Offthemat

Yellow? Pages?

How did last year’s end of January rankings relate to actual results?

Tournaments account for the difference.

A healthy Mastro would have helped.

Yes, it was. I guess I’ll have to add that their away matches haven’t been stellar, either.

Sounds about right. I think they reviewed it, but it seems the Cowboys have had some questionable refs for their home matches.

And the added fact that not coming back out to shake hands cost his team a point.

I think that was the original rule. Not the ncaa, but Athens.

You’re right. I heard that and I won’t tell you what my reaction was. It was well described in a link in an earlier post. Iowa wrestling like PSU might step on a banana peel and PSU wrestling like that was okay with them. It was not the kind of match that would promote more interest in the sport. It was barely interesting to us replete connoisseurs, much less to the maddening crowds. Maybe it’s because it didn’t mean anything. Conference duals don’t mean anything anymore than non conference duals. The only thing that matters is the conference tournament, to a degree, and nationals.

That’s a timely good point because I was just going to suggest that because so many of today’s wrestlers can’t get in good enough condition to wrestle seven minutes, shorten the first period by one minute and have a 30 second break between each period. Let the wrestlers catch a breath and let the coaches coach.

So you were bored? Stiff?

In some ways, the real winners are the ones who don’t?

Wolf Pack?

Relief.

You’ve got it.

No, New.

Yes.

Pinch hitting.

When? Why and how?

Who?

Announcer said Wittlake tweaked something this week.

A three point takedown might help a little. Current scoring is two takedowns equals two escapes and one takedown. Three point takedowns would make it 6-5. No points for escape would be 4-2. Stalling, major dec., tech falls, were all instituted to better ensure the dominant wrestler prevailed and increase interest in the sport. Stalling has been controversial from the start as it’s subjective and it’s about the only circumstance in sports where an official awards points at his discretion. There was a time when refs declared the winner when the match ended in a tie. The elimination of points for escapes, and possibly neutral restarts instead of points for stalling calls would bring increased activity and clarity to scoring. You could have a time limit for riding: 30 seconds and if you haven’t started a predicament count, you restart in neutral, something like freestyle. No matter what you do, people will try to game it, but I do think it can be improved. And let’s try to get more matches televised. I can find more women’s underwater interpretive gymnastics events on tv than wrestling.

I like mat wrestling; scrambles and pins, not turns/exposures.

No points for escape.

There was a resemblance to the stalling school video. Also, if Lee does get stuck, can it also be called a stickpin?