maligned

Fair enough. I guess the combination of thinking Ghadiali has looked like a top 5 to 10 guy in his performances, combined with Carroll's back-to-back-to-back tech of #28, major of #5, and win over #11 made me raise my eyebrows and take it at face value. Anyway, time will tell--and I hear you saying "time will tell" is the approach you wanted to take.

@Jon_Kozak Thanks for engaging. I'm a big international guy and love so much of your work. The one I'd mentioned earlier that feels confusing is Carroll. I was curious where you and Earl would slot him. Here's my thought: Imagine the rankings exactly as they are without Carroll. Now bring Carroll into the mix minus the Ghadiali win. He most logically fits between Mullen and Lanosga because of his win over Lanosga and losses to Mullen and #1 and #2. So how could he continue to be in exactly that same place when he in fact has a major over Ghadiali? For me it's very simple: Ignore the Mullen loss and the Ghadiali win that make things confusing. First consider that he's beaten everyone below Mullen and lost to everyone above Ghadiali. Now re-introduce only those two data points. He performs once at some level above a #6 level and once at some level below a #12 level. His general performance level is therefore roughly a #9 performance level--halfway between the two. If a strictly win/loss-based Vegas algorithm knew only the results of those 2 matches for him, he would be #9 or #10 because it doesn't feel the pressure to "slot" next to a particular memorable opponent. (Between the two is where Earl decided to put Carroll too, in this case, by the way.) Thoughts?

Feldman isnt Kirkvliet or Hendrickson or Parris or Bastida--but he seems to be back to 2023 level and there simply aren't many super high-end guys at that weight. He should stay #2 to 5 all year and place high.

Still no. I just don't feel we need to be married to one rigid set of results that demand I put blinders on to everything else I've seen--especially early in the season up until we see how everyone is wrestling and current season results can be considered almost exclusively. I wouldn't rank Ono #1 when he hasn't historically wrestled folk style at all and we have no idea how his mat wrestling will be. But I probably would have guessed him just behind like Byrd/Crookham/Ayala in the early season, rather than absurdly putting him at 30 or 15 or whatever.

We can definitely include freestyle results to a certain point. History shows us that offseason freestyle results correlate very well with in-season college performance. The predictive capacity is slightly diminished for incoming freshmen, but there's still a powerful enough correlation to help make better guesses in preseason rankings than the big rankers do now.

I agree with pinnacle. Not considering all-star classic results or ignoring freshmen resumes early in the year is silly. High school rankings include freshmen based on prior results, why can't college? All team sports' rankings try to make a guess at freshman impact on team performance. Why can't wrestling rankings do the same in individual lists. Adjust as needed when the results come in.

He's 14 now, but you're right that it's strange. Losses to 2,3,4; win over 8. But ranked 14?

Let's shake up the GOAT debates. Have Snyder on the Rock's new weight loss plan and do a catch-weight bout at 185 against Burroughs.

Flo does things that aren't intuitive. Example: #24 Carroll picks up wins over #11 Lanosga and #5 Ghadiali. He previously lost to #15 Mullen. Flo moves Mullen up a bit and Lanosga down a bit and puts Carroll between them (and drops Ghadiali one slot to 6). Now Mullen is 12, Carroll 13, Lanosga 15. Problem: Thats exactly where they would be WITHOUT Carroll's major over Ghadiali. You're entirely disregarding a huge result because you're distracted by thinking you need to slot Carroll behind Mullen. In fact, the mathematically predictive (and logical) place to put someone who's beaten 6 and lost to 12 is the mid-point between them. Think of one match deserving a 5 rating and the other deserving a 13. Average is 9. That would be intuitive. InterMat got the principle right. Ghadiali's down to 8, Mullen 14, Carroll between at 10.

Back on topic about results: Christian Carroll was the other huge surprise to me alongside Joy. It was thought because of his height that he was forever destined to be a tweener that can't make 197 healthily but is too short and light to wrestle 285. This weekend: Techs #32, majors #5, beats #11, and loses 5-3 to #1 (in by far Bastida's toughest match to date) Especially with the loss to Mullen earlier in the year, I would have thought of Carroll as a ho-hum national qualifier that is not a threat for the podium. Big breakthrough weekend.

He's there this year, but he's a senior. This post was about how crazy next year will be with another insane freshman class joining the nonsense we're seeing from freshmen this year.

CRAZY result

Historically, yes; and recently in women's and greco. But virtually none in the last 20 years in men's freestyle.

Sadly, this morning went about as poorly as yesterday went well, from a US perspective. Summary: As D3 shared above, Melelashvili goes down in a repechage match to the Iranian. In women's, all 4 of our ladies lost, with Rodriguez at 55 and Mir at 65 having a chance to be brought back into tomorrow's repechage matches if the right women win in the 11am semifinals. Max Black will wrap up our Greco campaign when he wrestles for a 3rd American bronze at 60kg at noon. All 3 of our ladies from yesterday--Jimenez, Robinson, and Welker--will go for gold in that same session. Mesenbrink and Josh Barr get our men rolling tomorrow alongside the final 3 ladies' weights.

Amazing performance. Only loss ends up being the 1-1 defeat to the gold medal Egyptian.

Wow, great day for the US. Summarizing what's already been posted: In Greco, Otto Black wins bronze, Max Black will wrestle for bronze tomorrow, and Melelashvili needs one win in the repechage tomorrow morning to also wrestle for bronze. In Women's, we go undefeated with 3 into tomorrow's gold medal finals. (I thought going into today that it was about as good of a first 3 as we could have for the women at this tournament. What an awesome way to build momentum for the coming couple of days!)

Great morning for the US: Otto Black into a 67kg bronze match at 12pm with his repechage win. Max Black at greco 60kg and all 3 ladies--Jimenez 50kg, Robinson 72kg, Welker 76kg--into the semis at 11am. Belelashvili lost a 2-1 decision in the quarters but can be brought back in if the Ukrainian wins his semi at 82kg.

LJB?

He's very much in the medal mix tomorrow. The Egyptian struggled to win 1-1 and 3-3 over the tough Dane and Kazakh that have to face each other in the first repechage round--but Otto obviously gets to rest and face the winner. Then the Hungarian he'd face for bronze later in the evening was the only guy the Egyptian beat "cleanly" at 4-0.

In all situations, or only when passivity is the only scoring?

The Mat's summary article insinuates that getting your opponent put in par terre first is the criteria in this case. I'm wondering if it's only the tiebreaker in these really common 1-1 decisions in Greco. (I'm imagining, for example, that in a 2-2 decision, where both had a step-out and both had a passivity point, we revert to the "final point wins" criteria?)

Why didn't Black have criteria there with the later score?

Didn't Otto have criteria?

To echo others, center control is valued above all else. Also, there are certain rough time markers in bouts where someone will be called for passivity, no matter what, if scoring isn't happening. Then it's simply, " who's controlling the center less?"

So far, only Raney (7th place) and Bey (10th) have scored for us.