Riordan's Roundup: March 12, 2013

Penn State wins the Big Ten championship ... again. They've been the best big tournament team all year, and once again they show us why. They have too much firepower for their opposition to overcome, and their wrestlers usually seem to rise up to the most important occasions. In two weeks, I expect to write about the Nittany Lions' third straight national championship. Penn State has performed in March with such consistency over the last few years that their story is starting to become redundant. In this way, the team's performance resembles the wrestling career of head coach Cael Sanderson. Reporting on unceasing success becomes like reporting that on the persistent wetness of water. We must now look to other programs to create compelling storylines.

I believe the most interesting narrative at the end of this college wrestling season begins with the premature report of the demise of the Iowa Hawkeyes' national title chances. This weekend, as Penn State propelled themselves to a championship with a perfect record in the finals, Iowa's four finalists went winless, failing to earn Iowa a Big Ten championship. In 2006, the last time Iowa failed to produce a Big Ten champion, the program had a new head coach on campus in the fall. I don't believe that Tom Brands will face a similar fate as his predecessor, nor should he; I simply mean to illustrate that going champion-less in the Big Ten makes for serious disapprobation among the Hawkeye nation.

This is why Iowa's reemergence as a national title threat at next week's nationals will make for such thrilling theater. I think that even some Iowa faithful have begun to write off U of I's chances at nationals. This should not happen. Iowa still has five wrestlers very capable of winning national titles (that's right Bobby Telford, you are number five), and they have first-rate motivation from the Brands brothers. Most importantly, Iowa will be wrestling for the national championship in Iowa.

I've been to nationals in St. Louis, and that environment is almost like a home meet for the Hawkeyes, I shudder to think about the amount of crowd support that will show up in black and gold in Des Moines. When Iowa suits up for nationals, they will have the vociferous power of thousands of Hawkeye fans at their back. Few sports are as impacted by the energy of the crowd more than wrestling. Ask the USA freestyle team recently back from Tehran. Penn State will probably hoist a national championship trophy the Saturday after next, but I predict that Iowa will make it a dogfight to the bitter end wrestling in their home state.

A brief discussion of sportsmanship

After a college wrestling match, rarely do we see much love between the opposing wrestlers. I do not have a problem with this. College wrestlers invest everything they have into winning, and after a loss they generally feel deprived of something very precious. The loser of a wrestling match should limit the desire for a prolonged love in with the other wrestler and his coaches. On the high school level, we sometimes see huggers who want to follow every win and loss with a warm embrace. I'm not a terribly big fan of this sort of after-match ritual.

College rivals Chris Pendleton and Ben Aksren embrace after their NCAA finals match in 2005 (Photo/Danielle Hobeika)

As coaches we encourage competitiveness in our athletes. We want to see disappointment and anger in their losses. The wrestler who hates losing the most will likely become the wrestler who loses the least. On the collegiate Division I level, wrestlers compete at a fever pitch, and losing can set off powder kegs of emotion. With this in mind, I think college wrestlers should show the discipline to follow two iron-clad rules of sportsmanship. First, win or lose, they should actually look their opponent in the eye, and actually shake their hand. This handshake doesn't have to last an eternity, it only needs to last an instant, but the simple act of a real handshake would mean a great deal to this sport. I understand the desire to get off the mat after a loss, but too often do we see the "slap and run" rather than a real shake. It wouldn't kill both wrestlers to take a second and actually shake each other's hands after a match.

Second, I understand the anger and disgust which accompany losing, I also understand the need to physically act out on these emotions, but if a wrestler must act out, he should always do so away from the view of the crowd, and away from the view of cameras. Losing wrestlers ought to not engage in throwing headgear, kicking chairs, stomping off award podiums and throwing medals in garbage cans while in the area of competition. I understand the saying, "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser," and I see the wisdom in it. However, having a tantrum in public is never a good look.

Difficult as it may be sometimes, we ought to eliminate public displays from our athletes that seem petty and childish, if for no other reason that they might seem unsavory to prospective college wrestling fans who lack the perspective of the heart break that comes with losing an important wrestling match. We want the popularity of college wrestling to flourish, and following two simple sportsmanship rules can help with that.

ACC: The tournament comes down to the wire, and Virginia Tech pulls it out for their first team ACC championship. With notable losses in other conferences, some ACC wrestlers should enjoy high seeds at NCAAs. Not bad for a conference that is redshirting arguably its two best wrestlers.

EIWA: Cornell wins the team title again. Next year things may be different as Lehigh brings an impressive core of wrestlers out of redshirt, and the Big Red graduate two of their three EIWA champions.

EWL: In its last year before departing for the ACC, Pitt wins the EWL once more. That makes three in a row for the Panthers in an EWL which features some tough teams.

West Regional/WWC: Wyoming ends up in first here. I have a feeling that in a few years we will be talking about the Western Regional in much the same way we discuss the ACC. The West Regional features ambitious coaching, impressive recruiting, and a bunch of teams on the rise.

CAA: Say what you want about Hofstra, but they are conference champions. Perhaps the incredibly tough regular season schedule paid off. My upset of the week came at this tournament in the 197-pound finals as Drexel's 19th-ranked Brandon Palik defeated Binghamton's fifth-ranked Nate Schiedel.

SoCon: Chattanooga continues its SoCon dominance. The real interesting story here: Campbell earns the runner-up spot. Some fans may scoff at the significance of second place in the "lowly" SoCon, but this conference, for the most part, continues to get tougher from top to bottom, and second place is a real achievement for a program that was a mere rumor a few years ago.

MAC: Missouri wins its first MAC title in its first year in the conference. Expect as many as four national finalists from this conference.

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Riordan's Roundup: March 12, 2013

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