dragit

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?

Well put - I really thought it was Kokesh's year. He was noticeably crisper, which was saying something because he was already terrific. And he rolled through Big Tens. I always wonder when someone loses Friday morning if it could be weight related. Regardless, after Wilps got past, I was pulling for him, that would have been quite an achievement to win that bracket from the 8th seed. I remember Kokesh had planned to leave wrestling altogether and farm; glad to see him doing so obviously well coaching.

You should take anything I say with a grain of salt. I've been accused once or twice of being a tad over-discerning about broadcasters. You don't want anything to do with my John Smoltz rages.

The Ice Cream Moment was worth several thousand "work hard and get better" and "glory to God" cookie cutter interviews. And in addition to that and the mullet and excuses are for wusses, there are usually some memorable ones every year. I think I remember Zain saying something like he'd dreamed his win over Stieber the night before Whoa, you're saying hard core wrestling fans don't like Quint?

That was a memorable group. Storley Evans Brown Kokesh. I don't think Howe was at 174 when he was in the Big Ten. The other 4 had quite a round robin going. Kokesh and Storley in particular, I think they went back to South Dakota together (?) and then had a last second insane takedown on the edge in the wrestlebacks; the beauty of it is I can't remember which one chased the other down, literally, the one who got taken down was literally running away in the last 3 seconds. Then Wilps crashed the B1G party, made the final, was seconds away from winning after a late TD, and got, shall we say, a little bit of gamesmanship from Gentleman Brown - after a five count stall call tied it, Brown went from feet to knees on purpose to induce a locked hands call, and Wilps's entrapment defense was rejected by the judge. I think Wilps is an MD now. Bonus points for every factual error I made, of which I'm sure there are many, that you can point out.

Mic drop

You had me until "and then with Tim Johnson, even better." Seems like a wonderful man and has some good instincts about the flow of a match, but he engages in these giant trivia data dumps during live wrestling, must be paid by the word, and must be paid bonus for every time he says the word "freshman," which you could make a drinking game of. Gibbons, on the other hand, takes a lot of criticism when I think he in reality is terrific. He has a nice understated manner, and immediately points out crucial and sometimes complex technique issues that provide important insight to the viewer.

These are good thoughtful posts. Delgado is a prime example of the problem with the sport. His first two years he attacked, attacked, attacked. He even bragged about it - said he'd take dozens of shots. And he won a title this way. And was great to watch. Then his junior year it was like he'd had some sort of transplant. He completely reversed, stopped shooting and became the uber ankle grab counter guy. To me this had to be partly the system to blame. That he believed that continuing to attack wouldn't keep working and the way to win is low scores and stopping the other guy.