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Penn State Dominance


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Penn State obviously graduated many, many studs. And it feels like Alabama and Clemson football at this point that PSU will just reload- been that way since Sanderson took the helm but are they vulnerable this year? Could Michigan, Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota, or Arizona State challenge them this year? 

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Michigan, tOSU, Minnesota and Arizona State have no chance. Only Iowa has a realistic chance. A lot will come down to Olympic red-shirt decisions this year.

That automatically eliminates Michigan. Micic, Amin, Massa and Storr are all taking Olympic red-shirts. Even with those four returning point scorers, though, they didn't have a realistic shot.

tOSU lost a ton to graduation. They have freshman or sophomores at 7 of the 10 weights, with only Sasso (149) and Kerkvliet (hwt) expected to make much noise at NCAA's from that young group. 

Minnesota is really only set at 4 weights (141 - McKee, 149 - Brayton Lee, 174 - Skatzka, HWT - Steveson).

ASU has a likely champ (184 - Z Valencia) and four or five maybe scorers (133 - Chlebove, 157 - Teemer, 165 - Shields, 174 A Valencia, HWT - Hall)

Iowa is loaded. They have guys at every weight that can score at NCAAs. And with 7 or 8 guys who have a realistic top 4 shot, if things went poorly for Penn State (Hall red-shirts, injuries pile up, guys have down years), Iowa is most likely to step up and take the title.

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Checking Open Mat and Flo rankings, excluding bonus points and based on their respective rankings, they have PSU as 14 and 22 1/2 point favorites over Iowa. That is not a very big gap because it assumes everything goes to plan for both teams. Any deviation from the plan based on the aforementioned factors (surprise red-shirts, injuries, down years) could see that order flipped.

Also on Flo, one of the contributors did a prediction column (different from rankings) for the NCAA tournament. It is important to note that this contributor is a big PSU believer (i wouldn't quite say fan) so his PSU predictions may be a tad rosy. He has them winning by 43 over Iowa. He also gives tOSU a fair amount of love, assuming they put 9 guys on the podium, at another 13 1/2 points back. He has Minnesota 7th, ASU 9th and Michigan nowhere to be found in his top 15 (again, the red-shirt issue).

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WIN Magazine updated their NCAA prediction. They have a two horse race that is essentially a Pick 'Em. PSU 109, Iowa 106.5. That is without bonus points factored in, only placement and advancement points. Basically they are saying its too close to call.

To illustrate the distance between these two teams and the field you only need to look at the totals predictions for the third and fourth place teams. They have Wisconsin at 55.5 points and Nebraska at 52.5 points. Combined they are predicted to score fewer points than PSU and only one point more than Iowa. 

And as for the Indiana boys they predict the following:

141: Nick Lee 2nd, Chad Red 5th

174: Dylan Lydy 9th

HWT: Mason Parris 6th

I probably missed some Indiana guys, so please fill in any holes. But before you think I missed the obvious one, I did not. They have no Brayton Lee. They rank out to 20th at each weight, so this seems a pretty big oversight. Flo, for example, has him ranked at number 11 to start the season (and their prediction column has him third by the end). Just goes to show these predictions are dicey at best. And yet, this is my third post on the topic. Apparently they are addictive too.

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I haven’t looked at the ranking in depth, but is WIN possibly only pre-season ranking guys bass on their previous college records?  Where as FLO is speculating where they feel guys will fall, including those who have yet to wrestle an official college match.  This may be the reason behind B. Lee not being on WIN’s ranking quite yet.  

Edited by MattM
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19 hours ago, MattM said:

I haven’t looked at the ranking in depth, but is WIN possibly only pre-season ranking guys bass on their previous college records?  Where as FLO is speculating where they feel guys will fall, including those who have yet to wrestle an official college match.  This may be the reason behind B. Lee not being on WIN’s ranking quite yet.  

That may be WIN's reason, but Flo has him that high based on what he did wrestling unattached, as well as factoring in his freestyle season results.

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