AuntAnnie

I don’t know why I find this interesting, but I do. Watch the World Cup—the one for soccer— I glanced at tables of top teams in the world. Only three nations are in the top 20 of the soccer rankings AND made the top 20 in the recent world freestyle wrestling championship. Those nations are Iran, Italy and the USA. Iran and the US are near the top of the Top 20 in wrestling, and near the bottom of the Top 20 in soccer, with Iran at the very bottom. Italy is near the top in soccer, but near the bottom of the top 20 in wrestling. And— mamma mia!—it did not even make the soccer World Cup. Of the three, only the USA has made the knockout round of the soccer world cup. I can only conclude from all this that the USA is the greatest nation on Earth.

And how many times did Taylor lose to the NY guy from my school.

Dake’s senior year (2013), 165 had 4 titles with 2 more to come, split between Dake and Taylor. It also had a former finalist (Caldwell) who would make the finals again the next season. I would say that winning 165 that year was much harder than this year. Also, the top of the field was harder even if there were just two former champs that year as opposed to three this year.

I am for Messi, though he lost his first game of the World Cup, and I am for Yianni, though he lost his first match of the season. Losing one match does not mean he won’t win the NCAA tournament. In the last two full seasons (2018-18 and 2018-2019) just six of 20 champs went undefeated. Eight of the 20 champs had two losses or more. (Even Yianni took a loss one year.) 2018 2019 Champ Losses Champ Losses Lee 2 Lee 3 Gross 1 Suriano 3 Diakomihalis 1 Diakomihalis 0 Retherford 0 Ashnault 0 Nolf 1 Nolf 0 Joseph 2 Lewis 2 Valencia 0 Valenca 2 Nickal 0 Foster 5 Macchiavell o 3 Nickal 0 Snyder 1 Cassar 1 While all the previous four-time champs went undefeated as seniors, many three-time champs took losses in their final championship season. Of the last 20 three-timers, seven had losses in their year they won their third title. Champ College Year Losses Carr Iowa State 1983 1 Schultz Oklahoma 1983 0 Zalesky Iowa 1984 0 Davis Iowa 1985 1 Bonomo Bloomsburg 1987 2 Brands Iowa 1992 1 Jaworsky North Carolina 1995 0 McIlravy Iowa 1997 0 Williams Iowa 1998 0 Guerrero Oklahoma State 1999 0 Abas Fresno State 2002 0 Jones West Virginia 2005 0 Rosholt Oklahoma State 2006 4 Ruth Penn State 2014 1 Cox Missouri 2017 0 Dieringer Oklahoma State 2016 0 Snyder Ohio State 2018 1 Retherford Penn State 2018 0 Nolf Penn State 2019 0 Nickal Penn State 2019 0 So an early loss is hardly the kiss of death.