fishbane

"Don’t even have me seeded," Starocci told reporters in State College on Wednesday. "Just have me wrestle every single kid in the bracket one by one and I’ll take them all out inside three days. That’s the same plan. I think it’s more enjoyable this way." If the brackets came out like that do you think he would have complained? Or would he have been stoked?

Only his 4th. One of those years at VT was 2020. No tournament

He was on the mat for 2 seconds in his second match. I'd prefer an injured returning national champ or AA in a bracket than the alternative which would be a wrestler ranked something like 29-34. The last man in is essentially replaceable from the fan/competition perspective. It is annoying when the guy doesn't wrestle at all and screws up the bracket, but an injured wrestler is an unknown. Was it Willie that last year had called out Killian Cardinale and being too injured to wrestle at NCAAs and then he went and made the podium?

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It looks like he is making steady progress. Was able to wrestle twice as long in his second match.

Zalesky isn't an elite coach today, but he was in 2006 and he elevated the program at Oregon State upon his arrival. He took them to a pair of top 10 finishes and won 7 PAC-12 titles in 14 seasons, which was 6 more than his predecessor managed in the same number of years. You're kind of splitting hairs, but only if it favors Brands. Iowa had fallen behind Minnesota and Ok St. - so it was the 3rd best program? And after Brands worked his magic it is now the 2nd best program? I can scarcely believe the turnaround. How did he ever manage to turn that ship around? It was headed aground for sure! The ability to take the 3rd best program and transform it into the 2nd best program really is the difference between an elite D1 coach and a D2 hack. Seriously, Iowa being the 2nd best program is really only true over the entire course of Brands's tenure. They have been firmly behind PSU from 2011 onward, but they were looking up at OSU from 2013-2017, Ohio State from 2015-2019, and Michigan more recently. For whatever reason when Iowa has fallen behind these teams under Brands Iowa fans are more likely to classify it as a natural downturn that all programs experience than a dangerous trend that requires change.

I agree, but it is closer than many think. Zalesky had a pretty good 9 year won and winning 3 titles probably gives you a job for life just about anywhere. If you look at the 26 season's since Gable's retirement during which there where 25 NCAA tournaments Zalesky's 9 year run at Iowa is probably the 5th best 9 year run and that's cherry picking the best 9 consecutive year period for each of the top coaches. That's not band and 3-5 is pretty darn close. To me the takeaway isn't to fire Brands, but that Zalesky probably didn't deserve to be run out of Iowa City like he was. You have tried to frame it like Zalesky had favorable timing and Brands did not, but I think that Brands had favorable timing too. He was an assistant at Iowa and left in 2004 ahead of a particularly good high school recruiting class for the state that was graduating in 2005. Of the top recruits in the state he got 3 out of 5 - Borschel (Brands/VT), LeClere (Brands/VT), Morningstar (Zalesky/Iowa), Mueller (Douglas/ISU), and Slaton (Brands/VT). Brands probably had eyes on the Iowa job and saw this as an opportunity to grab those recruits and jump start a program. Hurt Iowa/Zalesky and get him closer to his goal. Had Brands and Zalesky been on the same page Brands probably helps recruit those guys and Metcalf to Iowa City, as was his job before he left in 2004, and they all start enroll at Iowa in the fall of 2005. Iowa likely comes out of one of those natural down periods all programs goes into and wins the same titles in 2008-2010 that they did under Brands. Heck maybe they even win it in 2007 too, since 4 of them wouldn't have to sit out.

I don't know. Obviously mistakes were made and credit to Messenbrink for continuing to wrestle and put pressure on him. He did not do much after giving up the NF. It wasn't obvious on the broadcast, but in the arena he had a noticable limp leaving when leaving the mat. Not sure if that was a pre-existing injury (he had a big brace on the one leg) or it something was possibly overextended in that sequence. Maybe Pyles tweeted about his post match gait?

This is a bad take. I get that people are shitting on Bono and the team hasn't progressed as expected, but the Wisconsin staff deserves credit for Hamiti. He was not top 6 in college as a high school senior yet that's where he was as a true freshman. And he did this in the toughest weight class. There are three junior world champs in his weight this year and last year there were three former NCAA champs. It appears like he has made genuine strides this year. He was 24-1 going into Big Tens with the highest bonus rate of his career. His only loss was 2-0 to Carr, a junior world and NCAA champ that has only lost 5 matches in NCAA competition. Would a good coach have changed that results? I have my doubts. Possibly a great coach could have changed that. On Sunday Hamiti looked to have Messenbrink beat. This wasn't like his losses in years past to Marinelli, Griffith, and Amine where he wasn't able to generate any meaningful offense and after you'd question what his path to victory could be? He took Messenbrink down three times, reversed him, and at one point had over 1:00 of riding time advantage. Most of the points Messenbrink scored could be seen as lapses on Haiti's part. He should have been able to not give up that TD with 0:02 left in the second. Then when he got put on his back it looked more like Hamiti rolled to his back to fight the TD and Messenbrink held him there than Messenbrink actively putting him there. He's probably currently the #4 165 behind O'Toole, Carr, and Messenbrink and he could easily beat Messenbrink by just cleaning up what he did in Big Ten final. I don't think many coaches could get him past O'Toole and Carr.

If questions are being asked of the Brandses I don't think the gambling issues are something that could be used as extenuating circumstances to explain the poor performance like injuries. Gambling is indiscipline and more of a negative mark on them than something excusable. Zalesky was an elite coach in 2006. There were difficult questions about the team's performance in 2006 and I am sure there are some now along with questions about discipline (gambling, Ferrari, gun play, ect.). The difference is there is no easy answer like there was in 2006. If Brands had a few assistants that were world champs leave and start to out recruit him at smaller programs then there would be both problems and a ready solution. If the AD were to can Brands, Iowa would have an equally difficult question to address. Less risky to stick with them.

Could Minkel be lured from retirement?

Probably the best possible outcome for every team, PSU excepted. Gotta think he at least takes a call about it and that its his if he wants it. Koll went back to UNC. Scott left a head coach job to go back to OSU. Santoro took an interview at Pitt before they hired Gavin.

Cunningham?

The worst finishes for Iowa at Big Tens since 1967 are 2006 6th, Zalesky finished 4th at NCAAs 2005 4th, Zalesky finished 7th at NCAAs 2018 4th, Brands finished 3rd at NCAAs 2024 4th, Brands finished ?? at NCAAs No other Iowa team finished lower than 3rd from 1968-2024 a period that covers 57 years. Some might argue that the Big Ten is more competitive in 2018 and 2024 than 2005 and 2006. In 2005 the conference had 4 top 10 teams (Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana), in 2006 there were 4 (Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, and Penn State), and in 2018 there were 4 (Penn State, Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska). In 2018 the Big Ten had the top 4 teams in the country.

19 team points is the bare minimum a champion can score and the most possible by a 1 or 2 seed is 25. Carter Starocci in winning his two Big Ten titles scored 20 and 23 team points. If a healthy Starocci wrestled there is a good chance he wins the weight and since Shane Griffith forfeited the final he gets at least two bonus points from ostensibly his toughest match of the tournament. There is a good chance he alone could have added 23 team points this year. That would make PSU's total 193.5. It's really hard to count on more points from Van Ness. It's possible, but Kasak had a really good tournament. He scored 16.5 team points and finished 3rd with 2 falls/4 bonus points. Only 4 non-champs outscored him this year. Last year Van Ness finished 4th with 16.5 team points, but received an injury default for 2 bonus. Those are less likely this year with the rule change, but with the 3 point TD and the NF changes it's possible he scores more. It's hard to pick him to finish ahead of Lovett or Gomez and even if he doesn't he might not outscore Kasak unless he somehow won it, which wouldn't have been my pick. The more obvious points PSU left on the table was in the two finals they lost. Bartlett had defeated Mendez earlier this year and that was a close winnable match and Truax lost in SV. Losing a finals match is a 4 point swing. If those two win and Starocci wrestles they probably break 200. So there is a path to 200. Not sure how realistic it is. Just adding points like that kind of ignores that if we wrestled this tournament again it might be unlikely for Davis, Nagao, Kasak, and Messenbrink to repeat their performances. All exceeded expectations or needed things to break their way to some degree. For 5 of the 8 years in my table (1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1992) the Big Ten had 10 teams, for 2 (1995 and 2002) it had 11 (Penn State joined) and for 1 (2024) it had 14 (Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers joined). The Big Ten was definitely weaker in 1983 when Iowa scored 200 points, but that team was also really really good. Iowa won NCAAs with 155 team points, 4 champs, and 9 AAs. The weak link was true freshman Rico Chiapparelli who lost in the R12, but would later go on to AA 3x and win NCAAs. They were over 50 points better than 2nd place OSU. That said no other Big Ten team was in the top 10. If you look at teams that would later join the Big Ten, Nebraska was 6th with 3 AAs and PSU was 7th with 3AAs. Rutgers had 1 AA and UMD had 0. If those teams (Maryland, Nebraska, Penn State and Rutgers) had been in the Big Ten in 1983 I don't know that it changes Iowa's point total much. Iowa's wrestlers outplaced them at NCAAs except for 142 and 167. At 142 Nebraska's Al Freeman lost in the final and Iowa's Harlan Kistler finished 3rd. They wrestled in the semi's with Freeman winning. Kistler was Big Ten champ. At 167 Rico Chiapparelli was Iowa's only wrestler to not win Big Tens. He was unseeded at NCAAs and DNP making the quarterfinals before losing in the R12. Penn State had Eric Brugel who was also unseeded and also lost in the R12. Nebraska had Ray Oliver who was seeded 4th and finished 4th, two spots better than the Big Ten Champ. With the additional teams 1983 Iowa maybe scores closer to 190 points, but it's possible they score more points if it was rescored with todays rules. Bonus points are twice as valuable today (Falls worth 2 vs 1, MDs worth 1 vs 0.5) and the extra teams could have provided more opportunity for bonus and advancement points. Plus the 3 point TD and NF changes makes it easier to get bonus. It's a similar assessment for the 1985 team. Iowa won NCAAs with 142.25 team points, 2 champs, and 9 AAs. Only their heavyweight Steve Wilbur DNP, but he was unfortunate to be unseeded and drawn against the 5 seed in the first round. He lost and the rules at the time did not allow him to wrestle back. Michigan (5th) was the only Big Ten team in the top 10 at NCAAs. Out of the future additions only Penn State was in the top ten (7th) with 3 AAs. The trio of Maryland, Nebraska, and Rutgers failed to produce even a single AA. Iowa's wrestlers outplaced all wrestlers from the 4 future schools except at UNL where Wilbur lost in the first round after finishing 3rd at Big Tens. PSU's Steve Sefter, a returning AA from 1981, was the 10 seed and finished 4th. Nebraska had the 3rd seed at this weight, Gary Albright, who lost in the NCAA final in 1984. He did not place in 1985 losing to Sefter in the 2nd round before getting pinned in the consolations. To me the record is the record. It's black and white. It would be like asking what was the most points scored in an NFL game. There is an answer and there can be all kinds of caveats about rule changes and evolution of the game, but I don't think anyone cares that much for the answer to that question. It might not answer what is the best team of all time?, but it answers the question. That said I would like if it full brackets were available for the 1980s and 90s to rescore them with todays scoring scheme since treatment of advancement, placement, and bonus points has changed significantly over time and it would make it more apples to apples. If individual bout scoring were available one could rescore for some of the difference in TD points and NF as well, but I'd question the relevance of that in many instances as it would change the bout from what was wrestled.

There has been much talk about this years PSU team being one of the best in NCAA history and their potential to challenge the all-time NCAA scoring record. I was curious how their conference performance stacked up. Below are the top scoring teams in the history of the Big Ten Wrestling championships 1. 1983 Iowa 200 (9 champs, 1-4th) 2. 1985 Iowa 195.5 (8 champs, 1-2nd, 1-3rd) 3. 1992 Iowa 185 (6 champs, 3-2nd, 1-3rd) 3. 1995 Iowa 185 (6 champs, 1-2nd, 1-3rd, 1-4th., 1-5th) 5. 1984 Iowa 175.75 (7 champs, 2-2nd) 6. 2002 Minnesota 174 (5 champs, 2-2nd, 2-3rd, 1-5th) 7. 2022 PSU 170.5 (5 champs, 2-2nd, 2-3rd) 8. 1986 Iowa 169.75 (7 champs, 1-2nd) 1983 Iowa was the only team to over double the score of the second place team. 2nd place MSU could only muster 81.5 points that year.

It's an interesting question. The NLRA act which creates unions doesn't have a clear definition of employee, but courts have used the common law test to assess whether a worker is an employee. The NLRA does not apply to government or railway employers/employees, so there likely isn't really a pathway for the Dartmouth ruling to reach most of the Power 5 conference schools which are state institutions. If they could argue that the NCAA is the employer then that might be a work around, but I suspect the relevant legal tests would favor the institution being the employer. There is only one private institution in the SEC (Vanderbilt), one in the Big Ten (Northwestern) though Penn State likely would also be subject to the NLRA as well, two in the PAC-12 (Stanford and USC), three in the Big 12 (Baylor, BYU, and TCU), six in the ACC (Boston College, Duke, Miami, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, and Syracuse) though Pitt would likely be subject to the NLRA too. So at most 15 Power 5 schools would be in danger of their athletes unionizing.

Your timeline is not only in accurate it also misses the most important thing - the money. The NCAA did not allow this to happen they fought it for years spending millions on legal costs. At some point it became inevitable and the biggest thing NCAA and it's member schools did to bring it about was to start selling tickets and broadcast rights for millions/billions of dollars. A year or so ago MLS signed an exclusive broadcast rights deal with AppleTV. That deal pays $2.5 million over 12 years. I am sure MLS owners would love to be able to compensate the players only with room and board, some books, and classes unrelated to the players profession in exchange for them playing said games. That's not how it works though. The SEC recently sold their TV rights to ESPN in a 10 year deal valued at $3 billion. The idea they could do that and not share the money in any meaningful way with the people actually playing the games is absurd.

I reckon if the debate team unionized and threatened to stop debating until they reached a CBA with the school that would result in very little negotiating leverage. Probably less than the Dartmouth BB union. On the other hand if the football team at school in an FBS power 5 conference were to unionize and threaten to not play until a CBA is reached they would have significant leverage. The school would potentially be missing out on tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue if those games are not played. The bargaining power would be directly proportional to the revenue the school derives from the activity. Trying to compare a debate team or whatever to Dartmouth basketball might kind of work, but it completely falls flat against the economics of FBS football and big time college basketball. Where are these other non-athletic college activities that generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue?

This is true in general, but I don't think the gambling punishment qualifies as shenanigans. I also don't think a union changes the punishments of the Iowa/ISU players in any substantive way. All major North American professional sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS) have unions and prohibitions on gambling. There is often very little room for appeal when it comes to these kinds of violations. For example the NBA’s constitution and bylaws give broad authority to the league commissioner to punish any player who “directly or indirectly, wagers money or anything of value on the outcome of any game played by a team in the league operated by the Association.” After the accused has had a chance to answer the charges, “the decision of the Commissioner shall be final, binding and conclusive and unappealable.”

They are non-profits they're supposed to spend what they take in. It's a feature of the system. There is no incentive to maximize the surplus (what would be profit) since there are no owners to reap the reward. If the top 25 FBS football programs were forced to pay 50% of revenue to the players (like what the NBA does) the only reason it seems like it would cause them to go 50% into the red is because they are currently spending money like they don't have to pay the players anything. This has inflated spending on facilities and the salaries of coaches and administrators. Spending on facilities in many ways was a proxy for paying players. You cannot attract a top recruit by paying them $$ so you spend the money on facilities and use that to attract them. Compare the facilities at the FBS top 25 with AAA baseball, AHL Hockey, NBA G League, or the CFL. Compare the salaries of the coaches at these institutions with minor league sports managers in these leagues... Or compare them with top level pro managers. Nick Saban's annual salary would be top in either MLB or NHL and top 5 in the NBA. I mean this is far afield of the Dartmouth Basketball union which I don't think will be negotiating $$ in their first CBA since there is essentially is no revenue there to split. But supposing the SEC or Big Ten football players unionized collectively bargaining with its member institutions. I imagine an initial CBA with an SEC players union would be far less than a 50/50 split because of contractual obligations for inflated coach/administrator salaries and capital expenditures being on the books. A now realistic threat of the union not playing would probably result in an offer more than $0 with an annual ramp up throughout the term of the CBA. This would allow the institutions to adjust from spending 100% of revenue to something less. If teams in the conference falling into the red and not being able to compete is an issue that is largely a solved problem. The NBA's revenue sharing system not only splits revenue 50/50 between players and owners it also features a revenue sharing component where the top 1/3 or so of teams in revenue share revenue with the others. This ensures the rich big market teams have competitive opponents in smaller markets. In the NBA this might be the Warriors, Lakers, Bulls, Heat, 76ers, Celtics ect paying into a fund that is distributed to the likes of the Bucks, OKC, New Orleans, ect. In the SEC it would be Alabama. Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Texas A&M, paying to teams like Vanderbilt Arkansas, Mississippi State. Professional leagues have been paying their players for decades and decades and figured all of this stuff out.

Top FBS football programs like the University of Alabama have football revenue in excess of $100 million. I am sure they would prefer to not have to share a fair portion of that with the football players and that the ability of the football players to force them to share it would be increased if they were allowed to unionize and bargain as a unit. If a university such as Alabama isn't making money on D1 football it is because they are spending that $100MM on coaches salaries, administration, facilities, and other loss leading sports. They certainly could pay the players some portion of that revenue and be profitable. Coach's salaries would take a hit, facilities might take a backseat to players wages, non-revenue sports might have their budget reduced. This is exactly how it should be. Major professional sports leagues such as the NBA pay players about 50% of revenue. What percent of the football revenue at Michigan, Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, ect is shared with the players?

I don't mind them getting derailed or talking about non wrestling things that actually exist like bad St. Louis pizza, but I cannot deal with the cryptozoology discussion. That is total nonsense. I was glad when Bratke left and that crap came to an end.

I didn't take it that way. I thought it was to focus on AWA coaching. I think Askren has said on FRL that he would kind of be screwing his brother over if he moved to take a college coaching gig and that he values living so close to his parents and his brother's family. I think Wisconsin would be the most attractive college position for him. He said he was offered a job at Missouri and turned it down for those reasons. That said I think he'd like to see if he could knock off Cael and PSU and he's said something to that effect on FRL in the past. Perhaps is a really big job with a bunch of resources (Iowa, OSU, something like that) came along and offered him whatever he needed he would take it.

Chittum hit the Walls of Jericho in a dual against UNI over the weekend. Looked like he was about to put a hurting son Ryder Downey when the ref abruptly put a stop to the action. You'll have to find part 2 to see if it was because Downey tapped out or some other reason.