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NO ONE WANTS TO SIT ON WOODEN BENCHES FOR 2 DAYS

Respectfully disagree. Smalls schools and large schools are not playing the same game. The gap between the games they're playing grows wider every year.

Our first RTC of the 2023 off-season was hot out of the gates. Over 50 total in wrestlers and coaches. We were joined by 10 state qualifiers, 4 of those were placers, and 1 state champion. Coach Zack Johansen brought a great group all the way from Hobart, Midwest RTC’s Chris Fleeger was in the house with the young New Prairie studs, Jimtown’s SQ’s, Crown Point’s Orlando Cruz, Elkhart hammers, Wawasee SQ Salazar, Marian and head coach Wes LaFluer, & SB Riley all represented tonight. Our goal is to keep building this room one week at a time to benefit northern Indiana and southern Michigan wrestlers

Bethel wins the “best to never place” battle, but it pretty difficult to put a “never placed” wrestler ahead of guys who made the semis 3+ times.

Opportunity for Indianamat to sell some branded gorilla cushions...

It would be lovely to keep debating, but for now, I have to go help with MS wrestling practice. Maybe next year I will decide to truly work hard and go for it, but for now, the Cavs are stuck with my half-hearted efforts...

Thank you. So thus if you are generating stats based on school size is that really fair? Even though Carmel has 5000 students only 14 get to wrestle at sectional, yet you are including the other 4984+ students your stats. Your stats seem skewed to the point that bigger schools get more entries, but in reality they get the same number of entries as the smaller schools.

Is it too late to just say this is bullpucky that we even have to move it? It's what contracts are meant for. I would like to see the clause that says. "If there is something better that weekend you guys can't have it." What lawyer looked at the contract that was originally signed or who created the contract? Did the IHSAA at least get some kick back for being thrown out next year or at least a discount for the year after? I hope so because it is just bad business. Don't worry about the loyal 13000 wrestling fans that have supported your facility and downtown district for many decades.

Hoosier Heritage Conference Had 14 total State Finalists, 9 total state placers,4 being Semi finalists with 1 State champ!!! Not too shabby at all! @106 /3rd,6th,SQ @120 /4th,8th,SQ @126/ State champ @138/ 6th @145/4th, SQ, SQ @170/8th @220/5th, SQ,

Just want to congratulate everyone on their awards, and thank Joe, Mike, and everyone else on team IndianaMat for the amazing coverage you provide for our sport. Thank You Coach Lorek

And set up chiropractor sessions for the next 2 months with gas money saved!!

You got options in Mackey: 1. Use the gas money saved to buy tickets in Purdue Club section and get stadium seats and near the action. 2. If they go general admission, then used that saved driving time to get their early and get club stadium sheets. 3. Use saved gas money to buy Goriila cushion from Indianamat. I heard Joe's marketing dept is putting this together. 4. Buy a Beaver cushion from Rookie78 with saved gas money. 5. Buy a boiler cushion at gift store with saved gas money.

Unrelated. Also, who needs wrestlebacks? Just work harder, go to a club, etc. then you will be the bad draw.

I’m sure those kids work extremely hard. And I think they should continue to do so because I think anything is possible on the individual level. I think even the dying programs could be revived if they established a good culture and used that to build a strong youth program

Let's get a DAC vs HCC dual going this off-season.

Mr. Football was from a 2A school. Jack Kiser was a 1A player, Jaylon Smith was 2A. The position award winner for QB this year was 2A.

The best linebacker (John Purdy) and best running back (Luke Hansen) were both state placers. You don’t have to be a single sport athlete to be successful

Like I said above, I don't disagree. But I don't think that's a reason to class the individual state wrestling tournament based on school size.

Pretty much. The individual state championships are not being arbitrarily handed out based on the size of the school you attend.

These 2 things go together. Will Sheridan have chairs with cushions? If so I vote for it and that will help my butt.

Secondly, your state series realignment is great, however the IHSAA is very much tied down to who is willing and WANTS to host a state series event. The semi-states are not going to change location any time soon, so you need to draw the lines based on them and then move inward.

As far has hosting State, yes. State should be located to lower the over all amount of travel as possible. By having it in Evansville you'll be asking a good chuck of the state to increase traveling to state by anywhere from 1 to 3 hours more than they already travel. The fact is State should be in Indy but if it can't the goal should be to keep it as close to Indy as possible. As stated theres a hand full of teams that compete in the Evansville Semi-State that are close to Mackey than the Ford Center.

Zingerman’s Deli is outstanding!!

Fair point.

I’m surprised no one hasn’t said Austin Bethel yet. Four-time state qualifier who beat both Brayton and Joe Lee and immediately was an All-American as a true freshman at Wabash.

Not the case this year, at semi state. Hardly knew they were there. (Except at the scorers tables)

Is Evansville in Indiana????

I may be biased, as I’m part of the Gorilla Crew and have only frequented college wrestling boards otherwise, but there’s a reason this website has an award-winning reputation. Joe has made this forum better and better over time, and it’s still easily standing the test of time against the social media era, which as Joe said above, hasn’t been great for message boards. But yet I, and many others, are still daily-or-near users even in the off-season. Simply put, we are absolutely blessed with this board. Joe and the other OGs have built something that just keeps getting better. All of our rankers work their asses off to try and give an accurate product. And all the regular users just coming on to hype up their kid or school, or even just discuss wrestling because they love the sport, make for a great experience. In my time on the IM staff(roughly 7 years), my ranking position has progressively transformed from “this is a cool side-job, hope I do well” to “this is something I take a lot of pride in, and I want to do a good job for myself, the website, and the kids who look forward to them.” I’ve been recognized out at a bar before because I was wearing Indianamat gear. Indianamat has surpassed a normal forum at this point, we’re a full community.

They want you to buy brackets at venue

Believe me I would rather drive 10 minutes to the Fort Wayne Coliseum, but if it means more comfort while watching the state series, I would rather go to the Ford Center than sit on wooden benches at Mackey. I think Mackey would be a neat venue but I can not imagine sitting on wooden benches for 3 sessions of wrestling!!

So you’re saying only big schools can have elite athletes? I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate

No one wants to sit in a car for 4 - 5 hours to see their kid lose to the #1 kid in the State on Friday. And then sit in a car for 4-5 hours again on Saturday.

I don’t know the exact number but I know for a fact at least 3 state champions are multi-sport athletes so they would not be wrestling all year round

It is true that powerhouses change which is why I believe it would be best to build the state tournament in a common sensical manner instead of sending teams unnecessary distances as I referenced earlier.

Mishawaka is a Medium sized school.

North Vermillion head coach: Robby Davis, 2x regional qualifier. Brownsburg head coach: Darrick Snyder, state placer and D3 national qualifier. Coaches are not always limited by their own success but their track record especially when one coach has 18 years more head coaching experience. There also is not many RTCs or other wrestling training facilities nearby to Vermillion County but I believed there will be as Indiana and even Illinois wrestling continue to grow.

So there's really no changes!!!!!!! And that's a clickbait title!! and this really is just the beginning post for the annual class wrestling debate.

I get it, EMD loses the homefield advantage. But we can make offset that disadvantage by agreeing to have the EMD table workers work the clock and scoreboard.

Let's GOOOOOOO....

My guess is it would be more of a mental mind set than anything. Your elite wrestlers are so used to traveling and sleeping in hotel rooms it probably doesn't matter where they compete.

Lets's just have it in that corn field north of Sheridan so no one gets butt hurt.

DAC looks the best! 5 Champs, and please I don't care if 4 of them are from same team.

The SIAC conference had: 9 qualifiers 8 placers 5 semifinalists 4 finalists 1 champ

But geography wise it makes more sense for most of the state to go to Purdue. From the Ford center it's only 1 hour farther to go to Mackey than Gainbridge. Where with Fort Wayne and East Chicago Area its 2 and a half to 3 hour gain to go to evansville. Moving to to Evansville only benefits. the school close to Evansville travel wise.

Finally

Just got word we are hosting it in Columbus Ohio for 1 year only. IHSAA wants to see how far schools really will travel to look at instituting a new travel rule to put in place. Heard Evansville, West Lafayette, Louisville, St. Louis, & Detroit just missed out!

As suspected too dense. this has been gone over ad nauseum on this thread. However you refused to acknowledge or most likely read it because it would take effort on your end. Other IHSAA state tournaments are around the same time. They do not like to have multiple state championships on the same weekend. Reading between the lines, the IHSAA brass all want to go to wrestling and wouldn't want to go to a different event that weekend.

Better reserve a room in the Lafayette area now, or you guys might be staying at the "Lincoln Lodge Hotel". I dont think they're a Priceline Insurance affiliate. Because the insurance cost more then the hotel room.

Purdue threw their hat into the ring late in the process per what I gathered while at the IHSAA. It sounded as if they had a location ready to finalize and Purdue made a strong late push that the IHSAA is considering.

One of our neighboring states used to have a very lively board, but it petered out and put all of its season-specific info under a paywall. Joe has endured much for little and added a lot for less. I will be forever grateful.