fishbane

The version I found said the match was in 1991. He also said this was a 45-minute match and that he had scored the first 4 points. 50 points over 45 minutes is only 1.11 points per minute of wrestling. That is assuming a flat consistent rate of scoring. That probably wasn't the case. Perhaps Gable wore Lewis down over the 45 minutes and scored more at the end of the time than the early stages. Or perhaps being in his 40s, Gable's pace slowed in the later stages and most of the points were scored early. In any case I think a 6-minute match could be on a knife edge vs a 50-4 blowout. This was also 3 years removed and a weight up from the Lewis-Smith best of three for the 1988 Olympic team spot. The former world champion he beat in 1991, Budaev, only represented Russia once at the world championships. It was the year refereced (1989) when Fadzaev bumped up and lost in the final to Monday. Budaev would have been 34 years old in 1991.

The version I found said the match was in 1991. He also said this was a 45-minute match and that he had scored the first 4 points. 54 points over 45 minutes is only 1.2 points per minute of wrestling. That is assuming a flat consistent rate of scoring. That probably wasn't the case. Perhaps Gable wore Lewis down over the 45 minutes and scored more at the end of the time than the early stages. Or perhaps being in his 40s, Gable's pace slowed in the later stages and most of the points were scored early. In any case I think a 6-minute match could be on a knife edge vs a 54-4 blowout. This was also 3 years removed and a weight up from the Lewis-Smith best of three for the 1988 Olympic team spot. The former world champion he beat in 1991, Budaev, only represented Russia once at the world championships. It was the year refereced (1989) when Fadzaev bumped up and lost in the final to Monday. Budaev would have been 34 years old in 1991.

I wouldn't think Gable could get the better of Smith back when Smith was winning world/Olympic titles. Before the 2004 Olympics Jamill Kelly said he beat John Smith in a match in the room. Maybe Gable could get the better of a 2004-present John Smith. "Does John Smith still wrestle with the guys in practice? Does he go live at all? Kelly: When I first got to school there, he wrestled with us a lot. He'll drill with the guys occasionally. The last time me and him wrestled was when I made the Olympic team. He kind of called me out, so we hooked it up a little bit. How did that go? Kelly: Um … I won. He probably won't admit to it. But, you know, I won. He was good at really getting the intensity out of me sometimes. You get with the guys in practice, a lot of them, you get to kind of have your way with them, and you know exactly what they're going to do. So, sometimes he would go with me, just because he knew how he could bring another level out of me. He came up to me, just a random day at practice, and was like, 'I know that I could have made the (Olympic) team in 96 and 2000. Now I'm going to see if I could have made the team in 2004. I kind of looked at him like, 'I can't believe you just said that to me.' But he knew that would get kind of a rise out of me and bring my intensity level up. Just little things like that, I think is what makes him a great coach. He knows how to bring that out in each individual."

The change in pins from 2008-2015 to 2016-2021 was not really statistically significant. The t statistic for MDs and TFs was over 3.5. For PFs it was ~<1 so we can't really conclude anything changed with respect to pins from the data available. Being able to score 7 points from a TD to NF is kind of crazy. Imagine a 1 point match late where the trailing wrestler throws sends it trying to win the match and gets taken down to his back. It could go from 1 stall call away from OT to a MD real quick. 1 scoring action really.

Brennan Swafford (174) is a transfer and has started in duals for the Hawkeyes before.

Definitely not tainted nor do I think there should be a footnote next to records. This is not typically how these things are handled in other sports. When the NFL added the two point conversion did they add a footnote next to scoring records? Does the NBA put an asterisk next to point totals from the 3 point era? I don't think they do and I don't think wrestling should group scoring records pre 3 point TD and post 3 point TD. I think it should be used to add context goat debates. Say comparing Cael Sanderson's career to that of Zain Retherford, Jason Nolf, Bo Nickal, Yianni Diakomihalis, Spencer Lee, Aaron Brooks, Carter Starocci, Keegan O'Toole ect this should be taken into account. All these guys wrestled in the 4 point NF era where bonus points are easier to come by. This should be taken into account when comparing bonus rates across eras. Look at bonus point rate compared to the average NCAA qualifier or something like that. It would be kind of like how WAR in baseball adjusts the replacement level player based on performance in the league that year. How this might be done on a team scale could be illustrated by looking at Penn State. The top three teams in PSU history were the National title winning 2017 squad, the national title winning 2018 squad, and this years national title winning team. No major team scoring changes were made between 2017 and 2023 nor were there any major changes to bout scoring. In 2017 the team scored 146.5 Team points at NCAAs, in 2018 the team scored 141.5, and this year they scored 137.5. Looking at the absolute number it would seam 2017>2018>2023, but looking at WKN's table of bonus point victories at NCAAs 2017 and 2018 were the highest scoring years in the 15 year period with 306.5 and 292 respectively. Meanwhile this season was one of the tournaments with the fewest bonus points scored, only 225.5. In the context of scoring so many team points in a tournament where team points were more difficult to obtain 137.5 might be more impressive than 146.5 or 141.5. Perhaps looking at PSU's scoring in comparison to the total team points awarded at the tournament would prove more useful. In years where a large skill variance in the competitors making MDs, TFs, and PFs easier to come by this would be reflected in the total bonus points scored over all matches. Similarly if a rule change made smaller skill differences translate into larger point differences, thus making bonus points more common it would be reflected in the totals as well.

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Before 2015-2016 2 points were awarded for a NF between 2 and 4 seconds and 3 points for a NF of 5 seconds or more. It was then changed to 2 points for a NF of 2-3 seconds and 4 points for 4 seconds or more. If we compare the period 2008-2015 (before the 4 point NF) with 2016-2021 (after the 4 point NF and before extra the free year) the # of TF increased from 12.8 to 27.2 per tournament. That is an increase of 112.5%. This increase came from turning MDs into NFs, but also from turning PFs into TFs. Pinfalls fell from an average of 71.6/tournament before the rule change to 67 after. This was a decrease of 6.4%. I suspect the effect of the rules scheduled for next season to be more significant than those back 2015-2016. The 4 point NF turned all 3 point NFs into 4 point NFs (an increase of 33%) and some 2 point NFs (over 4s and < 5s) into 4 points NFs an increase of 100%. The changes for next season not only increase some 2 point NFs into 3 points NFs but increase TDs, which are much more common, by 50%.

Probably just optimists hoping for an interesting team race. PSU has to be one of the biggest favorites in history next season. Eight wrestlers are preseason top 3. Has that ever happened before?

Jaydin Eierman didn't even score 2 points at NCAAs in 2022.

This could see Iowa start a lineup with 7 transfers. What is the most transfers a team has matted for a dual?

I added margin of victory in the team race to your table. With the expanded range there is no correlation between a tight team race and # of mnatches with bonus points. There are likely factors confounding that conclusion - the change of the 4 point NF, COVID, ect. If I only fit to the data 2008-2015 (before COVID and before the 4 point NF) there does appear to be a weak correlation (r=0.5-0.6) and it's notable that the three closest team races 2009, 2013, and 2014 produced the bonus point victories. A weak correlation makes sense because the team race only ever comes down to 2-3 maybe 4 teams, and whilst title contending teams have more wresters in the tournament that wrestle more matches its still only at most 40 out of 330 wrestlers with a material interest in the team race. I had initially proposed margin of victory as influencing things because 2023 was the only true outlier in the first table and last year had been the least competitive team race in decades. With the new expanded table it seems somewhat likely to me that two things had significant influence on the numbers. The first was the 4 point near fall rule. Since it's implementation in 2015-2016 bonus point victories were up in the next 5 year period. What's interesting is that while there was an increase in both TF and MD there was also a decrease in pinfalls. The top 5 years for pinfalls were all before the rule changed and there were 4-5 more pinfalls on average in the 8 years before change than the 5 immediately after the change. The other thing that influencing the numbers happened in the past two years. I think this could be the influence of the 6th year, but I'm open to other explanations. I'd expect the 3 point TD to 1) increase # of MD, 2) increase # of TF, 3) decrease # of PF, 4) increase total matches where bonus points are scored, 5) increase total bonus points scored.

Don't start following the international styles. I hear there is such a thing as a zero point loss...

Which year was the Iowa/OSU debacle? 2023 at Iowa BTN televised 2022 Bout at the Ballpark Flo streams - I only recall minor issues 2021 No Dual - COVID conference only schedule 2020 At Iowa BTN televised 2019 This was a massive dual. Both entered undefeated ranked 2 and 3 behind an undefeated PSU. It was the last dual of the season for both teams and was won by OSU. Picc pinned Spencer Lee. I recall minor issues watching this but not a total meltdown. Was this the year? 2018 At Iowa BTN televised. 2017 This was a pretty massive dual too. OSU was ranked #1 and Iowa #3. I don't recall watching this one. If I did I am sure there were issues with the stream freezing that caused me to reload and such. 2016 Grapple on the Gridiron. This was actually the first dual of the season and was actually wrestled Now 2015. It was at Iowa and on BTN.The total meltdown I remember was the 2017 Season Finale between OSU and PSU at Gallagher-Iba. 2015?

They should compromise and set TDs at 2.5 points. 3 is too much.

The 4 point NF rule was enacted for the 2015-2016 season and it looks like there is a clear increase in bonus points following that. 2016 there were more bonus point victories than in the previous 8 season and over the next 5 years bonus point wins were even higher. Every year 2016-2021 was higher than the highest year 2008-2015. The last two years seem to be real outliers. They had the fewest bonus point victories of the 15 in the table. Maybe this is a COVID effect. You have wrestlers sticking around for extra years starting in 2022, but the same number of qualifiers. The guys that stuck around are generally better than average wrestlers which probably pulled up the ability of the average wrestler at the national tournament. So the 33rd best wrestling in the field in 2022 and 2023 are likely better than the 33rd best wrestler in field in 2012. This could possibly make for more competitive matches than we had been used to seeing. What year did they change to at large selections and using in-season results to select qualifiers?

I can't think of a time when I saw a wrestler at NCAAs trying a catch and release strategy to try and chase down a TF/MD. I think this is almost exclusively a feature of dual meets where a bonus point is more significant in deciding the outcome and the team goal is at the forefront. I would suspect you'd see it more there. At NCAAs I would think there would be a bigger effect on MD numbers than FTs. A three point match is now almost on a knife edge between OT and a MD. 2023 was the least competitive team race in the range of years in your table. I'd expect a tight team race to increase the importance of bonus points and turn some of those MDs into FTs. I added a column to your table with margin of victory in the team race. There is a weak correlation

You either signed up for some other sport/vertical in a partner deal, you are grandfathered into some old plan, or you're doing the marketing ploy of dividing up the annual price of $150 by 12. I am sure Flo chose the annual price because the scholastic/collegiate wrestling season is 5 months so the annual price is the same as the season price. In any event every streaming service I named cost less than $150/season or year whichever is appropriate. Old men whine, but no one likes paying too much for too little. One Gable Steveson said of a streaming service that is less costly than Flo, "Sixty dollars is a lot bro. Sixty dollars is crazy."

Wrestlers are cheap, but Flo is an expensive streaming service. It is objectively true. What other streaming service is priced $30/mo? The only sports that tolerate Flo are ones with fan bases that are too small to be served by real broadcasting/streaming options. Do you think FC Cincinnati fans were happy when Flo got the rights to stream their games? They were charging $30/mo or $150/year (some people got a discounted $99 yearly rate) to local fans of the worst on field team in MLS to watch 4-5 home games per month for 7 months. A total of 34 games. Now that AppleTV has the streaming rights to all MLS teams one can purchase MLS season pass and with it the ability for watch every single game in the league for $99.99/year or $14.99/month. More for less without Flo's technical difficulties. Do you think Cycling fans in the US are excited that Flo has the rights to broadcast UCI events here? It is cheaper to pay for both a VPN and GCN+ and watch from a country where GCN+ has the broadcast rights than it is to subscribe to Flo. Do you think OSU wrestling fans are upset their matches are now on Big 12 Now/ESPN+ and not Flo? Do you think a fan of any Big Ten team would prefer their team's matches were distributed on Flo vs BTN? Streaming services that are cheaper than FloSports - NBA League Pass, MLB TV, MLS Season Pass, ESPN+, GCN+, BTN+, Hulu (I hear they have live sports), Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock, Max, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+. Flo only makes sense in terms of value if you are using it for more than 1 vertical and that is almost certainly the exception. FC Cincinnati fans were likely to only use Flo to watch Flo's substandard broadcast of FC Cincinnati games and for that alone it is a very expensive option.

I am sure it's been used successfully as a solution in corporate America before. Though it certainly wouldn't work in many situations and I wasn't suggesting it as a solution here, just finishing the analogy. In corporate America there can be a very wide spectrum of circumstances, much wider than seen in sport. In the case of player and coach there is almost always a large age difference and often times the player is very young at the start of a career and the coach old enough to be retired from competition. It is shocking how common player-coach relationships are in the women's tennis. Almost always a much older coach that has potentially been coaching the individual since their teenage years. Seems totally unprofessional.

Certainly a supervisor/subordinate in a relationship is untenable and ripe for conflicts. In some situations one individual could be transferred to report to someone else or the supervisor could be reassigned/demoted to resolve the issue without termination. Mayhaps he felt that this could be managed in a similar way? This individual could be reassigned to coach the men (presumable this individual does not have a sexual relationship with any of them), someone else assigned to coach the women, and that could resolve the issue.

I don't believe so. He wrestled as a true freshman in 2019 (took 3rd/1 year used), sophomore 2020 (no ncaas/2 years used), junior in 2021 (free year/won title/2 years used), junior 2022 (won NCAAs/3 years used), senior 2023 (did not wrestle/deferred eligibility/redshirt/3 years used). So since he never used a redshirt 2022-2023 could be his redshirt and he could use his last year in 2023-24.

But Rulon has attempted two comebacks since leaving his shoes on the mat! It wasn't over! He says he will be back next year 20 years hence. Any chance Gable wrestles for Minnesota next year? Would that be the first time a wrestler left their shoes on a mat in college and later returned to represent the school again? I think I remember Joe Rau leaving his shoes on the mat after losing at the last OTT. He won a world team spot at Final X this weekend. Frank Molinaro left his shoes on the mat at the last trials too. It was after his loss to Yianni in the championship bracket of the challenge tournament. He didn't show up for his consi match. I don't think there is only one appropriate time to leave your shoes on the mat. Very few individuals get to go out on a high note like Rulon did... the first time.

Yeah they had an exclusive deal with OSU at the time. I wonder why they don't any more...

Wouldn't an Ohio State-PSU dual have been carried by BTN? Are you referring to the PSU-OSU dual from 2017m