maligned

Ha...then you mention 30% of the weights where the defending national champ or undefeated #1 phenom loses. Those 3 matches made it well worth watching the finals. A few thoughts on those 3 matches heading into NCAAs: 1. Will the committee reward Rivera with the #1 overall seed despite the bumped-up loss to Micic when Piccininni also owns a win over Lee and still stands undefeated? I definitely feel he deserves it, but either way Lee will most likely have to beat both of them to win a second title. No small task. 2. Man, Marinelli has Joseph's upper body ties and hooks figured out. It will be fireworks again if they meet in the final, but the big question is going to be whether Marinelli can get past the rest of the field where he'll see plenty of guys with more of an outside/low-attack game than Joseph. (Also...does anyone else think these guys accidentally swapped first or last names? Vincenzo Marinelli would be a beast on the senior circuit for Italy.) 3. Cassar's takedown was a thing of beauty, but I thought Steveson looked mostly in control until then. I'd still pick Gable to win NCAAs for two reasons: 1) I think he's less vulnerable to losing before the finals than Cassar and 2) I'm not convinced Cassar will get another split-second window like that very often for his blast double against the usually impenetrable Steveson.

I'd like to know more about how it's gone in other states, but the idea of allowing teams to enter whichever 14 kids they want for individual tournaments intrigues me (still requiring one-per-weight-class for duals). All of these questions about "who's more deserving?" (the 100-lb freshman or the backup junior 145) could be decided by the coaches who know the kids' situations the best.

All D1 starters now updated with their conference tournament results and automatic qualification or at-large prospectus.

Congrats to McCormick, Harvey, and Hildebrandt. Just to clarify, though, Mulkey and Tolley have a 0% chance of getting into NCAAs and Boston is a very long shot that sadly probably isn't getting in either. All 3 of those guys needed to win the tournament today.

Fyi...lots of results and discussion about D1 conference tourneys and D2/D3 nationals over on the college board. 1 recent grad clinched his first D1 NCAA appearance last night and 2 others are almost there headed into this morning. 3 other recent grads are in D2/D3 national semifinal matches this morning.

DI Conference tournaments started yesterday. EIWA: 125: Jose Diaz of Franklin & Marshall loses both and is eliminated. 165: Cael McCormick of Army wins twice, including a wild 16-13 win in the quarterfinals. He's the #4 seed and needs to finish top 4 to get an automatic bid to NCAAs. He next faces the #1 seed. Sadly, due to an upset on the other side of the bracket, he'll probably face the #2 seed in the wrestlebacks if he were to lose the semi-final match. If he doesn't win one of those, he's outside the top 4 (I can't find evidence that the EIWA wrestles a true top 4 in instances of NCAA qualification, but I'm not 100% certain). Nonetheless, Cael's RPI and Coaches' Panel ranking suggest he's got a good shot at an at-large bid if he ends up 5th or 6th in the tournament. 174: Ben Harvey, the #3 seed for Army, wins his first match but gets upset by the #6 in the quarters before coming back to win a wrestleback match. He'll face an unseeded guy this morning before probably seeing the #4 seed in the consi semifinals. If he wins both of those, he's assured a top 4 spot and one of the 5 automatic bids at his weight. MAC: 125: Drew Hildebrandt of Central Michigan comes in as the #2 seed in a deep weight class and takes care of business, getting a fall and a 6-2 win to advance to the championship and guarantee himself one of the 4 NCAA slots up for grabs. Congratulations, Drew!! It's got to feel good after last season's narrow miss. If Drew were able to upset the top seed McGee of Old Dominion in the final, he'll probably be in line for a national seed at NCAAs.

Drew Hildebrandt edited above to include his #2 seed in the MAC tourney. Very tricky weight. The top 6 guys of the 8 are all very evenly matched and any of them could take the 4 auto bids. Thankfully, Drew appears safe for an NCAA bid with his RPI and coaches' rankings even if he has a down weekend.

SoCon brackets were released. Boston gets the 2-seed as expected and has 3 guys in his half of the bracket that he smoked during the year. Mulkey loses out on some tiebreakers and gets the 5-seed despite having the same conference record as the 3 and 4 seeds. In the quarters, he'll have the VMI kid that beat him 4-3 during the year, and then 1-seed Debien awaits with a bye into the semi's. Tolley gets the 2-seed as expected, but an unexpected forfeit in the quarters puts him straight into the semi's--most likely against the Mongolian national Batkishig of Campbell in what is probably a coin-flip match. As stated above, the favorite, #1 seed Miller of App State, will be the big hurdle to an NCAAs berth in the finals.

I didn't explain myself very well. I looked at each bid individually. The 2 conferences together got 41. But two of the ones from the EWL would not have been earned with the 1-bid minimum removed. Every bid by the MAC and all but those 2 by the EWL would have been earned by the auto bid criteria--meaning the 39 number is the right total if you treat the two conferences as one entity.

Looks like the two combined would have gotten 39 allocated spots this year if it were one league (41 officially between them, but two spots wouldn't have been earned by the EWL without the 1-slot minimum requirement). The Big 12 has 53, the EIWA 47, and the ACC 37 by comparison.

I would want to take the subjective element of stalling completely out of it. I'm not suggesting a stalling rule. I'm suggesting a step-out rule that makes out-of-bounds situations fully objective. Know where you are and don't step out. It doesn't matter who initiated. It's just another layer of mat awareness, body positioning, and tactics. But the big bonus is it automatically takes away a significant chunk of stalling in a natural, unbiased way.

Updated with EIWA pre-seeds.

Two thoughts: 1. Reduce tech fall differential to 10 points. Or, give the option for tournament or super dual sites to use a 10-point tech fall rule. Rationale: Speeds up long days. Another step toward reducing mat time that might allow for 6 matches in a day in the future. Doesn't reduce possibility of big comeback because comebacks will seem just as miraculous if they happen from a 9-point deficit with a 10-point rule as they do now with a 14-point comeback with a 15-point rule. And 99.9% of matches will have the same winner even with a reduced point differential requirement. 2. Aside from blatant shove-outs, award a point for an opponent stepping out of bounds from the neutral position. Rationale: Speeds up matches by reducing out-of-bounds stoppages and adding a few more points here and there. Forces exciting wrestling as wrestlers must stay in bounds. Becomes a second-nature rule very quickly, as evidenced by the easy adaptation that took place when freestyle competition adopted a similar rule.

Luigs finished the regular season like a boss. According to Wrestlestat rankings, pins #29 Murin, falls 8-5 to #11 McKee, and beats #28 Debien 12-8. He's absolutely in the mix for one of the nine Big 10 spots if he keeps that up.

I've said in another thread that Connor Tolley could be a dark horse at 285 to qualify for NCAAs out of the Southern Conference. He's still in the mix for sure. As the #2 seed, he should be a clear favorite in his first match, but will face a toss-up semi-final against Batkishig of Campbell, who he beat 7-4 in the dual, but who has several more impressive wins than Connor on the year. Should he win, he'll almost certainly get the clear weight class favorite, Cary Miller of App State, who has majored Connor in their last two meetings, including once this year. Tolley did come within 7-5 of him in a dual last year, but he'll need a great performance. Another interesting weight class at the SoCon for Indiana fans will be 141. There's only one spot up for grabs, but two of the seven competitors will be Nathan Boston and Blake Mulkey, the likely #'s 2 and 4 seeds. The probable #1 seed Chris Debien of UT-Chattanooga is far from dominant, so any slip-up from Debien could mean an Indiana alum qualifies for nationals. Mulkey is only 3-3 in the conference, but his 3 losses were 9-7 to Debien, 4-3 to Boston, and 4-3 to the kid from VMI. Boston was 5-1 for the conference slate, picking up 4 dominant wins, plus the narrow win over Mulkey and a 6-2 loss to Debien. All these scores I mention suggest it's not too crazy to think Saturday could be a special day for one of our guys.

Updated above to include notes about conference seeding and placement requirements for earning automatic bids.

Updated above to include notes about conference seeding and placement requirements for earning automatic bids.

Coach Peckinpaugh of New Castle ran a quality discussion board with some info including rankings on the coaches' association site starting in the mid-90s. That continued until IndianaMat launched.

Updated through state

Updated through state

Now updated through State

Cathedral voluntarily stayed in 3A this year despite being a couple slots into 2A territory with the new classification rules demanding at least 7 slots filled to be counted.

Updated below with conference tournament results, bids earned, and at-large bid possibilities. RPI/Coaches' Panel rankings included 125 Drew Hildebrandt, CMU 7/19 (finished 2nd in MAC for auto bid) Devin Schroder, Purdue 19/18 (finished 8th at B10 for auto bid) Elijah Oliver, IU 23/28 (finished 4th at B10 for auto bid) Jose Diaz, Franklin & Marshall, was 0-2 at EIWA. 133 Stevan Micic, Michigan -/1 (FF to 6th at B10 for auto bid) Ben Thornton, Purdue 10/20 (finished 7th at B10 for auto bid) Paul Konrath, IU goes 1-3 at B10. 141 Nick Lee, Penn St. 6/2 (finished 3rd at B10 for auto bid) Chad Red, Nebraska 19/23 (finished 2nd at B10 for auto bid) Nate Limmex, Purdue 20/27; finished 10th at B10. Receives at-large bid. Nathan Boston, Campbell finished 3rd at SoCon. Blake Mulkey, Gardner-Webb, finished 4th at SoCon. Kyle Luigs, IU goes 2-3 at B10. 149 Parker Filius, Purdue, and Fernie Silva, IU, both go 0-2 at B10. 157 Griffin Parriott, Purdue 19/13 (finished 9th at B10 for auto bid) Jake Tucker, Michigan St. 28/-; FF out of all B10 matches. Jake Danishek, IU -/22; goes 1-3 at B10. 165 Bryce Martin, IU 26/21 (finished 7th at B10 for auto bid) Cael McCormick, Army 25/27 (finished 2nd at EIWA for auto bid) Cole Wysocki, Purdue, goes 2-3 at B10. 174 Dylan Lydy, Purdue 9/10 (finished 5th at B10 for auto bid) Ben Harvey, Army 18/18 (finished 5th at EIWA for auto bid) Jake Covaciu, IU 32/25; goes 2-3 at B10. Receives at-large bid. Drew Hughes, Michigan St. 33/28 (finishes 7th at B10 for auto bid) 184 Norman Conley, IU 31/-; goes 2-3 at B10. Max Lyon, Purdue 30/29 (finished 7th at B10 for auto bid) 197 Christian Brunner, Purdue 5/12 (finished 5th at B10 for auto bid) Jake Kleimola, IU, B10; finished 8th at B10. 285 Gable Steveson, Minnesota 2/1 (finished 2nd at B10 for auto bid) Mason Parris, Michigan 5/5 (finished 7th at B10 for auto bid) Jacob Aven, Purdue 26/- (finished 8th at B10, received last-minute alternate bid) Connor Tolley, UT-Chattanooga, finished 4th at SoCon. Fletcher Miller, IU, goes 0-2 at B10.

Interesting developments here in the race for the last 2 automatic wildcards. Bellmont has no underclassmen left so Columbia City is unofficially in. Bellmont own the tiebreaker over Norwell in their current dead heat, but Cale Gray wins Friday night at 195 for Norwell to keep them in the hunt. If Gray can get one more win any time today and place at least 7th, Norwell would move ahead of Bellmont unofficially into the final automatic spot. The team left out will be the highest qualifying score entering the voting process with a number of other teams.