SIACfan

In an individual sport, an individual must stand a top the podium to be the best. In team sports, an individual can clearly be the best individual but not win team championships because of a lack of supporting cast members. When it comes to the GOAT, even in team sports, individuals will be judged in the end by titles. But the lack of titles does not eliminate them from the discussion. In individual sports it absolutely does - IMO.

The man is a living legend. OSU & the sport of wrestling is losing one of the GOAT's. He is still relatively young, I wonder what his plans are?

Well if he can follow Snyders' path he will end the debate of the Indiana GOAT.

Matt Lee went 5-3 against D1 opponents in 2024 wrestling in open tournaments.

I don't doubt that, but it doesn't change the fact that 97 kg (214 lbs) is a long way away from 197 pounds. That is a lot of weight for someone with Christian Carroll's frame to cut. But if he is able to do it, there is no guarantee that he will be as dominate as he was this past weekend at 97 kg. I'm not trying to knock Christian Carroll here. I'm all about the success of our Indiana guys. My comments were more about raising the topic of the need for a weight class between 197 & HWT at the college level. Christian is one individual that I feel would greatly benefit from just such a weight class.

I'm no expert & am in no way close to the situation. But looking at it from a far, 17 pounds is a lot of weight to shed & keep off for an entire college wrestling season for someone built like Christian Carroll. I would suspect he is already on a pretty strict diet just to be at 97 kg, but again I have no real insight except that he wrestled 220 as a junior in HS. Cutting that kind of weight & being competitive at the college level can be extremely difficult. Mendez is a good example. He was a completely different animal this year at 141 vs 133 his freshman season. He was much more powerful this year. Chrisian is a perfect example of why college wrestling needs a weight class between 197 & HWT. And with the recent development of the competitors in the HWT class in college, it is only getting tougher for guys who are at their best around 210-220 pounds. I'm not actually suggesting adding a weight class to college but just restructuring the classes to: 125 133 141 150 160 172 184 197 215 HWT It more closely follows the international weight classes to boot.

The notion that Brands needs to go is about as ridiculous as it gets. Is there really any serious debate going on? As the makers of this video point out, the only team that has been better than Iowa over the duration of Brands' tenure is Penn State. So if you fire Brands, who are you going to replace him with? And what would the expectations be?

125 was the real difference. At 184, 9 of 19 contestants who finished outside of the top 10 scored double digit points. Where at 124, only 2 of 19 people outside of the top 10 scored double digit points. And only 3 of 19 outside of the top 10 scored any points at all.

Not sure that 41 & 57 were that wide open, especially 157 as Haines had been #1 there all year. I think it had more to do with the fact that you can only pick two #1's or #2's & most people had more faith elsewhere. Brooks was by far the most popular #1 as 24 out of 29 contestants choose him. Kirkvliet was the next most popular #1 followed by Keckheisen. 19 of the 29 contestants had Brooks with either Kirkvliet or Keckeisen, and one person had Kirkvliet & Keckheisen as their top picks. So 20 out of 29 had some combination of those 3 as their top picks. But I will say that after the top guys at 41 & 57, it was wide open & most of us didn't do a very good job of handicapping those weights. I would also say the scores this year far exceeded those from last year, because of Starocci, Vito & Carr being seeded 9, 6 & 4 respectively. Those to me were 3 very obvious picks outside of the top 2 seeds, and 20 of 29 contestants had all 3 of them. And the top 16 finishers had all three. If you didn't have all 3 of those guys you had zero chance of winning. Heck, I had all three of them & Brooks & Keckheisen & still only managed to finish 11th. One last thought, Starocci was clearly the easiest pick of the contest as 28 of 29 people had him and 23 took him as their wildcard.

Well I had 5 champs, a 2nd & a 3rd & that wasn't even good enough to finish top 4. Given the rules, I would have thought that would have done a little better. But having Starocci seeded 9th, Vito 6th & Carr 4th (all former Champs) helped several of us get to 5 champs.

Davison definitely deserves some love. That was one heck of a tournament run. Unfortunately Kerkvliet stood in the way of a story book ending. But hey he gave us Indiana boys two NCAA D1 finalists & fun ride. Hats off to Mr. Lucas Davison!

Those picks were OK - I guess.

That roll to turn Barletts takedown into his own was insane. JESSIEEE MENDEZZZ!

Have I missed a change already? I have David Carr as a 4 seed.

125 McKee (9) 133 Vito (6) 141 Koderhandt (11) 149 Gomez (6) 157 Lee (11) 165 Carr (4) 174 Starocci (9) - Wildcard 184 Keckeisen (1) 197 Brooks (1) 285 Hendrickson (3)