NCAA Pick 'ems 2024 (post your picks here)

[maligned]

1 hour ago, SIACfan said:

 

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.

It was definitely 125 and 184 where the higher-scoring contestants made their hay. You can see a clear delineation between high-ranking and low-ranking overall finishers based on scoring big in those two weights.

 

In retrospect, the Keckeisen pick, especially, made a lot of sense because the rest of the weight was more difficult to gauge. Guys that took him freed up a lower seed to score complementary points elsewhere that were more of a sure thing than lower-seed options at 184.

 

At 125, I know Figueroa looked like a world beater this weekend, but everyone took their turn to look great or to lose 3 or 4 matches at that weight this year. It was a bit of a shot in the dark guessing who would be hot, and the ones that landed that shot and scored points at 125 finished up the leaderboard.

[SIACfan]

48 minutes ago, maligned said:

It was definitely 125 and 184 where the higher-scoring contestants made their hay. You can see a clear delineation between high-ranking and low-ranking overall finishers based on scoring big in those two weights.

 

In retrospect, the Keckeisen pick, especially, made a lot of sense because the rest of the weight was more difficult to gauge. Guys that took him freed up a lower seed to score complementary points elsewhere that were more of a sure thing than lower-seed options at 184.

 

At 125, I know Figueroa looked like a world beater this weekend, but everyone took their turn to look great or to lose 3 or 4 matches at that weight this year. It was a bit of a shot in the dark guessing who would be hot, and the ones that landed that shot and scored points at 125 finished up the leaderboard.

 

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.

 

[maligned]

6 hours ago, SIACfan said:

 

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.

 

True. It's kind of like 184 was the price of admission and 125 got you to the VIP room. Only 1 of the bottom 11 scored anything at all at 184 and 16 of the top 18 had at least 11 points. 

[TeamGarcia]

125- I was going to pick Figs at whatever seed they gave him .
Reasons … He came back from a loss to Provo from Stanford in OT 13-8, in early February to beat Provo 4-1 at PAC 12 Championships . 2 of his loses was injury defaulted and was giving a loss to Volk at Cliff Keen which is debatable. You can check that match out on Flo. Flo even did a story on that match . His only real loss match was to California and Oregon State Rival Maximo Renteria . Wonder why Maximo didn’t wrestle in NCAA’s cause he would have AA if not a finalist . Both know each other very well . 
 

As stated earlier Rich is Family . Asa wrestled with him on Team Shutt a few times while in High School . Super Proud of him . 

Edited March 26 by TeamGarcia

[maligned]

7 minutes ago, TeamGarcia said:

125- I was going to pick Figs at whatever seed they gave him . He came back from a loss to Provo from Stanford in OT 13-8, in early February to beat Provo 4-1 at PAC 12 Championships . 2 of his loses was injury defaulted and was giving a loss to Volk at Cliff Keen which is debatable. You can check that match out on Flo. Flo even did a story on that match . His only real loss match was to California and Oregon State Rival Maximo Renteria . Wonder why Maximo didn’t wrestle in NCAA’s cause he would have AA if not a finalist . Both they know each other very well . 
 

As stated earlier Rich is Family . Asa wrestled with him on Team Shutt a few times while in High School . Super Proud of him . 

Interesting about Renteria. I wonder if he came into college small. He was 5-19 in 2 years at Illinois, but he was 6-0 in opens this year behind Kaylor, who graduates. He'll obviously be one to watch if the Figueroa win was for real.