IU89

Guess that makes sense why he thinks the salad on top of the burger is the best part of a burger...

Says the guy who got a SALAD at Whattaburger.... 

Tried to tell'em

Gunner Henry National Champion!!!

Purdue’s Matt Ramos will be at Red Cobra tonight from 7-8:30 p.m. 
 
Don’t miss!!
 
https://purduesports.com/sports/wrestling/roster/matt-ramos/11978

Wrestling is one of the big four sports for the IHSAA. The admins love our state finals and are doing their best to not bunch it up with other state finals. They all want to attend because it's such a cool event.

I have heard from MANY credible sources that West Lafayette SUCKS and the powers that be know it. See you in Evansville!

What were the biggest surprises or "wow" moments at NCAAs?
 
For me, obviously the Ramos upset was huge. But we already saw Ramos ragdoll Lee for a while once before, so it was somehow on our radar. I was almost more shocked by Arujau's overall performance. To boatrace Fix and RBY like that was ultra impressive.
 
Number 3 surprise for me might have been O'Toole turning the tables so convincingly on Carr.
 
The "wow" moment that got me out of my seat in the finals was definitely the Alirez throw. 
 
G-Rooks finishing off Van Ness to earn at least Top 6 would have made my top 3 surprises too. That match's finish was the biggest "NOO!!!" moment of the tournament for me.

Again I repeat. It’s not a small school  vs a big school for me. It’s just about more opportunities for the kids. Give me 6 from every semistate and wrestlebacks and I think we are back to where we need to be. 

For me it’s really not about the size of the school. It’s about more opportunities for the kids. I still think if you have a great wrestling culture at any size school the kids can do well. My mind will not be changed on that.

My argument would be, it hasn't increased because of our State tournament but despite it. It has gotten better because of the academies and the crazy people like us having our kids be super specialized in a sport at a very young age. Not sure it is the healthiest thing. Half these kids at the youth tournaments have never even been to the High School State finals. So... maybe it is parents pushing even harder at a young age to reach that goal. The real question is. Is it what is best for the kids and the sport?

Respectfully disagree (except on wearing jeans to coach), keep the state tournament pure, 1 real state champion per weight class.

I have thought long and hard on this and hurts me dearly to admit it because I want to get under those lights sooner or later. But.... it's time we class Indiana High School wrestling. The skill level of wrestling has only increased and is only increasing across the board in Indiana.  We aren't being fair to our kids to say we don't want to class it because we enjoy the show so much. It's like we are enjoying watching a real live Hunger Game. As coaches and fans there is no difference between us not wanting to change to class wrestling than the IHSAA not giving us wrestlebacks. We know the IHSAA isn't going to do that. Then what should we do in order level the playing field a little more so our kids get more opportunities and we try to grow the sport at every school?
 
Bring on the hate.... but the kids need to come first.
 
Oh... and quit wearing jeans when you coach at the high school level.

Lame

BREAKING NEWS:
 
Mason Parris’ application with the Iowa adoption agency has gone through! As of March 17, 2023, Mason Parris is officially Tony Cassioppi’s father. ❤️ 

After my guest appearance in this documentary my appearance fee might be over a dollar now!

Anyone interested in doing some sort of NCAA Pick’ems contest? I wouldn’t know exactly how to get it started or anything but if we got enough people we could somehow figure it out together. Let me know! I think it could be some fun.

Clearly the talk on this board of Mendez being a 4xer after he beat Byrd was way premature.  I'm a little surprised he is that low.  A 2nd round match up with Vito isn't ideal.  I'd be surprised if he wins that one.  Then he will have a tough road coming back through the consolations to get on the podium.  He's obviously talented enough to get on the podium, but he picked a bad time to have a bad tournament at the Big 10's.  

Flip side of this is the kid that grew up in the school system and now after all their hard work, has to take a seat because the superstar moved in.  We focus so much time on the top talent and forget about the blue-collar types that are putting the work in and waiting to get their shot

Well the goal should be that your wrestler is a leader the program needs to start the fire again. Every program needs a spark every now and then. When those sparks go to other schools it doesn't help grow the sport in my opinion. But... every circumstance is different.

All the reasons have I mad respect for guys like Torres(Portage), Jackson(Laporte)and Cole Solomey(Kankakee Valley)to name a few that stayed at their school . 

They really punished Gomez for a bad conference tournament as well.

I did a deep dive into all the results. Based strictly on this year, it's hard to argue with the seeds. Dean's 3 losses are to 3 guys above him. Silas lost twice each convincingly to #7 and #6. Neither Dean nor Silas has wins against guys seeded above them. And there are zero Big 10 wins from anyone over the Top 7 seeds.
 
This is how it has to work in a fair world. Guys make big jumps from past years and guys like Parris last year and B Lee this year are several notches down because of injuries. 
 
It's just a shame when we know the previous season's results and there's no way all 7 of those top seeds have collectively passed the entire Big 10 (Dean/Warner were obviously 1 and 2 last year ahead of these guys. Hoffman was AA. You know the story.)
 
This is why i like the wrestlestat rankings better. Theyre more accurately predictive because theyre super intuitive at slotting but also "connect" logically to that tiny bit of recency bias for an ascending new guy and that tiny bit of weight from last year when Dean is 1, Warner was 2, Bonaccorsi didnt place, etc. Those rankings currently have Dean #1 and Silas #2. That Round of 16 match... Yikes!
 
I'm not sure if you're being facetious with the phenom comment. He's 16-0, but he didn't place last year and he's got five 1- or 2-point matches this year. He deserves his seed at 10-0 against the field, but it's obviously near a coin flip against either quarters opponent he sees.

Mendez lost 3 matches in less than 24 hours last week. He’s seeded appropriately. 

Not jealous.  Just tired of seeing hard working kids get plucked away from other schools in 8th grade and/or good students being homeschooled for a second 8th grade year.  
 
You know how exciting it is to watch a barn burner match?  Imagine how fun wrestling would be if all these top notch kids didn’t “move” and stayed at their home school.   We might actually get to experience teams battle for titles year after year.