Wrestling Scholar

My son played tennis and wrestled. I can assure you that tennis takes much more travel time and is significantly more costly. Tennis clinics, lessons, tournament entry fees, etc are way more pricey than the price of a joining a wrestling club. Equipment is also a lot more expensive. But back to my point. Tennis also doesn't class, and the disparity between the Indiana small schools and large schools in tennis is much more significant between large schools and small schools. The small schools get clobbered with the exception of some small exclusive private schools in Indy and Ft Wayne. Also, in the IHSAA state tennis tournament is also a messed up complicated compromise of a tournament due to its single class nature. Id say if the class wrestling propenents want to make progress, they might need to join forces with the pro Class Tennis guys and the pro Class Golf guys.

I was analyzing this and I noticed the trend based on dates that golf participation is down 23.82. With a significant decrease in Golf participation, does that mean since we dont we don't have Class Golf, then is class Golf participation down? Tennis is down also, is this because we dont have class tennis? Tennis and Golf are the other individual sports that compete like wrestling. Are Class Tennis and Class Golf real terms?

Just for context, its very rare to see a change in classifications across the country. So there's really no data to compare. Roughly 90% of the states have class wrestling. Looking at this from a historical perspective in the United States high school athletics, there was a large surge in the 60s and 70s to reclassify organized school sports to have more equal competition with the same sized school. When this classification process occurred, most US states looked at wrestling as a team sport, and classified them in the same manner as football. Indiana is much more of the exception than the rule. Also, go to another state or a state wrestling board like Indianamat and ask them what they think of "class wrestling". They'll probably respond and say "whats class wrestling"? The term "class wrestling" is certainly an Indiana Colloquial phrase. I agree with that we need to look at this from a data perspective. I dont think people can get past there confirmation bias concerning class wrestling, so in this case, it relegates this to a moot point. Ive lived in 5 Midwestern states and have been involved with the wrestling community in those states. in the 4 states that have class wrestling, Ive asked some friends their perspective. I would generally summarize their response that class wrestling is the better way, but they are concerned about the sport being watered down. As you see in Indiana, a strong majority are adamant supports of a single class, resulting in @Galagorebeing overwhelmed with Chagrin.

Lets thank the West Lafayette Basketball coach for cutting him from the basketball team last year.

i dont think the data supports it. Look at all 56 of this year 4th place semi-state qualifiers (2021): 10 out of 56 are from 1A to 2A schools or 17.9%. So 82.1% are from big schools. Based on this data, the big schools are benefiting considerably more than the smaller schools. I purport that yes, the big schools dominate the 1 and 2 spots, but a lot of the small school kids start falling in the what im calling the screw zone (3rd or 4th best) and also some fall in the bonus zone of 5-7. Based on the 82%, the big schools might be benefiting more from the no wrestlebacks. So lets calculate the 79% misqualification rate. 44 big school wrestlers times 79% means 35 big school wrestlers benefited this year. Granted most of the time they got the bonus over another big school wrestler but some small schools got screwed. 10 small school wrestlers * 79% means 8 possibly over placed, but i think we find at least 8 wrestlers in the bonus the 35 wrestlers would have made up for that. .

I think im following you, but i disagree. I agree on you're classification that the 4th place finisher, a portion of the time is the 5th best or even possibly 6th or 7th best and is the beneficiary of a good draw. Without wrestlebacks i agree with that this occurs, thus the biggest problem without wrestlebacks is the top 4 best wrestlers dont get through. Conversely, normally the 4th or even 3rd best wrestler doesn't get through when the 5th or 6th place guy goes. Statistically, Im going to SWAG that the in Indiana brackets, the 5th best or lower ranked wrestler gets through roughly 50% of the time, so in Indiana the 5th-7th have a better statistical opportunity and the 3rd or 4th odds are diminished. I agree on that. So for you're hypothesis to be true that small schools benefit more from no wrestlebacks, this would mean that the small schools more often are the 5th-7th best wrestlers and the big schools are normally the 3rd or 4th ranked wrestlers. I say in a proportional representation of the population, the small school kids are equally distributed in the set of the( 3rd and 4ths) and the (5th-7ths). My hypothesis is that small school kids benefit from good and bad draws in the same proportion as big school kids do. I do appreciate the sample of New Castle where than half of the small school qualifiers got a good draw. But thats too small of a sample which you probably agree and somewhat subjectively difficult to measure if the small school kids were really a 5-7. Also, I looked at ECC in 2020. 13 of the 4th place finishers were from big schools, and one was from a small school. By big school, im saying youre 3A and 4A classificaiton. Based on that small sample size, large schools are benefiting more from the 4th place no wrestleback bonus.

I see, i accidentally added to the list. I was typing too much. I just edited it.

Is that sarcasm? Could I make it more clearer? I said 3 times, IN doesnt have wrestlebacks?

Wrestlebacks are an essential part of the wrestling process and is necessary in the process to find the true placing order. Due to the fact that in Indiana, the wrestllng rules and format are not controlled by the wrestling community, but is controlled by the IHSAA executive committee, we do not have wrestlebacks. The executive board, in its effort to fit into the traditional IHSAA tournament format, and also trying to stay within the spirit of the core value that the ultmate goal of state tournaments is to find the true champion and secondary placement order is irrelevant, the wrestling community is denied the use of wrestlebacks in the state tournament. Just for comparison sakes, see the list below of all states that do not utilize wrestlebacks. States without wrestlebacks Indiana States with wresltebacks AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, Co, CT, DE,FL,GA, HI, ID, IL, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MN, MS, MI, MN MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC NJ, NM, NY, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY, DC

Ok, so you're saying that in some instances, small school kids get the best possible draw and make it through ,and they would lose that opportunity. But the easy reply to that logic is, as many times a small school kid gets a good draw, another small school kid gets a terrible draw. Its the law of random averages of chance of getting a good or bad draw, and similar to a coin flip. So thats silly to say for that reason to say it would affect participation. I think its more devastating when a small school kid gets a bad beat draw, because those opportunities are so few. On the flip side, the big schools have a huge advantage in these sudden death rounds. 1st is experience, the coaches from the big schools have been there a lot more and they no how to psychologically prepare their kids and wrestle better in a sudden death situation. The expectations at big schools are different and they have more of a history of kids getting through. I commonly see kids wrestle tight and less aggressive or make bad decisions because of the pressure these rounds. Most of the time its the small school kids that get overwhelmed in the moment.

I just couldnt let it go and had to note the always much maligned Logansport regional quietly got 10 through. That's a banner year for Logan. Rensalear Central and West Central even repped the Twin Lakes sectional well. Im saying @Regionrat1 needs to come out of retirement and do an audit on the region, as some of those Logansport kids are stealing their spots. So @ontherise219 and @regionrat1, Is the Logansport regional catching up with the region and South Bend, or is the Region just dropping down closer to the Logansport level?

North Central sends teams to ECC, Fort Wayne and New Castle. But does it really have anything to do with the State series.

I was liking this thread. Im blaming @M109R

Maligned, have you ever applied your genius ratings at the semi state level, in a similar way you do for sectionals and regionals? I know your busy, but that would give some perspective to depth. By the way, did I miss the old Genius ratings this year?

i got a feeling the big annual class wrestling thread is coming soon. Get you're debate ammunition ready for the annual trip down the old polarized but entertaining class wrestling rabbit hole.

Mike, Im counting 8 from Logansport in your picks. That would be a windfall year for Logansport. Whats going on here? Is the Cold air or are those steel mills in the Region emitting that clean air. Id really be surprised with 8. 6 is real, 7 would be good. If they get 8, @Region Rat would have that "Whats happening to the neighborhood" look and would blame the refs or covid. But i can see from your perspective, the rankings are much more difficult thie year with less certainty because most of the Lafayette area (everybody else) cancelled a big chunk of their schedules this year, especially the big tournaments like the Tom Cameron and Harvest Connersville, Etc. I think you're mostly right, but the 106 little guy Logansport kids are solid with Siburcrist and Stall creating problems for Cruz and Bennett. I could see one of these guys getting through and at least provide some ticket round drama.

Good point Y2. But the reason IMO FW isnt as strong as other SS like NC and Evansville (in the last 10 Years) is the NE quadrant of Indiana has a make up of schools with more smaller schools and less bigger schools than NC and EV. The net result of this is there are just less kids that participate in wrestling due to lower enrollments. Its just as statistical fact, the more enrolled kids you have in your universe, the higher chance you have of developing kids that can place at the higher level. Thats the main reason. I also think some people in ECC are in denial that they're much closer to FW and much further from EV and NC based on depth of wrestling.

@devildog47959 would have had a least 10 guys coming through the Logansport Regional. I miss the good ole days when the Logansport regional at least had a strong presence on Indianamat. But 4 seems like a low number. Ill add Its harder to predict this year with so fewer big matchups due to Covid schedule curtailments Logansport averages 6 or 7 traditionally., Is this year different?

I think im going to jump in and buy a big lot of them and then sell them on Stub Hub. I think I will do service to provide the proud wrestling parents an opportunity to scalp some tickets and have a chance to see their kids wrestle. I dont think theyll mind the $50 per ticket premium markup form my time and services. Would it look shady to be that guy standing on the corner of ECC holding tickets yelling I got four together, $75 a piece.