Gus

How do you explain all the dominant 2-3-4 x national champions from the middle and upper weights then? The reality is that truly dominant wrestles come in all shapes and sizes and the original premise (it is easier to be a dominant lightweight) that you proposed is just not true.

And if you look at guys that put up a lot of bonus points in the last 10 years or so they are mostly middle to upper weight guys. Below is a list of guys off the top of my head that had high bonus rates and did a lot of winning. As you can see a lot are in the middle to upper weights. Zain, Nick Lee and Stieber are the only ones in the lower weights and they were 133/141/149 guys. Gable Steveson, Nick Lee, Zain Retherford, Logan Steiber, Jason Nolf, Bo Nickal, Alex Dierringer, Zahid Valencia, J'Den Cox, Kyle Snyder, Ed Ruth, David Taylor

Yes, this is evident by all the 4 time champions coming from the lower weights. Oh wait…

Yes I believe so

Gibson is not even the top recruit in his weight class. Jax Forrest or Bo Bassett could be the next guy

Christian Carrol probably deserves to be mentioned with these two.

That is a pretty important data point.

That is a pretty important data point.

I agree with you. Both have tough/tricky 2nd round matchups in Gfeller and Cardenas respectively.

The all Illinois team?

125: Lee 133: Vito 141: Woods 149: Yianni 157: Andonian 165: KOT 174: Lewis 184: Keckeisen 197: Sloan HWT: Cassiopi

We will welcome Nevills with open arms

Iowa's seeds were all relatively as expected and fair. This tournament seems to get tougher and have more parity every year. That might be a result of the free years given to the COVID group. There are 3-4 top guys at most weights that are seniors this year that would have typically left the field after last season. Remove the group of hammers below from the field and it probably looks much more in line with past NCAA tournaments. 125 - Spencer, Cronin, Courney, Cardinale 133 - RBY, McGee, Phillipi 141 - Hart 149 - Yahya, Millner, Murin, Zapf 157 - AOC, Humphries, Gfeller 165 - Monday 174 - Labriola, Smith, O'Reilly, Romero 184 - Coleman, Romero, Finesilver, Bolen 197 - Nino, Dean, Laird, Warner HWT - Parris, Schuyler, Hilger, Orndorff

I think the rumor Askren was referencing could be that Mastro quit the team to run the Zoo that his family purchased.

As a Jackrabbit fan, I am good with Truax getting the 2 seed.

197 has the champ from last year (Dean), runner up from last year (Warner), runner up from two years ago (Nino), two U23 world silver medalists (Sloan & Cardenas), 2x AA Elam, 2x AA Truax, 1x AA Beard, 1x AA Bastida, 1xAA Hoffman

I agree with this. Sloan takes top a lot in his matches and is a hammer on top. If/when he meets Elam in the semis I think he will deploy a different strategy.

197 is just a weight with a lot of parity. You have another quarter with Rocky Elam, Cam Caffey and Jacob Warner. Another quarter with Tanner Sloan, Gavin Hoffman and Jacob Cardenas. Tough weight class.

1. Haines 2. Henson

Head lever is not used for a turn against legit competition but is used as a set up to get an arm bar hooked up.

I get what you are saying, I just think there is a better way to differentiate the winner than that.

Sloan vs Elam 1st Period - No scoring 2nd Period - Sloan chooses bottom and Elam racks up 1:00 of riding time before Sloan gets an escape. 1-0 Sloan 3rd Period - Elam chooses Neutral and no scoring. 1-1 tie SV - No scoring TB1 - Elam gets choice because he scored first via riding time or they just flipped the coin and he won. Elam defers and Sloan choses bottom. Gets ridden out. 30 seconds riding time for Elam TB2 - Elam choses neutral, no scoring. Elam wins from riding time in TB1.

Two more Jackrabbits get in to increase the number qualified to 8. #EarsUp

Yep, and the same thing happened in Sloan vs Elam.

Are high school OT rules superior to college OT rules? Watching the Elam - Sloan match, along with a few others at Big 12's last weekend I came away thinking that the OT rules should be tweaked. Should the wrestlers have to chose top or bottom in tie breakers rather than neutral? The TB1 ride out, chose neutral and then run tactic and win on riding time is an anticlimactic finish.