TylerDurden

There are 46 years worth of results in this comparison, which means it's hardly a comparison at all. The landscape is drastically different from when Gable was the head coach. It's much harder to build and sustain a program now. Much harder. Even so, the Brands/Zalesky comparison presents a pretty skewed version of reality, lacking any context. Sure the average NCAA finish is similar - even with Brands having seven more seasons, which is an advantage to Brands - but Zalesky's last five NCAA finishes were: 4-8-2-7-4 and finished 4 and 6th place in the B1G his last two years. We also should remember that Zalesky took over a program that had won six of the previous seven national titles. Brands took over for Zalesky and, after one season, won three straight nattys. The Cael factor is real as well. Neither Gable or Zalesky faced an opponent as formidable as Penn State has been over the past dozen years or so. He's been at PSU for all but three years that Brands has been at Iowa. Brands isn't as good as Cael, but his results are better than everyone else coaching right now. But he's also not Zalesky and it's not that close. I get that Iowa fans feel like they have some sort of birthright to win the NCAA title, but this stuff is silly. If anyone on this board is riding the Fire Brands train, who are you suggesting replace him that can do better?

I like the direction IU is heading, but they have no chance in this dual. O/U on match wins for IU is 1.5

This dual seem ripe for sig bets.

I realize this post likely came a burner account for one of the trolls, but GTFO with nonsense. This sounds like the type of stuff you hear from that one dad who sucked as an athlete, almost earning a high school varsity letter, but surely knows what it takes to be a champion because he watched a lot of self-help videos on YouTube and once spent $500 on a leadership conference.

Good lord. Reading through this thread makes me realize how much the internet has skewed our views of everything, glamorizing hot take, knee-jerk reactions to anything that doesn't result in the perfect outcome. You aren't a serious person if you're calling for Brands' job. You just aren't. He's been at Iowa 17 years and has never finished lower than 8th at the NCAA tournament and that happened in his first year. Since then, he's never finished lower than 5th (and that was only once) and has four national titles - and probably missed out on a fifth during the COVID season. I think he behaves like a complete idiot and has the reasoning skills of a 7-year-old, but you're out of your damn mind if you're trying to run him off.

Troll rating: 2/10

You have to say which four weights. That's how this works.

125: Ayala dec Davis 3-0 Iowa 133: Nagao dec Schriever 3-3 141: Woods dec Bartlett 6-3 Iowa 149: Kasak dec Rathjen 6-6 157: Franek dec Haines 9-6 Iowa 165: Mesenbrink major Caliendo 10-9 PSU 174: Starocci dec Kennedy 13-9 PSU 184: Truax major Riggins 17-9 PSU 197: Brooks major Glazier 21-9 PSU 285: Kerkvliet tech Hill 26-9 PSU I gave three to Iowa, but I can see any or all of those results go the other way. Iowa is almost assured to show better than they did against Michigan, but it won't be close to enough. I'll agree with others who suggest that we see back-ups in this dual. I think a lot of us would love to see Arnold out there, but I don't think T&T will put him out against Starocci

Back-to-back matches where Mendez has been limited by guys effectively using collar ties to slow him down. He wasn't in danger of losing this one, but he needs to make an adjustment to either beat the ties or draw more attention from the referees. I'm assuming the end-of-match exchange had something to do with Moore hanging on for the entire match trying not to get bonused, Mendez riding him like a rented mule and then telling him about it.

It feels like a duck, but also Lee hasn't really been 100% physically for a long time so they may not care if he misses/ducks a few in an attempt to be healthy for the B1G and NCAA tournament. Was a good effort by Indiana to rally for the win.

You can say it was a bad call.

He just destroyed the returning national runner up and took the 3rd place finisher to the wire. He's a contender.

I underestimated him after the close match with Bartlett. Never again. He's a title contender. Discuss.

Lewan wishes he was as offensive as J. Tsirtsis

Finally got to watch the replay and I thought Ohio State was better than expected. They certainly deserved more than 9 team points. They were never going to win the dual, but they should feel pretty good about their effort. Kilkeary was robbed. That's three (at least) all day. Bouzakis came out swinging and held on. It's a good win for a guy who looked lost earlier this year. Credit to Bartlett for blocking his way to a win. Mendez (or Menendez) couldn't get through that collar tie. The neutral danger was close, but it looked like Bartlett had the better position on that exchange via his counter and likely would have scored either way. Rogotzke is one of those guys you want to watch. Truax was having his way with him, until he was counting lights. Mesenbrink and Brooks are unreal. Kerk is stomping everyone across from him. The officiating left many things to be desired.

I see versions of this take across the sporting world and it's simply not true. It takes a ton of work to get to the top and even more to stay there.

Agreed. Great work and amazing first-hand memories. Dogbone's mention of the takedown scoring brought another thought to my mind about what could (would) be argued: how Division I has condensed since 1997. We've lost, give or take and by rough count, 25 Division I programs since Iowa won the 1997 title.

Who?

This feels like a Brooks/Starocci co-Hodge sort of year. KOT is the only other guy I think has a shot. 165 is insane and he's killing people. If he does something crazy vs. Carr, all bets are off and you can expect Starocci to Xweet something indignant in reply to the Hodge announcement.

Assuming Carr doesn't lose to anyone that isn't KOT and MM goes undefeated, I think you can make a realistic case for Carr at No. 3. Ramirez has two losses - KOT just majored him and he lost to Olejnik (who Carr just beat 8-1). Carr also has wins over Amine (dec), Hamiti (dec.) and Caliendo (major). The head-to-head happened so it can't be discounted, but when I look at the overall body of work to date, I think Carr has more substance. I'm pretty sure the NCAA seeding Gods won't agree with me in that hypothetical situation. Also, we should get to see Carr/O'Toole twice before that NCAA Tournament. Carr beat him twice last year (dual/Big 12 Champ). If that happens again we could see and unbeaten MM as the No. 1 seed. Regardless of how this plays out, 165 is a great weight class.

Was a great day of freestyle for him.

If this were last year, I'd agree completely, but this year's version of Bartlett hasn't been exposing anyone of note. He's only scored 9 points in three matches this year, twice against Lehigh wrestlers and against Maryland this weekend. He's definitely not a pushover - he's unbeaten after all - and I agree that his style makes for close matches, but he just looks a little off. Saying all of that, a conference dual against a top guy in your own gym tends to motivate people, so who knows. Also, I'm pretty sure that the only thing that matters for Bartlett at this point is the NCAA tournament, so maybe he's using the regular season to condition and work on situational wrestling in live matches. He's probably playing 3D chess with Cael and will tech his way through the NCAAs.

Take the under.

I thought Ohio State was going to be whipped by Michigan, so I'm definitely not going to take them to win more than one match against Penn State - assuming both teams are at full strength. I think Mendez is the the only OSU wrestler I'd predict a win for and that's against a guy ranked No. 2 in the country, so I think it's safe to say that's in the toss-up category...even if I think Mendez is in full beast mode and might walk out with a major That said, PSU won't send everyone out there and OSU will win 2-3 matches. Nagao might get 3 minutes of riding time against Bouzakis.

Indiana with a win over Purdue. The Hoosiers won seven matches. Good to see Brayton Lee back on the mat. 125 Matt Ramos (Purdue) over Michael Spangler (Indiana) (Dec 8-6) 133 Cayden Rooks (Indiana) over Jacob Macatangay (Purdue) (MD 11-2) 141 Danny Fongaro (Indiana) over Christian White (Purdue) (Dec 5-2) 149 Graham Rooks (Indiana) over Marcos Polanco (Purdue) (Dec 5-4) 157 Brayton Lee (Indiana) over Joey Blaze (Purdue) (Dec 4-2) 165 Stoney Buell (Purdue) over Tyler Lillard (Indiana) (Dec 5-1) 174 Donnell Washington (Indiana) over Brody Baumann (Purdue) (Dec 9-4) 184 Roman Rogotzke (Indiana) over James Rowley (Purdue) (SV-1 6-3) 197 Ben Vanadia (Purdue) over Gabe Sollars (Indiana) (SV-1 6-3) 285 Nick Willham (Indiana) over Tristan Ruhlman (Purdue) (Dec 4-2) Team Score: Indiana 22 Purdue 9