BruceyB

Mendez is a small 41 pounder. He would be at a massive disadvantage against the likes of SVN and Henson at 149. FWIW, CP thinks Bouzakis goes down to 125 next year and stays. I have no idea if he has heard rumblings or not, but it seems like an odd take if he hasn't.

Relative to who others will be losing after this season, I actually think OKST could be better next year. But that depends on what Coach Taylor wants to do with the elite incoming recruiting class. But their line-up could be something along the lines of.. 125: Spratley 133: McComas/Sakamoto 141: Hughes 149: Jamison 157: Travis/Routledge 165: Lockett 174: TBD (transfer?) 184: Thompson 197: Merrill 285: Doucet

Zeke has done an incredible job at ASU. They were probably the best team on the west coast in the last 20 years before the Sunkist money went away and Iowa poached their top 2 wrestlers. If Figs, Parco, Teemer, and Schultz were still on that roster, this conversation wouldn't be happening. Not to mention Larkin. IMO the biggest concern is the amount of injuries that occur under his watch. It could be coincidence, but ASU has been ravaged by injuries for several years now.

You realize Zahid is trying to win the 2028 Olympics, no?

All good. It can be hard to tell the difference between jokes and bad takes around these parts.

Care to wager? Edit: I will take on all wagers regarding this matter.

Strong opinion. You see the match ranging from a decision to a pin? For the record, being skinny is not a beneficial trait when wrestling Hendrickson. That usually winds up with counting lights.

You're absolutely correct. Assuming the line-ups feature all 20 regular starters, it would require a very unexpected upset for this dual to not end up 5-5.

I understand, I was just attempting to make a joke after Whalen and Paniro removed themselves from the conversation.

I was only referring to the final stall call, where Starocci was not looking to score, but actually looking to stall Ruth out. Starocci knew the match situation and pushed, and took "activity" shots to earn the final stall warning without truly attempting to score. Otherwise, he probably would have scored another takedown like he had shown the ability to do all match. However, I disagree that Ruth was on roller-skates, unless you want to agree that Carter made him wear them. He just couldn't handle Starocci's forward pressure, but I felt like he at least attempted to hold some ground, he just was unable. It's hard to look to score when getting pushed backwards and being dominated in the hand fight. When Carter wants to take ground and push, no one has shown an ability to stop him. This is the tactic he used for the majority of the match against Keckeisen, and Keck was pushed around the mat as well. I find it hard to fault Ruth's effort in that last sequence. I didn't say the call was wrong, but I don't know what else Ruth was supposed to do other than have the ability to not cede ground.

Meh. Starocci engaged his classic underhook, drive forward, feign knee pick even though it's no where close and earn the stall. He was pushing without really trying to score. Other than not get underhooked, I don't really know what Ruth is supposed to do. He seemed to be giving relative effort to circle, but couldn't out-circle Starocci's pushing. Regardless, it wasn't competitive.

Well, it looks like our discourse may not have been necessary at all. Jordan William's will probably win the PAC title at this point and eliminate the rest of the competitors from this discussion.

C'mon now.. there is a reason that match is probably the second biggest upset in college wrestling history. I just looked through every 125 bracket from 2009 until now and would say this is the weakest field in that timeframe. And 2023 was probably the second weakest outside of Spencer. I'm assuming you're being antagonistic for the sake of contrarianism. But it can only go on so long..

I'd imagine that's pretty a pretty safe bet. I don't see how Little doesn't get the #1.

Easy now. Cruz has losses to #14 Renteria, NAIA wrestler Gonzales, #24 Farmer, #16 Terukina, UR Meza, UR Rinkin He has looked good over the last month with wins over #17 Rivera, #21 McCrone, and #13 Flynn, but he's far from the level of wrestler that Spencer Lee was dominating his freshman year. Anyone who is arguing that Lilledahl's season is comparable to Spencer Lee's freshman year needs to look at the 2018 wrestlestat. The only matches where Lee didn't have bonus were against Bresser (loss), Tomasello (one WBD, one loss), Sebastian Rivera (majored him in the rematch), and Piccininni (10-5). And he pinned Picc and NaTo at nationals that year. Piccininni was the returning 4th place AA and NaTo was 1st, 3rd, 3rd, going into that season. Lee also teched returning finalist Lizak that season. Lilledahl is very, very, good. He can win the whole thing this year, but his dominance will not come close to resembling Lee's.

Learning from you and Uncle @Ionel.

Huh? Where did I make a prediction?

Ferrari is 2-0 against Buchanon and was pushing for bonus in the B12 finals their first meeting.. he scored 5 takedowns and had nearly 2 minutes of RT.

It will make me chuckle if after all this non-sense he actually goes out and gets the thing done.

Play nice.

At this point, I'm not even sure this guy is going to show up for conferences. He might go ahead and not wrestle but claim he was undefeated this year.

I agree. In this circumstance the whole thing seems unnecessary. But even when coaches are truly out of line, the penalty should be a warning/ejection to the coach. You shouldn't be able to lose points based on a coaches actions in general.

You don't think a 1 loss Whalen or Lamer jumps a 3 loss Lovett? I'm far too lazy to actually try to guess based on criteria and just go with what has seemed to be the trend in the past. That being said, I do think the seeds would work themselves out so that the B1G gents are separated into each of the four quadrants.

IIRC Sealey was on fire his sophomore year and looked like he was going to be the top recruit of a really good group, but he did not continue that trajectory and as you mentioned, took some losses that you wouldn't have expected a couple years prior.