether this is permissible, as it creates an uneven playing field in recruiting.

I'm pretty sure Bartlett's eligibility might be expired. I don't think Syd wants him re-committing there anyway anyway, at least not until Starocci's off campus. But hey, nice scoop Hammer!

Yonkers, a bit north of NYC. https://www.kdtrainingcenter.com/

Dang, half of that 2021 "top 30" didn't even start last year. That's brutal. Maybe I missed someone but I count just 5 AAs among that group (#s 3-6 and 30).

Pretty remarkable what KD has been able to achieve with Duke and other guys, e.g. Ryder, James, others. Just goes to show that an outstanding coach doesn't need to be a guy with a stack of medals and trophies. Some people are just really good at teaching, supporting and motivating.

This is a variation of something that came up when Real Pro Wrestling was around 20 years ago, and I always thought should have been done. The goal is to make the matches more throw-oriented and incentivize point scoring. The idea is that you incentive losing efforts at throws (see "match scoring"), and make the team scoring based on both who won *and* points scored. So: Team points for match wins ("win points"): --Win: + 1 team points. --Win by Tech Fall (by scoring 20+ points -- total points, not point differential): + 3 team points. --Win by fall: + 6 team points. Team points for match scoring ("activity points"): --If you score 5-9 points in your match (win or non-pin loss): + 2 team points. --If you score 10 to 14 points in your match (win or non-pin loss): + 4 team points. --If you score 15 or more points in your match (win or non-pin loss): +6 points. Match scoring: --If you get tossed in a 5 point throw, you get 3 points. --If you give up a 4 pointer, you get 2 points. --Last point wins. (No tie breaker.) Let me explain with a few examples of hypothetical matches. Imagine this is the first match of a 6-weight dual meet. 1. Spencer Lee (Team A) beats Luke Lilledahl (Team B) 4-0: SL's team gets 2 points, LL's gets 0. That's nice. But it's only 1 team point. 2. SL beats LL 11-2: Team A gets 5 points (1 for winning, 4 for scoring 10-14 pts), Team B gets 0. Much bigger team points for Team A. 3. SL beats LL 20-13: That's a tech (since match ends at 20 points). Team A gets 9 points (3 for tech, 6 for scoring 15 or more points). Team B gets 4 points in the loss, for putting up 13 points. 4. SL pins LL: Team A gets 6, Team B gets 0. (LL's points at the time of the fall not relevant.) 5. SL beats LL 18-14: Team A gets 7 (2 for the win, 4 for scoring 15-19), Team B gets 4 (for scoring 10-14). The idea here is to make a boring (even if one-sided) 3-0 or 4-1 win have very little impact on the team score, and not really helping your team much. Instead, you want to get points for your team, you really need to rack up the points. Conversely, if you're the losing wrestler, you still can score big points for your team just by closing the gap. That's where the risk-taking points for getting tossed comes into play. A lot of guys shy away from upper-body ties since the downside is so big -- e.g. a 4 or 5 points swing. But if it's just a 2 point swing, *and* you get "activity points* even if you lose the exchange, then it's more worth it.

Not just the top 3 current recruits. Each have a legit claim to being the best high school wrestler of all time. Other guys may have been as good, but the accomplishments of these three while still in high school stack up favorably to (as good or better than) every other guy before them. All three have multiple NCAA champions on their hit list, and I don't think there's anyone besides these three to make the finals of making senior US freestyle team while still in high school -- at least not since Jimmy Carr in early 70s. To my eyes, they've been jockeying for "best overall" the past year, with the top spot changing multiple times. Bassett is great too but I'd have him and Lockett a notch below.

Thoughts: --Lee looks as good as ever. Not as quick, but yet he outwrestled Luke in neutral. Expected him to dominate on top, but thought Luke would be closer on his feet. --Woods' style seems to have really opened up. Mich was a good move. Don't see him medaling but you never know. Feel for McKenna. Yianni should've been here. --Holy cow, PJ. Does this settle the "best high schooler of all time" debate? Knocks off 2 defending NCAA champs and now a 4x'er. I guess Jax may have something to say in a month. That said, Yianni looked small. He should be at 65kg. --Carr got it done. Could easily have gone the other way. The cut in Mesenbrink's head was probably his biggest enemy as it caused lots of stoppages. Carr's just so quick though, and if he can keep his conditioning in top form, he can keep winning this matchup. Carr can medal. --Levi looks good and methodical, but I'm not sure I see a medal. Dake should be here. --Really happy for Zahid. He's really putting it together and you can tell how he's improved with Taylor. His conditioning is better too. Dake has no business being here. That's 2 world teamers that we lost because they're too lazy to cut weight. Sorry not sorry. --What a war. Psyched for Trent. Good battle. Trent can medal. --Snyder looks smooth, though I'm not sure Zillmer had much for him. --Wyatt got exposed there a bit. He can medal but needs to tighten up a bit. He's not going to be able to gut guys at worlds like that. Fun though. 2nd match, and 2nd match of PJ/Yianni, were ones for the ages. (Side note: CP needs to learn the difference between a 4-pointer and a 5 pointer.)

Um...

... would she look just like a female version of him, and win multiple NCAA shot put titles? Answer: Yes and yes. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/mya-lesnar-proved-she-s-brock-lesnar-s-kid-with-a-second-ncaa-title/ar-AA1GEVok?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=f8561602a2544561bd3b58c625a51541&ei=13

I got: 57kg: Lee 2-1 61kg: Arujau 2-0 65kg: McKenna 2-0 70kg: Yianni 2-1 74kg: Mesenbrink 2-1 79kg: Haines 2-1 86kg: Dake 2-1 92kg: Hidlay 2-0 97kg: Snyder 2-0 125kg: Wyatt 2-0 Should be some good ones.