fishbane

Is Micic not eligible?

It's still pretty bad. This isn't like when Sanderson/PSU recruited Nick Nevills over an already committed Thomas Haines. That happened before either had entered their senior year of high school. It isn't even comparable to when Max Dean transferred in to displace returning AA Michael Beard. That was announced in May after the season. Here a guy was brought in at a cost of $500k to replace a top 10 returning senior the day before classes start. It's crazy. You're all but stuck in that situation. In a week you have to apply, get accepted, figure out financial aid, enroll, and move across the country. He might have to break a lease and be on the hook for rent back in Iowa. I'm sure the 5 heading out of Iowa weren't seeing much of the benefits of more money, more control, or more choice last week. Options were likely limited and it may have cost them thousands of dollars to pull off their moves.

Maybe it wasn't at the time, but today I'd think it would be a pretty questionable stalling call on Abas. Abas was called for stalling 9s after the restart. Abas really only takes about two steps back and is then circling and defending McIlravy's constant attacks. Seems harsh. Overall I'd say the official was too involved in the third period of that match. The earlier stall warning was pretty harsh to and then he was quick on a couple potential dangerous brakes that benefited McIlravy that didn't look that dangerous. The stall call was the difference in the match as Abas had riding time and it would have gone to SV. Compare that stall call to what Figueroa had to do to get called for stalling in the NCAA finals this year. No way would this 2024 ref had made either of the stall calls against Abas. https://youtu.be/FFIEb2jb2Xc?si=xYS5YoQaAX3aa5sZ&t=720

Would you have thought the same thing if we were discussing Jessie Whitmer after his redshirt junior year entering his 5th year?

If Jessie Whitmer were a rising 5th year in 2024 instead of 1996...

I agree. Holding a kid back for academic reasons means the kid learns stuff they didn't learn the first time. The 8th grade hold back for wrestling reasons seems counter productive if the goal is to make him/her a better wrestler. Where will a kid get better over the next year? In high school practicing and competing with 14-19 year olds or repeating 8th grade and likely not wrestling competitively Nov-March.

It's in a weird place right now. A coach has to recruit an athlete but all he can offer is a scholarship then some other dude unaffiliated with the university contacts the potential recruit and offers to pay him a large sum of money to move to the city the college is in and do some token amount of work. If I were the coach or the general manager of a pro sports team operating in this way I'd find it completely untenable. You have little control over whether these monies actually get paid or to whom. I mean so long as the boosters like you there is probably some amount of cooperation, but if they lose faith or don't like you then you could end up like Joe Biden. Moreover if there is some economic downturn for the business of the booster on the hook for an NIL deal they might seek to get out of it. If it were an ad for a car dealership at market rate for a shoe deal with Nike/Adidas/ect. it's less of a concern because the business will receive economic benefit commensurate with the value of the deal. However imagine there is a booster rich from real estate investment that lives states away from Iowa and is paying wrestlers to transfer to Iowa and his business takes a downturn. Cuts need to be made. Is he going to follow through with a $1MM in payments to a couple of 1 year rentals when it provides no meaningful economic benefit to this struggling business? Hopefully the lawsuit settlement that allows for up to 30 scholarships and schools to pay players directly will transfer some of the NIL collective dollars back to the school so the coaches and administrators have more control.

I don't know that it's a business. Business are operated to turn a profit. I'd be very surprised if the revenue generated by the team plus the economic benefit provided by the wrestlers with NIL deals exceeds NIL payments and team expenses. If it were operating as a business that shouldn't happen. It would even be unsustainable at a normal non-profit corporation. It works for certain NCAA programs because boosters/hanger-on treat the team like their play thing. This issue is also seen in for-profit pro sports when a rich person buys a team and treats them as a toy spending far in excess of revenue and subsidizing team expenditures with their personal fortune. This issues are mitigated in virtually every major pro league across the world via financial fair play rules. These either set a salary cap or penalties for excessive spending like a luxury tax that is distributed to other teams to help with competitive balance, or penalties like post season bans and/or points deductions. If NIL payments becomes an issue for competitive balance maybe a soft cap would be appropriate. Look at the NIL monies spent at all programs and determine a limit. It could be a flat limit or tied to a teams revenue. If a team exceed the limit then there will be a points deduction at the NCAA tournament based on how much they have exceeded the limit.

Before that PSU had 4x PA Champ Thomas Haines committed to come to Happy Valley before he got recruited over for Nevills. Thomas Haines recommitted ended up going to Ohio State. He transferred mid season in 2015-16 to Lock Haven after Kyle Snyder announced he was pulling his redshirt and going up to 285. PSUs recruiting over Haines received some criticism at the time. Haines was #9 on the 2014 Big Board and Nevilles was #5. Haines was a PA guy going to his state's university and Nevilles was from the other side of the country and though he had beaten Haines was seen as a marginal improvement. Ultimately Nevilles had a much better career and proved to be the better choice. Snyder who displaced Haines at Ohio State was #1 in the class of 2014. A wrestler being displaced by an incoming freshman or beaten out by teammate is something that's happened time and time again. Paying a 6th year senior $500 large to displace your 6th year senior is something new.

I mean it will but it might not be in the way you desire. People may stop using the site or start using adblock. Made the mistake of visiting from chrome on a mobile device without adblock and got the tapatalk/browser question cover by an ad that WKN mentioned last week. Prevented the selection of either option and the site was greyed out and unusable until a selection was made.

I mean this probably has happened before - coach wrestling athlete in competition. Back before the proliferation of RTCs and resident athletes many post grads attempting to make world/Olympic teams were assistant coaches. Alan Fried wrestled John Smith at the senior level when he was in high school. He was definitely at OSU when Smith was still competing and at first an assistant and then later head coach. Fried wasn't one of the favorites for the spot and I think Smith being there was a selling point at the time. Gilman and Fix wrestled a best of three for a world team spot in 2018. Here is the FRL section discussion Gilman - https://www.youtube.com/live/35Zuq6ej_g4?si=LLJwrOCzUzT_fwYJ&t=2155 Not retired? https://x.com/rader_jd/status/1829141549705507276/photo/1

Which challenge? Coaching Fix to a world team berth or trying to make that world team himself?

There are probably fewer in the US than other countries, but there is also a selection bias since the lightest weight class in college competition is 125. Being forced to compete at 125 pushes out the really small guys. I think wherever they put the lightest weight the best guys will be cutting a lot of weight 48, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, or 60kg it doesn't matter. Entries at the last two World Championships 2022, 2023, total. Entries at 57kg seems to be as high or higher than 97 and 125 KG. 57: 31, 33, 64 61: 24, 27, 51 65: 27, 45, 72 70: 28, 30, 58 74: 34, 45, 80 79: 32, 27, 59 86: 30, 48, 78 92: 23, 24, 47 97: 23, 35, 58 125: 24, 33, 57

Sanderson was younger when he tried it than Taylor is now.

I'm sure of that, but this is a little different because Gilman is a coach. I know Cael unretired at PSU, but it's not like he wrestled Quentin Wright at the Trials whilst trying to coach Wright onto the team. Or even if they had wreslted Quentin Wright would have been a pretty long shot to make the spot. Fix is among the favorites and a former world medalist at 61kg. Similarly, Varner may have been a NLWC coach when he unretired and tried to make the team ahead of the 2016 Olympics, but I don't think there were any strong contenders for that spot at NLWC at the time. Snyder was still in college at Ohio State at the time.

On FRL they discussed some tweet or social media post by Gilman questioning his retirement and whether it means he willl wrestle 61kg at the trials. JD mentioned the possibility of "someone else" at OSU doing this too seeming to acknowledge the Basch rumour, but no one on the show commented on it and the stuck to discussing Gilman. Wouldn't it be askward if Fix and Gilman wrestled at the trials?

I don't really agree with this. I follow what people are trying to say, but I think it cherry picks the data by removing wrestlers like Lawson, Kerkvliet and Mesenbrink from the analysis and turns a more general point into a PSU point. There is a selection bias to the transfers that go to big schools like PSU, Iowa, and Michigan. They are mostly not top 20 guys out of high school that made significant improvement in college and are transferring at a high point. The improvement left to make is the most difficult and there is plenty of room to go down. Still they get better on average Which school has done better with transfers? PSU: Sanderson, Long, Lawson, Cortez, Kuhn, Conel, Kerkvliet, Dean, Hildebrandt, Mesenbrink, Nagao, Truax. 11AAs, 2 Titles, 6 years of eligibility remaining at PSU Iowa: Lugo, DeSanto, Eierman, Teske, Swafford, Woods, Franek, Caliendo, Voinovich, Parco, Teemer, Buchanan, Joey Cruz 9AAs, 0 titles, 10 years of eligibility remaining at Iowa. OSU: Caldwell, White, Smith, Geer, Young, Spratley, Jamison, Olejnik, Amine, Fish, Hamiti, Hendrickson 7 AAs, 0 titles, 12 years of eligibility remaining at OSU. Michigan: Micic, Storr, Finesilver, Brucki, Suriano, Davison, Cannon, DeAugustino, Griffith, Saldate, Cardenas 6AAs, 1 title, 4 years of eligibility remaining at Michigan Bold= transferred after AA placement at previous institution Italic = transferred after national title at previous institution

That was their starting lineup at the start of the season. Those were the first 2 duals. Swafford was the starting 184. They overlooked him in handing out suspensions, maybe prosecutors didn't realize he was on the team or something since he was a backup last year, but he wrestled in the first two duals of the year and the Luther open, before Iowa wrestled Gabe Arnold up at 184 for the ISU dual. Then the error got corrected and he was out. Gabe Arnold's redshirt was never pulled so you can't really say he was the starter. Voinovich was also first choice to start the season. He wrestled in the first 4 duals including the ISU dual. Gotta think Iowa was trying to put their best lineup out there. Ultimately Rathjen beat him at the Salute, but he still wrestled in 7 duals. Do you know of another example of a two 5 team using 6 or more transfer wrestlers in a dual?

Iowa used this lineup for two duals last season. The topic says field a team and doesn't mention postseason. Swafford received an overlooked gambling ban and Voinovich lost his spot to Rathjen. 133 Brody Teske 141 Real Woods 149 Victor Voinovich 157 Jared Franek 165 Michael Caliendo 184 Brennan Swafford

No idear. Maybe Fish or Amine at 157 was what they had in mind. Seven transfers would be one more than Iowa fielded last year. Not sure if that makes for a top 5 team. Probably close.

On FRL today CP said OSU could have 7 transfers starting. Looking at wrestlestat this is what I pout together. I see 6 transfers starting. Who am I missing? 125: Spratley 133: Hughes/Witcraft 141: Jamison 149: Young 157: Travis 165: Amine/Fish 174: Hamiti 184: Plott 197: Surber 285: Hendrickson

I said more bonus points not total team points. He of course got more placement points in 2021-2023. The difference in placement points between 4th and 5th is 2, which will put him at a disadvantage in team point scoring in 2024 vs 2021-23. It's a full pinfall he needs to make up from placement points. All 4 years he either lost in the quarterfinals or the semifinals. From an advancement point perspective it is the same number of placement points (3) to the consi-semis 2 via either path. When losing in the semis it's 3 advancement points in the championship bracket. When losing in the quarters it's 2 in the championship and 1 in the consis, which comes from two consolation matches. He lost in the semis in 2021 and 2022 and the quarters in 2023 and 2024. Of course winning in the consi-semis 2 gives him an extra 0.5 advancement so losing to the 3rd place finisher a round earlier in 2024 cost Truax 0.5 advancement and 2 placement points. Truax would need to make up a 2.5 point deficit in bonus to score more total points. In 2021 he score 1.5 bonus points, 2022 0 bonus points, 2023 1 bonus point, and 2024 2.5 bonus points. He had 1 more match in 2023 and 2024 when he lost in the quarters, but didn't score bonus points in either R12 match. As you pointed out he had the benefit of the 3 point TD in 2024 which gave him an advantage over other years.

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How so? He was 4th at Cal Poly in 2023 and 5th at PSU in 2024. In 2023 he lost to the 2nd place finisher Tanner Sloan and the 3rd place finisher Rocky Elam. In 2024 he lost to the 2nd place finisher Dustin Plott and the 3rd place finisher Trey Munoz. There is no wrestle off between 4th and 5th at NCAAs. So there is nothing to distinguish the placements. He also scored more bonus points at NCAAs in 2024 than in 2023 or 2022 or 2021 when he finished 4th. He had also lost to Trey Munoz back in 2022 whilst at Cal Poly. What makes it objectively worse? Because the brackets were configured a little different and he wrestled the 3rd place finisher earlier? I don't see it. Truax also changed weights when the transferred to PSU. I'd have to think if 184 was his best weight he would have been there in 2023 at Cal Poly. I'm sure the goal was to win an individual national title at PSU, but he also won a team title and to be part of that had to be at 184. Sanderson didn't go from 7th to 6th he went 7th (ISU)->DNP (ISU)->6th (PSU). If he had been 7th the year before transferring to PSU it would be inconsistent, but that's not what happened. Long went from 2nd to 3rd and that's similar to 4th/5th with Truax there is no wrestle off for true second at NCAAs. Moreover the NCAA placement was the only thing that was worse between those seasons. 2010 ISU: 27-7, 2nd Big 12s, 2nd NCAAs at 125 2011 PSU: 20-2, 1st Big Tens, 3rd NCAAs at 133 So he had a better regular season record, won a conference title and was 1 spot worse at NCAAs all at a higher weight. He also scored more team points at NCAAs in 2011 than in 2010. In my opinion there is a better case for him being improved in 2011 than worse.

My mistake. I stand corrected he has teched the exact same number of wrestlers still enrolled in high school as Max Dean.