CHROMEBIRD

Countdown to Jimmy Pastry posting about how Blaze could beat Spencer. Make that Blaze and Palmer over Lee. LET'S GET TRANSITIVE

Is JO still wrestling? I thought someone here mentioned that he moved on to MMA.

He competes at arguably one of the consistently toughest FS weights. Metcalf was head and shoulders our best rep, with sky high expectations, and look what happened.

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I call them the CBAP Machine. Don't tell their AD.

I wasn't yelling TWOOOOO, I was yelling TOOOOOOO, short for TOOOOOOOK DOWWNNNNN

I get the joke you're making, but 174 Brooks would put him in the same tweener space he's in now for FS. Anyway maybe he's built like Mark Hall.

Dang. As in not wrestling again in college, or for his entire career? That sucks.

The supporting data is that dangerous and unhealthy weight cutting exists and should be mitigated. Matside weigh-ins would be a means to test a hypothesis and see if it has an effect on the data around weight cutting. Similarly, there was no data to back up 3 point takedowns, but there was evidence that there needs to be more scoring and action. So the rules were changed to allow a 3 point TD, and now we'll see if that moves the needle on the scoring data. I don't see why the sport can't pilot matside weigh-ins, be it for a season, a preseason tournament, or a month of duals, and see if it's a rule worth implementing fully? Either way, it would put the debate to rest.

Maybe national singlet day should be in the summer.

Did he ever say why he was bumping up? Is he a zero cutting guy? Idk why he didn't just stay at 184 and make Truax grow into 197. It would serve Brooks better for freestyle, too.

I also agree that KOT will be tested for sure. The 165 bracket will be full of land amines and carr bombs but... KOT is KOT, and I don't think he has a greater chance of NOT repeating than some of the others. I know that's all obvious, I mostly wanted an excuse to say Carr bomb and land Amine.

Starocci will be tested for the same reason as Vito. They're going to want to stay within striking distance of their FS weights. What's interesting is that Starocci may wrestle a very minimal season, to the point that it could affect his NCAA seeding. I believe he hasn't qualified for OTTs yet, so he may duck out in March(?) for the last chance qualifier at either 74 or 86kg, both a ways off from 174lbs, and if he doesn't win there I think he will have to win an NCAA title to qualify. Vito on the other hand, has a much deeper bracket at 133 but there's less at stake. He's already qualified for OTTs. An NCAA title would be gravy on his way towards his bigger goal.

The Vision Quest we all want to see

Someone mentioned on one of the other discussion threads that Ramos, while he was sitting in as Interim Head Coach, recommended to the AD to reach out to Koll at Stanford for the job. There have also been photos of Koll and Ramos on social media hitting the recruiting trail and what have you. Nice to see the UNC wrestling on firm ground. It will be exciting to see the program succeed.

Sorry. Huge brain malfunction with the offset years. I still propose the idea of moving Greco to Winter and MFS, WFS in the summer with the full slate of World weights!

Good point. Ideally, something like AI would force wrestlers to switch things up and expand their style out of their comfort zones since that would give them an advantage over the analytics. But if baseball is any indication, moneyballing wrestling will probably result in more boring matches as you predict.

Imo that's what AI and analytics are especially good at. No human is completely random. Even seasoned poker players will have tendencies and "tells", conscious or subconscious, that become evident with enough data. Desanto might wrestle a batshit crazy style but I think an AI would quickly pick up on his tricep pinch, reaching over to counter his shot, and who knows what else. I would love to see what would come out of an analysis of Askren or Welch's matches, like they tend to favor a side or have greater success scrambling through certain positions and situations.

A possible hazard of moving Olympic wrestling to the Winter Games is that it could really water down the non-Olympic weights at Worlds. WIth two-year cycles wrestlers are going to want to move into their Olympic weight to qualify for their national team's trials and to qualify the weight class for their country. It feels much more likely that UWW would eliminate the Senior non-Olympic weight classes than the IOC adding more weights to match Worlds. As a middle-ground solution, why not move Greco to the Winter Games and keep MFS & WFS at the Summer Games with 10 weight classes?

Will wrestling ever be Moneyballed? AI could be used to analyze tape and match data, then generate gameplans for attacks and counters, what to watch out for, best positions to choose. That already happens today, it's just a very manual and arduous process.

One weigh-in per day is enough. Maybe matside weigh-ins should be seen as an opportunity. Make the wrestlers face-off like they do at boxing or MMA weigh-ins. Home guy (at a dual) comes out to his walk-out music, faces his opponent matside, then they each step on the scale. Show the fans what each guy weighs-in at. If a wrestler misses weight he can step off the scale and has one more try with a two minute timer or the coaches can sub-in another guy. Create tension. There's nothing wrong with adding drama to wrestling. A lot of fans would love that stuff. People also bet on anything and there could be action around the weigh-in weights.

Alvarez was clearly cutting too much weight at Rutgers but... yeah. Looks like he's discovered Massey's Pizza.

They're threatened by the prospect of players unionizing.

It's normal. All students enter undeclared. Depending on the department, you apply into your major and declare sometime during your second and fourth semester. A number of big universities have a similar process. You come in with an intended major, but have to meet certain pre-reqs before you can apply to a major, esp in competitive fields.

Tangential, but a buddy has been posting on social media about his kid playing Varsity Girl's Flag Football at her HS. Sounds like it's getting a lot of attention and support based on the comments. If WFF continues to grow, it could become an NCAA sport one day and create more scholarship opportunities for wrestling. Not that I'm holding my breath. And hopefully not to the detriment of women's college wrestling.