BigRedFan

Knox is committed to Cornell. Cornell's Vito Arujau was born in Belarus. Connect the dots.

This is true. And Foca at least is sitting out fall semester 2024 in order to not graduate.

From Mike Grey's post-NCAA email update today: Ramirez: "He will be back and his best wrestling is ahead of him." Foca: "I know he is going to use this year as motivation for great offseason training. He will be back in the money next year!" Cardenas: "Jacob will graduate in May, and therefore cannot compete for Cornell next season. He will move on to another institution for graduate work and complete his last year of athletic eligibility. It's been a pleasure having Jacob represent Cornell University Wrestling and we wish him the best of luck!" Fernandes: No status, other than thanks! Lewis told me he was done and has a job on Wall Street. Sorry.

Actually being able to see it in either Flo's in-season or post-season tracker lists.

Not personal. I repeat the question: where did you see that Foca entered the portal?

Where does it say he entered the portal? He's not on Flo's list.

Foca is not graduating this year. He will be wrestling at Cornell in 2025 by deferring the fall semester.

Watching Vito destroy opponents, pushing for vital team points, is certainly worth more than 5x as much as watching Fix stall his way to a one point OT victory. The value of bonus points, in either bracket, was shown by all the wrestlers who were going for team trophies, or, in the case of Penn State, going for an historic team point total. Those matches were great to watch until the final whistle.

Neither Foca nor Fernandes ever entered the portal, nor did they ever have any intention to do so. People can hope and wish for these guys to wrestle next year somewhere other than Cornell, but it isn't going to happen. Cardenas has a degree from the Architecture, Art, & Planning college, and is interested in urban planning. ASU has a masters degree therein, so that might be an option. (BTW, in his post-third place interview, Shapiro said that going to Cornell was the best decision he's ever made. There's a reason transfers out of Cornell are very rare)

The seeds told a different story about who was picked to win, as did a lot of observers. To be fair, Fix might have won against the last version of Vito people saw in the EIWA tournament. Fix didn't "wrestle tougher" this year than in 2023: in 2023 he chose to actually wrestle against Vito. He remembers what happened in that semi-final and wasn't going to repeat that performance. I was just re-watching a bunch of Vito's matches this tournament using the stream with commentary, so I saw Fix's matches for the first time in the split screen. Holy hell, what a display of not wrestling those matches were. One after another. The only way Fix did not get worse this season is if he was just as disengaged last year.

Cornell (IMO, of course): Losing: 133 Vito! 174: Baker 197: Cardenas 285: Fernandes Replacing/coming in: 133 Ungar or Diakomihalis move up (not great for them), or incoming Ferrara (of course nobody can replace Vito) 174: incoming Simon Ruiz (who, as a greyshirt this year beat AA Lennox Wolak and lost to Rocco Welsh in OT) 197: Carlson or incoming Dellagatta 285: unknown (typical Cornell)

Bingo.

I'm guessing "Glory Be To God."

Six.

A slacker with only four bonus points.

The count is now up to three!

Good catch. It's a tie between KOT and someone else, it appears.

I *think* I know who it was with 7.5 bonus points, and he wasn't on the stage Saturday night. May or may not be a surprise to some.

Both Vito and Fix indicated in their post-final interviews that they'd be now focused on cutting down to 57kg for the OTT. (Someone asked Vito what he weighed at NCAAs. Vito: <looking around confusedly) "133?")

Nope: three time R12.

Shapiro scored only one fewer points than Yianni did last year. Vito scored two more than last year, so these two outscored Vito/Yianni from last year. Foca was 12 points lower, and Cardenas was 9 points higher this year.

Vito "only" majored his way through to the finals, and beat the undefeated #1, undefeated #2, and #3 seeds. How does that happen, and has it happened before? Brooks beat the #33, #17, #8, and #12 seeds on his way to the finals. (FWIW, this is the second NCAA tournament in which Vito beat two undefeated opponents)

Has it occurred to anyone else that that is the wrong strategy? You attack the healthy leg, because the injured leg isn't as effective at pushing off (presumably). Make the opponent need to use his injured body part.

There's a War On Christmas (TM); don't you watch Fox News?

And with that Iowa State drops Iowa to fifth in the team standings. Hawkeye Report must be on suicide watch.