dragit

Brooks's approach doesn't necessarily seem to be a primarily PSU thing. The guy he's publicly most linked to on this issue, who he hugged right off the mat before his family, who speaks the most like him in interviews, is the guy who was wearing the 100% Jesus bandana with Mr. Brooks's hand on his shoulder during Aaron's match and who half an hour before was wearing a red and gold, not a blue, singlet.

Among the many remarkable aspects of their performance was that they took the third place team trophy. And i really think there's an even chance they could win a championship before Grey retires. They've been close before and they keep bringing in strong recruiting classes. With a little of the luck mentioned elsewhere on this thread (such as all the airports in Pennsylvania shutting down the third week of March) maybe they can get over the top just once.

My take from the interview was that he's leaning toward not wrestling in college next year but was too exhausted to be sure and needs to think about it. What a treasure he is regardless of what he chooses. Not trite to say he's a credit to the sport.

Brooks is an absolute gem on the mat. He wrestles hard the whole match, terrific traditional technique, great sportsmanship. He is probably the guy who you would use to teach textbook wrestling. If anything he's underrated if that's possible for an already 3x champ. His winning the rivalry in the previous with an Olympic bronze medalist 4 years older than him never got enough celebration in my book. I have respect and admiration for his faith, and don't feel it's my place to object to him answering every question with an answer about that, but can't see why he had to throw in a harsh criticism of another religion. Regardless of whether his position is consistent with the tenets of his faith or not, that part of the answer was way more than was necessary to respond to a bland question about his and Carr's shared faith, and whether meant to be harsh or not can be taken as a gratuitous slap at millions who practice a different faith. It just wasn't appropriate from what is essentially the NCAA's podium.

Wouldn't surprise me. He didn't look right Friday morning and his mental mistake Friday night kind of had a whiff of, I don't know the right word, maybe panic or confusion, which having blown out his knee again could explain.

Landmark tournament for Cornell with what they've been through. Head coach who built the program leaves. Extreme Covid restrictions Big Ten schools don't have to deal with. Former finalist leaves and wins at new school. Former finalist's brother amd coach who has two first place trophies of his own departs. Greatest college wrestler ever and former coach departs. And they get a four timer and Vito treats a world silver medalist and the guy with the longest winning streak in college like hapless workout partners. An absolutely extraordinary night for them.

I must be getting soft but I liked the interviews this year. Vito was delightful. Glory was pure joyousness. Starocci was his candid self. KOT was pure grace. Nino couldn't be more unpretentious.

Just mad props to the 165 field for the last two years of superstar wars. Top notch guys going at it in the strongest weight class, no ducking. Wick gave Griffith four shots last year; Carr gave O'Toole three this year. High scoring matches, impeccable sportsmanship. And for KOT to come through with convincing wins over national champs two years in a row positions him as a potential all time great.

With my untrained eye, I thought it was up and down during the year. Definitely a few times it looked like he was materially favoring a leg. Other days he looked fine. Yesterday morning he didn't look good. One of the many crazy things about it is that despite that, he didn't look any worse last night, and was going to be ok, he had a three point lead and was in his best position, top, then couldn't ride, then it was still no real problem, he had elbow control in a position he's strong in, then inexplicably from his knees decides to lock hands with his head stuck pointing down and trapped, and as a result largely pins himself.

At Midlands when he lost to Rivera, he was visibly shaken and then when they were getting ready to start the awards after the 133 match he wasn't there and people thought he was going to blow if off, but then he came sprinting like Usain Bolt out of the opposite tunnel and ran to the podium to make sure he got there (barely, but there) on time. I think he'll be there tonight and I think it'll bring down the house. (And I hope that's both my head and heart talking.)

For a few reasons I just watched the ESPNU broadcast and I should say after criticizing them last night they did a nice job today. Obviously it's very different than the +, particularly with the commercials, but within their limitations they captured the grit of the competitors and the engagement of the crowd, told a great story, caught as much of the important action as they could, and the interviews were poignant (oh man, did I just compliment Quint?).

Penn State. Friday morning. Friday night. Every year.

Not great work by ESPN tonight. In addition to the unforgiveable cardinal sin of missing a late takedown at 133 there have been a variety of other mistakes. They didnt realize Lee took top in the second period. They had little film of Lee after the match. Burroughs I believe said it was 90 degrees for the NF. And a couple of others I can't remember.

That's the right title, isn't it? Kudos to this young man. Worthy of his own thread.

Thirteen years explained in one sentence.

Lee is a force of nature. I don't expect to see anyone replicate the way he tore through NCAAs (including destructions of a past and future NCAA champ) a year after major knee surgery and nine months after graduating from high school.

Yeah but you got to LYAO so it worked out for everyone, particularly because I always appreciate any excuse to think about Clark's win -- the dictionary definition of grit.

Bumping this topic with the tape from yesterday, the last session of this kind ever with the great Spencer Lee. Great stuff from beginning (laughing at himself for being the only dork to wear his letterman's jacket) to end (amazing anecdote at about the 6:40 mark about Terry giving a private lesson to a graduating senior whose career was already over the week after Big Tens, followed by explaining the familiarity gained with the medical staff and coaches because of the amount of time together), with some discussion about his relationship with Yianni thrown in too. The most newsy thing in here to me is that the way he talks about his post-college life seems to imply that he won't necessarily be wrestling; I got this impression a tiny bit from a prior press conference and a little more so from this one, watch for yourself and see what you think (5:10 mark).

This is the gist of what I was saying -- particularly given that he didn't place the year before, he's been a bit of a disappointment. Changing that with an undefeated national championship season and progressing from DNP-6-1 would speak well for Iowa.

Funny but no. This would be a nice feather in the Iowa cap. Woods had only one sixth place finish at Stanford in two tries at NCAAs. For him to win would be a great advertisement for development at Iowa.

I think you have to say that Warner even has a shot, since he did last year. Granted that would be the one and only data point that would support the theory.

I think Woods's results this week are very important for the Iowa program. They haven't had multiple champions since before wrestling was invented in 2011. They've only had one champion not named Spencer Lee since 2014,with zero other than Lee out of all the strong recruits they had in the '22 and '23 graduating groups. And there is a perception of not developing elite talent/underperforming at NCAAs. Assuming Spencer finishes his fourth, finally having somebody else with him could demonstrate some Spencer coattails which have been missing to date. Every year he's won he looks like the presidential candidate with the big win whose party doesn't gain any seats in Congress.

Scary thing is that if it was just Penn State vs everyone else, assuming PSU could recruit a skinny and super fast track or cross country guy who weighed less than 125 and could run away from Lee for 7 minutes (or could interrupt Suriano's drilling downstairs) and not give up the obligatory fall points, Penn State might be even money.

He had leggings and a robe! Old school!

Nice - one word says it all. There would be other ways to remedy the mentioned problems (warning, then penalty, then ejection?). Taking coaches off the corner seems far too radical. And it would be bad for the spectators - one cool thing unique to wrestling is looking at the guys in the corners with Olympic medals and national championships. What's a better visual for the cameras to keep going back to -- the 159-0, gold medal guy with the sculpted physique, or Bill Belichik with his division 3 lacrosse varsity letter and his hoodie?