maligned

He's not a huge medal favorite. He'll come in as the 4th best guy and capable of beating anyone--but if brackets work out with him on the same side as 2 of the Big 3, he has to get an upset to medal. AMENDMENT: I just researched and saw that ranking points should be locked in with Mason and the Big 3 as the 4 seeds. That will mean he can medal without beating one of them and that he's a clear medal favorite. I disagree that a loss would be a "huge" upset because the rise of new, young monsters, along with upsets by savvy vets, are commonplace internationally--but him not medalling would be an upset if the draws hold.

IU picks up 2023 Columbia 133-lb national qualifier, Angelo Rini. He's a grad transfer who was out much of this season with injuries. Avon's own Cheaney Schoeff (IU redshirt at 133 this year) enters the portal in a possibly not unrelated move.

Cheaney Schoeff also enters the portal fray at 133, ending his IU tenure.

Wow, so sorry! Get well soon!

Team sports vs individual sports are very different. If you aren't winning titles eventually as an individual, you're losing matches and can't be considered the best. In team sports, you could lose games but still be clearly the best individual. I do agree that being a 4-timer or being undefeated for a career is overrated. Mason Parris losing a match as a freshman at a big guy weight or Howe losing early to a fellow all-timer shouldn't mean anything when compared to 4-timers that were at low weights and/or didn't face royalty as freshmen.

Iran 190 (5 gold, 8 medals) Japan 130 (2, 5) Kyrgyzstan 121 (1, 4) Kazakhstan 118 (1, 4) Mongolia 92 (0, 4) Uzbekistan 85 (0, 3) India 84 (0, 3) Bahrain gets the 10th gold and 3 other medals...4 for 4 in medals from their import participants.

CP alum Frazier hits the portal out of Va Tech.. Wrestlestat has him at #49 among all 133s on D1 rosters. He'd have immediate national qualifier potential in the right spot.

Wrestling schools in 3A/4A out of total wrestling schools: 33% (102 of 311) State placers from those 3A/4A schools: 70% (79 of 112) Athletes representing those same 3A/4A schools in the T & F list above: 81% (65 of 80) We see in wrestling too, that there can be a lot of small schools represented in a list of "at least one state qualifier" or "at least one placer" because there are so many of them. But you can see in the list that no 1A/2A school has more than 2 kids, and there are only 15 small-school kids (19%) coming from 67% of the total schools.

This would be a really good match. History has shown NAIA, D2, D3 national champs to be around NCAA national qualifier level. Kervin's domination over all but the very top of NAIA and domination over good D2 and D3 competition suggest he's at that level. And WrestleStat had Matt Lee as the #20-ranked 165 on all rosters in D1 this year. That would be an interesting one.

I fully agree that 97kg (214lbs) is more ideal to take advantage of CC's insane frame. That said... The obvious example of a stout 97kg guy going back and forth between 197lb and 97kg is the 5'11" Kyle Snyder his first couple years of top international competition. Even at an inch shorter, Christian is starting with a fuller 214-lb frame than Snyder had at the same age--but if he can follow even 5% of the Snyder blueprint, he's on a great path.

For those that didn't see it elsewhere: Freshmen: Evan Stanley 1st Miguel Rojas 2nd Lucas Boe 1st (wish we actually had these guys in-state for the HS season!) Sophomore: Parker Reynolds 5th

Thanks, TC. I guess if we'd paid attention to CC's post-title interview this weekend, it would have been clear too. In brief, he's 5'10" and the guys at 285 are such monsters, structurally. He also mentions wanting to coach down the road and suggests there are no examples of ex-HWTs doing that at the highest levels.

I agree with the sentiment of narrowing the gap between 197 and 285, but I would be disappointed if we narrowed the low-middle weights, where the highest numbers of guys naturally fall. The international weights don't make sense at all. They were created by choosing the 6 weights we wanted most--and then trying to squeeze 4 additional ones in somewhere (and accidentally skewing way too heavily toward big guys). They would be structured differently if we were allowed 10 weights at the Olympics. Something like this would include bigger guys better than we currently do, while catching as many college wrestlers' natural sizes as possible, in my opinion. Including KGs for your benefit, @SIACfan : 126 (57kg) 134 (61kg) 142 (64.5kg) 150 (68kg) 158 (72kg) 167 (76kg) 177 (80kg) 190 (86kg) 210 (95kg) 285 (129kg)

Interesting. There have been so many successful smaller heavies the last 25 years, I would have thought he'd push through and make a run at getting elite against big boys. It'll be fun to see how he evolves.

D1 Qualifier data is a limited way of evaluating who produces the top talent, but it's a decent starting point. Top 20 D1 Qualifiers, combined 2023 & 2024: 1 pa 89 2 il 54 3 oh 50 4 nj 49 5 ca 39 6 ny 33 7 ia 29 8 mn 28 9 mi 24 10 ok 23 11 wi 21 11 fl 21 13 mo 18 14 in 17 15 va 16 15 ga 16 17 co 13 18 nc 10 19 id 8 19 ks 8 Top 20, per capita (Qualifiers for 2 years, per 1 million residents): 1 ia 9.0 2 pa 6.9 3 ok 5.7 4 nj 5.3 5 mn 4.9 6 il 4.3 7 oh 4.2 8 id 4.1 9 wi 3.6 10 ne 3.5 11 mo 2.9 12 ks 2.7 13 in 2.5 14 mi 2.4 15 co 2.2 16 va 1.8 17 ny 1.7 18 ga 1.5 19 ct 1.4 20 al 1.4 (no CA or FL)