dragit

Anyone wrestling against someone that strong on one leg would look weak.

Nothing normal about Happy Valley Excellence Central.

The predictions have 165 at 3-3 so far - interesting and a tribute to how good Caliendo is. That being said, I don't see it. MM doesn't look like he's one iota complacent and he is a bad bad man.

I think you're right that Dechow might have been a more blue chip football recruit. Regarding his build I mainly meant muscle definition, such as compared to the two finalists.

171.5 - what a total and catastrophic collaps. We need to make amends to the other threads' OPs right quick.

Cut ties with Bakersfield or with his lord and savior? One of the many reasons I was bummed about not going in person this year was it looked on TV like Buchanan got the biggest ovation in history for an Iowa wrestler from the fans not wearing black and gold.

Mesenbrink probably all by himself. But shouldn't they clear 140 in the morning even if Kerk can't go?

Speaking of McEneley and speaking of my often faulty memory, is it just me or does he remind anyone of Jack Dechow?? High school football star, awesome athlete, not a classic wrestler build, great competitor, took people by storm as a freshman, think he lost a tough match in the semis and finished third or fourth. Here's hoping Mceneley progresses the way I always thought dechow would but didn't.

Nice thread. The Keck match was such high level fabulous wrestling. Match of a great night. I'd probably put 2016 higher based on my growing fogger memory. Some personal bias there, I was in a great seat near the semis matches and they went off with an absolute bang. Gilman beats defending champ NaTo with an OT pin and then, boom, Garrett jumps all over defending champ Breuer, puts him on his back twice and pins him, speed I've never seen before in any sport, and then lights up MSG with his smile. Trying to remember the other good matches. I think the Cousins Jordan. And wasn't there a lot of action IMar vs Ian Miller, tons of flurries including Miller putting Martinez on his back with a throw without control and Jason Bryant saying something on the PA about it not being freestyle, no points, and lots of people booing and then everyone laughing. I could be making this all up but it's probably mostly accurate.

Yeah what's with him. Shows up on campus a few months before the season and moves them up from 10th to no worse than third in the first time he's coached anything. Hamiti and Hendricksen finally break through to the finals against great opponents. He's bad news.

So close!

Fingers crossed that we get to test that theory. If I had to bet, if Gable is healthy and does the whole quad, he wins at least two of the four, probably three, maybe four.

By comparison to their upper weights which are the absolute Mt. Rushmore of wrestlers and coaches. Nico/RBY/Nick Lee/Zain/Molinaro/Nolf etc. probably still better than any other program. And I note that Haines, who won last year as a lower weight, had Cody, following him up, in his corner yesterday at 174. Even if you quibble with Nolf and Haines as "middle weights" not "light weights" PSU is still top tier at the lower weights.

As was covered a week or two ago, we're talking about the reliably best tournament team having everything go totally wrong and a generally underachieving tournament team having everything go totally right, and then PSU probably still wins by more than a few points. The team races for 2nd and 4th are where the action is at and are pretty interesting. I lean toward OSU beating Nebraska in a statement weekend for the Cowboys, but I wouldn't bet much on it.

And it's a total mismatch, so how amazing is Steveson? The only suspense I see here is maybe Gable has choice in the second period, Gavin or Molinaro shout at him from the stands to take take down, and being such an agreeable guy he does; and then Hendrickson takes top in the third, so he has two shots at turning him and ends up catching him with one of them.

Looked/sounded like Gavin's instructions. If so, that's really frustrating. Borderline indefensible decision. How complicated is this? He needs a takedown to win. Period. He's not going to win the rideouts in overtime. So he needs a TD in the third period or SV. And everyone knew he was very likely to give up at least a riding point, and probably get ridden out if he took down. So you take neutral and have a full two minutes to get a TD and win the match. Hard to watch the wrestler pay the price for such a bad call, particularly given that it subjected us to another splits/horrifying interview.

100%. I think he saw the way Steveson threw both Keuter in the dual meet and Feldman at Big Tens and treated this as a safety issue.

Recognizing upfront the extreme troll job and/or insanity of the topic heading, basically this was a wash round. Davis had very little chance. Lilledahl is a true freshman dealing with the quick turn off the scale Friday morning for the first time who ran into an inspired tough good wrestler. Nothing notable there. Kasak was a pretty big surprise but that's offset by the fantastic performance by Barr, whom many had counted out. Everyone else took care of business.

ESPN has Kerkvliet losing on the score bug. Can't tell diff between green and red.

What a very strange person.

more likely

when I saw the title I knew what the thread was about. This is pretty bad. Score bugs are used in pretty much every live televised sports event. Pretty elementary failure.

I did this rant on the prior message board during one of the NCAAs I was at. It's like this every year. It's ridiculous. It's not only a likely cause of key stoppages but a substantial safety danger, such as when RBY and I think Desanto crashed into the table. They gotta think of something. I've always wondered if they could move the table away from the center of the mat. That wouldn't be ideal but I'm not sure it's not feasible.

Totally agree. I've been defending and promoting Gable all year here. But if that quote is accurate that was a big mistake by him. He could have said something like that AFTER the finals but there's no defending saying it now. Look, if his teammate was the 15th seed, we're all adults. But their 184 pounder took Starocci down in the conference final and only lost in SV. He's a legit title threat this week. Gable has been extraordinarily gracious all year and I know he was trying to be so in praising Starocci, who isn’t in his league as a wrestler. Zero malice involved here, quite the opposite. But you gotta remember your teammate before saying something like that.

Little Rock would be in a better posture of they elaborated on what the two purported certifications were. They haven't to my knowledge produced anything that demonstrates that someone in authority, other than at Little Rock, who was provided information that included somewhere the fact that his four postseasons didn't include 2021, officially said he was properly eligible. Absent that what they've said doesn't seem to mean a lot with respect to whether and how much Little Rock as a school was culpable.