wrestlenewbie

There have been a couple of changes after this weekend. Coleman, indeed switches to the favorite and with Parriott med forfeiting his last two at the MSU Open, Limmex looks like the starter at 149 with Parker Filius backfilling (back-filiusing?) at 141. Hinz takes over for Spencer at 184. They still have Pokorney listed at heavy. So now Wrestlestat has it: 125 Hudkins (I) Dec Schroder (P) 3-0 Ind 133 Luigs (I) DEC Cheney (P) 6-0 Ind 141 Konrath (I) DEC Filius(P) 9-0 Ind 149 Limmex(P) DEC Rooks (I) 9-3 Ind 157 Coleman (P) DEC Silva (I) 9-6 Ind 165 Soehnlen (P) DEC Hoey (I) 9-9 174 Lydy (P) DEC Covaciu (I) 12-9 Pur (they wrestled once last year with Lydy winning 5-2) 184 Lyon (P) MD Hinz (I) 16-9 Pur 197 Brunner (P) MD Kleimola (I) 20-9 Pur (they wrestled three times with Brunner taking all three with 2 DECs and one TF) 285 Streck (I) DEC Pokorney (P) 20-12 Purdue Now matches are 6 to 4 favoring Purdue. Interestingly, if you sub Eli for Pokorney the result of that match flip to a DEC for Eli, final score 23-9 Purdue.

Let's go full Wrestlestat on this one: 125 Hudkins (I) Dec Schroder (P) 3-0 Ind 133 Luigs (I) DEC Cheney (P) 6-0 Ind 141 Konrath (I) DEC Limmex () 9-0 Ind 149 Parriott (P) MD Rooks (I) 9-4 Ind 157 Silva (I) DEC Coleman (P) 12-4 Ind 165 Soehnlen (P) TF Hoey (I) 12-9 Ind 174 Lydy (P) DEC Covaciu (I) 12-12 (they wrestled once last year with Lydy winning 5-2) 184 Lyon (P) MD Spencer (I) 16-12 Pur 197 Brunner (P) MD Kleimola (I) 20-12 Pur (they wrestled three times with Brunner taking all three with 2 DECs and one TF) 285 Streck (I) MD Pokorney (P) 20-16 Purdue 5 to 5 on matches, so it comes down to bonus points.

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.

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).

Any chance he flunks Homeschool and needs to repeat?

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.

I've got Lee at 145, the rest are pick em's.

Flo's Tier 1 has only Demas and Lee. Tier 2 (no order), Kaden Gfeller, Mitch McKee, Kyle Schoop, Chad Red, Tarique Wilson, Kanen Storr. Tier 3 Grant Leeth (6th year junior? dropping down in weight?), Real Woods (only true "new" talent in weight), Yahya Thomas, Tristan Moran, Max Murin, Sam Turner, Michael Carr. The debate centered around: Hard to see much difference between tier 2 and tier 3 in many cases. Red and Gfeller perhaps should be tier 1, but Red's regular season and Gfeller's NCAA held them back. Storr was borderline 2, perhaps should be 3. More emphasis placed on post season than regular season results. If DeSanto goes up in weight he would be Tier 1.

Flo talked about their 141 tiers this week (though they have not yet posted the article at least that I can find) and they have Nick Lee as their pre-season number 2 behind Dom Demas. Demas won their h2h in the consolation semis (I believe) 13-9 at the NCAAs last year. Diakomihalis, and Eierman are taking Olympic redshirts and McKenna graduated, so that makes sense too.

Makes sense. He has beaten everyone in the conference who has not graduated. Highest returning NCAA placer from the conference too.

I like your picks with one exception. I'm going Bo in the surprise over Cox. (And I want to pick Retherford, but holy crap Yianni). My only other concern is Taylor's injury. I don't think anyone really knows how that will factor in (other than Taylor himself) right now.

Wow, wow, wow. Scoring on his offense, scoring on his defense and taking out the world number 1 is so impressive. He looks better in freestyle than he looked at the NCAA tourney. And he looked darn good at the NCAA tourney.

I was of the same opinion. I thought Retherford would be too much for Diakomahalis, but boy was I wrong. None of his wins were flukes. He showed he is the real deal. I was very impressed with him at NCAAs, but this just takes him to an even higher level in my mind.

Flowrestling says, why so quiet on this class debate? They posted an article on Pro today analyzing the class set ups for each state. They draw no conclusions on what the "right" number of classes are for each state, but they took the time to do some math. Making no claims about the quality of those participants, they list the easiest and the hardest states in which to win a wrestling state championship. Participation / (number of classes x 14) = average number of participants per weight class. Hardest: California - 1710 participants per weight class (1 class) New Jersey - 648 (2) New England region - 622 (1, I guess) Indiana - 511 (1) New York - 411 (they don't say, I assume 1) Texas - 405 (2) Pennsylvania - 349 (2) Easiest: Vermont - 12 (1) DC - 15 (1) New Hampshire - 15 (3) Arkansas - 20 (3) Maine - 25 (2) Wyoming - 27 (3) North Dakota - 32 (2) Montana - 33 (3) New Mexico - 36 (3) Louisiana - 41 (3) Connecticut - 44 (4) South Dakota - 48 (2) I made the easiest list a bit longer because they include both the individual states in New England and New England as a region (since their state championships also roll up into a regional championship). Expanding to 2 classes would move Indiana to 255.5 per weight and drop you from 4 to 9 (behind Ohio at 265 per weight). Expanding to 3 classes would move Indiana to 170.3 per weight and drop you from 4 to 11 (behind Minnesota at 194 per weight). So, at least you are no California. Or, if you are envious of California, you need to consolidate to 4 weight classes to out tough them.

Triple amen. I mentioned heavy lifting in a previous post and you pooh poohed the notion, but we know better. Thanks again for the effort.