dragit

Definitely losing his touch. Did you see that match last Friday?

Interesting, thanks for posting. Should be a really good dual. 141 could decide it?

Sadly, the Illini have now lost the element of surprise due to this bulletin board material of a post and can probably only win 16-15.

Quite possible, but I have no idea. Very reasonable on the other hand to infer that Brands directed this, I seem to recall Ferrari saying something to the effect of, Whether and when I wrestle is up to Tom Brands. But the main point is that neither the coach or the wrestler has said anything (to my knowledge). This is the number two ranked team in a division one sport, with a coach that is one of the highest paid public employees in the state, that apparently deploys seven figures of NIL money a year, and that competes in front of 15,000 people a match, and it is routine that obvious questions come up to which fans want answers but are never asked or answered. Thus we offer basic speculation because we, absent any further edification from the team, see this decision: No known benefit to the team. Marginal at best benefit to the athlete. Conceivably what the athlete prefers now, but very well might not be in a year or two if he wants to transfer. You know, because he's very young, may not see the big picture as well as a 21 year old, and because when he's 21 his coach might (will!) recruit over him if the coach has the option, and then the wrestler might feel a little different about things.

Correct, that was in my list of problems with this move that we can only speculate about.

Seems like just more of the same. Decision which to many serious fans' naked eye doesn't make sense. Giving up a year of eligibility for one match which has zero meaning to the team and seemingly minor meaning to the athlete. No explanation given (as far as I am aware). Thus speculation ensues. And there's been plenty on the Iowa board. Including blanket assertions of new NCAA rules which no one has reason to be confident in. Another challenging vacuum-filling explanation: He's not that good, so we don't mind burning a year of his eligibility. Nice, so we're presuming he may not be a long-term starter at Iowa, and if he changes his mind about whether he's good with that and hits the portal, he does so without that year of eligibility. But there I am speculating. Because, as usual, there is no plainly stated linear explanation for what happened. There is no rule that says the coach has to explain anything to the lowly fans. And sometimes there is a genuine competitive reason not to explain (kid has a specific injury and we don't want upcoming opponents to know). But that's not the case here, is it? Just like there wasn't a genuine competitive reason not to just say, Marinelli tore something in his ribs, he has to MFF out (because he's MFFing out of NCAAs, his season is over, so it doesn't matter if you say he's injured); instead, let's give a lot of roundabout rhetoric about his character and leave it for people to infer that he's a head case or having severe personal problems. Just like there is no rule the coach has to explain, there's no rule that fans on message boards can't say, geez, we don't see a logical reason here and speculate that maybe they can't count to five or that they aren't good decision makers. I generally like both the head coach and the associate head coach and even enjoy their quirks. But some of those quirks can be maddening and seem like self-inflicted wounds. If they were Cael, they could get away with it a lot easier. It's like Crash Davis says in Bull Durham, if you're winning you can have fungus on your shower shoes and it makes you colorful; but if you're not, then you're just a slob. Cael can give non-answers all he wants and get away with it; TnT, not so much.

Tainted and long gone I would think. He's the ultimate winner but not a Hodge guy. For starters he can't out-Hodge Steveson or Mesenbrink unless they lose.

While I agree with everything in here, based on Starocci's results in his career against terrific elite opponents, through Keckheisen (it happened regardless of whether official), I don't see a rematch with Ferrari making any difference. (Does anyone think Ferrari is better than Keckheisen right now?)

I think you nailed it. The bother seems to be directly related to his low L4P (likeability for pound) rating.

Alrhough to be precise if that happens he will be the ONLY 4xer to lose his final collegiate match.

That would be awesome. You and I will be rooting for the same outcome.

I agree, it's a bummer. If I had that talent I'd want to ring the bell. And as a fan I dont enjoy his matches at all. But he has a different approach which seems to have worked reasonably well in a very strong weight class by being able to know he can't be taken down and can't be beaten on the mat.

Good point. Classic sign of iffy coaching. He's allowed a spectrum of personalities and styles to develop on his team. He's got a guy with 4 national titles who wrestles very carefully with zero interest in making things exciting for fans and then he's also got a guy who wrestles like his hair is on fire. And another national finalist who keeps it very close and another national champ who let's it rip. And guys in between! Lack of Institutional control for sure. The last thing a coach should ever do is try to put each of his athletes in a position to exploit their individual strengths to the utmost.

Couldn't, or didn't? Answer: Didn't need to. He doesn't make the rules. If you know you have a riding time point in your pocket and you can control the mat on your feet, you just work backwards and are aware that at worst you win 2-1. He has won a lot of huge matches in March with low scores and my read is that he looks at a match against a top competitor as an opportunity to hone that skill. Boring, disappointing, add your similar adjective and you'd be right. And even though I'm defending him I won't be rooting for him. But I'm not going to disrespect him or argue that somehow he really lost a match that he totally controlled.

Correct

He's a beast. One huge brain cramp away from potentially the best career ever.

MM probably only one who could beat out Steveson.

As many as he needed to to win, which appeared to be all he was interested in. Just as would be the outcome if they wrestled ten more times -- if he needed a takedown, which he wouldn't, because he wouldn't be taken down and would win on the mat, then he'd get one.

As a fan it's a bummer that Starocci wrestled such a careful match. But he wrestles only to win and that's his prerogative amd the results certainly speak volumes for themselves. Yesterday was a good example. Ferrari is really really good and wrestles a very cautious, very good defensive style. Starocci decided to make sure he exploited his advantages which he knew would give him a win, which he knew would be by that 3-1 score or maybe 6-1 if he could get past that defense. It was smart and professional and effective. Hard for me to be sympathetic on the stall calls. Throughout Starocci was controlling the mat and Ferrari was trying to use the edge to protect against takedowns. The two calls seemed within the letter and spirit of the rules.

Then looked upset bordering on distraught after the match. Gotta feel for him.

Hello haters. Two championship football games and a major tennis final today but the best part of the sports day was watching Gable Steveson wrestle for 111 seconds and sign autographs and patiently pose for selfies for at least a couple of thousand seconds with hundreds of kids. How anyone can think that him coming back is anything but amazing and a blessing for wrestling is beyond me. I so hope he sticks with it for worlds. He lit up the arena with his presence.

Tough to watch. He looked so beat up.

Although this trend has been covered a fair amount in threads over the years it's a good new topic here for a lot of reasons. And introducing yourself by complaining means you are in the right place. My two cents would be that the death of the in season tournament is the most prominent symptom of the larger point that only one thing matters at all in the sport anymore -- the three days where there is a sold out 20,000 seat arena and wall to wall national TV coverage. It's so bad that even the conference tournaments aren't taken seriously for any purpose other than as a qualifier - MFFs galore. Not sure how many times I've gone to or tuned into a dual mainly to see a particular guy and he is in street clothes. It's just incentives. All the incentives are for the NCAA. Sports are all like this now. Basketball is unwatchable because of the incentives created by the 3 point shot. Baseball is heading that way because of the incentives created by high velocity pitches and the inability to get batters out more than twice. All the money for coaches and wrestlers is the NCAA finish. So they don't Wrestle much and don't seek out risks. Wake me up in March.

. . . without REPORTED incident

1. Love everything you wrote. 2. I have no problem with Starocci starting season as #1 on any P4P list, he's totally earned that based on a record that includes beating a number of champs including while injured. 3. But I strongly believe that, if Steveson is serious and trains properly, no one is close to as good as he is in college. All respect to Kerkvliet, but he isn't close. That's really a statement about Steveson, not Kerk.