"Why?"
Though the NCAA refused to return my emails or engage in a public debate we have to assume that their logic was similar to that of a disinterested mother dealing with the begging of a hyperactive child.
"Because I said so. That's why."
From Kyven Gadson's insulting No. 5 seed at 197 pounds to the utterly inexplicable No. 8 seed handed to Nebraska's T.J. Dudley, and the rear-ending of Jason Tsirtsis at 149 pounds, it's obvious that in the NCAA's race for objectivity, they forgot to act rational.
The NCAA does a good job monitoring the pasta consumption of athletes, but like all bureaucratic bodies it entrusts the wrong people with making decisions that impact those lives most directly. Should we be placing the future competitiveness to an amalgam of overworked head coaches and bleary-eyed administrators? Should someone who has a passing knowledge of the sport's rules and history be given the right to seed 330 wrestlers just because they work within the NCAA? I've watched some of the biggest movies of the year, but that doesn't mean I should have an Oscar vote.
I have no doubt that each committee member is a good person with the best of intentions. Administering college athletics is a challenging profession that requires wit and hard work. But the gripe isn't with the personalities or professionalism of the members, but in the bureaucracy and innate arrogance of the institution that forces these members to make decisions for which they are unprepared or ill-equipped.
The entire process has been turned into numbers and odd little rankings systems, none of which is made public. Then rules are made to ensure "fairness," ostensibly the primary objective is achieved.
Wrestling is about more than numbers and no matter how many formulas they create there is subjectivity inherent in both making the formulas and ranking them in importance. The NCAA has therefore concluded that bad decisions made with a tenuous connection to plausible deniability (and the certainty of one's own objectivity), is more virtuous than making the correct decision through a system that admits subjectivity but is displayed in honest terms.
It takes an immense amount of arrogance to think that your organization is the only one capable of objective decision-making. That mentality shows disdain and disrespect for the fans, coaches and media that support the sport. Get Andrew Hipps, Jason Bryant, Earl Smith and Christian Pyles in a room and have them hash out their own seeds. There will be blood, but I know for CERTAIN that they aren't going to drop Kyven Gadson four spots because their formula said so. That type of automated CYA decision-making comes from years of mechanized incompetency inside a bureaucratic infrastructure fundamentally flawed by the incessant reminder of amateurism's virtuosity.
The simple truth is that the members of the committee themselves aren't to blame. They closed the door one afternoon, ran some numbers, had a quick chat and then emerged a few hours later with a document. That's the job they were assigned and they fulfilled their duty.
The fallout from the worst seeded bracket in NCAA history? Nada. The principals don't carry the weight of the decision, but the student-athletes that helped propel them up on bureaucratic depth chart do. These wrestlers lose sleep. They're the ones who are wronged. This isn't basketball where a team might lose a seed and get put in a tough region. There are dozens of players and lots of stats. Wrestling is pure and when you seed the tournament, you aren't seeding a collection of jerseys and missed free throws. You're ranking a man's accomplishments and failures. You're measuring his worth.
Though the NCAA flubbed, the real beauty of wrestling is that on March 20 none of the seeds will matter to the tough young men who are taking the mat. They'll have learned the lesson that life and institutions aren't fair, and they'll prove themselves wrestlers by taking advantage of the opportunity to be in the room and fight for their title, regardless of bureaucracy and incompetence.
"Why?"
"Because they're wrestlers, that's why."
To your questions (you all asked the same three) ...
Q: What are your thoughts on the recent style of defending champ Jesse Delgado? Watching the Big Ten tournament, Cory Clark and Nico Megaludis consistently got in on his legs only for Delgado to literally dive for the other foot and hang on for dear life. He showed no offense or seeming desire to attack. For a guy who has an exciting offense, this is a negative way to win matches. The crowd and his opponents were clearly frustrated by his newfound tactics.
-- Dave A.
Jesse Delgado defeated Nico Megaludis to claim his second straight Big Ten title (Photo/Mark Beshey, The Guillotine)I get it.
Like all wrestlers, Delgado wants more than anything to win. To do so he has adapted to rules and created a style that gets him the most number of victories. He has the right to wrestle how ever he wants within the rules, and since the rules no longer reward aggression or penalize defense tactics, he's smart to find his keys to victory.
The problem is nationwide. Wrestlers are no longer looking to dominate through toughness or aggression. They are looking to squeak by with tactics. That's not a sellable product, and if left unchanged it'll kill the sport.
Q: I'd rather watch pigs fornicate than stare blankly at another 2-1 OT victory. Also, how does escaping sooner in the second tiebreaker period somehow mean that you have asserted your dominance and "beaten" your opponent? Seriously? See Delgado-Megaludis for a perfect example of this ridiculous criteria. So much is wrong with the current rules. Stalling is incentivized as a winning tactical method. What can they realistically do to force the action and make wrestling watchable again? I want to see overtime with no time on the clock and two guys in neutral battling it out until someone scores. Thoughts?
-- Patrick S.
Foley: Though I prefer to eat my swine rather than watching them reproduce little slivers of bacon, I can agree that there is no worse pain than watching two talented humans not use their given talents.
The 30-second rideout is stupid. It's dumb. But in a system that can't solve issues on the feet, it's the only possible tiebreaker available. And just so we're clear, I do think that the international rules are far superior in this regard. I love top wrestling when it's tilts and pins, but when it's one guy seeing how long he can bite and ankle I lose all interest.
The great tragedy of this season has been we have arguably the most talented field in NCAA history, but a set of rules that leaves us wondering what sport we are watching.
If I see one more side headlock from top in the 30-second rideout, I'm going to punt a puppy into Lake Michigan.
It's simple: The rideout has become so valuable that it makes the entire match valueless. What is so incredible about holding down an opponent when you START ON THEIR BACK?
MULTIMEDIA HALFTIME
2014 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships Promo
Q: With the World Cup going on this weekend in LA, give me one badass freestyle wrestler to keep an eye on who is not from the United States.
-- Mike C.
Foley: There are a lot of guys to watch. I'm in Los Angeles for the World Cup and walking through the lobby of the team hotel I've run into several World and Olympic champions. The talent is probably the best to ever attend a World Cup and that's without Russia's Otarsultanov and Gatslov who both couldn't make the trip.
For my money it will be fun to watch Jordan Burroughs hit the mats, and to see what Nick Marable can do at 70 kilos. It will also be interesting to see how Tervel Dlagnev starts up another year on the mats. He's not young and with heavyweights when it goes, it's gone.
Internationally I'd watch out for the Mongolian lightweights, especially Batbold Nomin at 57 kilos and Ganzorig Mandakhnaran at 65 kilos. With the upper weights you can see some incredible stuff from defending 84-kilo World champion and 85-kilo World No. 1 Ibragim Aldatov of Ukraine.
COMMENT(S) OF THE WEEK
By John B.
I just watched the Big Ten tournament finals during which three wrestlers, Jesse Delgado, Nick Heflin, and Tony Nelson were allowed to win titles without ever initiating any offense. Surely there must be a way to put an end to this type of folkstyle wrestling before the boredom it produces kills the sport. What are your ideas for a solution? Clearly the referees do not want to have this happen but they seem unable to make the call. For example in the Heflin match all we heard from the official was "keep working" with Heflin going unwarned.
Is it possible to better define stalling by rule to make it easier and quicker to be called? Maybe the second official could count "action initiation moves" with stalling being called on the passive wrestler after a certain number of these moves with no corresponding moves from the offender? Double stalling if neither wrestler initiates action within a certain time period? Something must change to prevent wrestlers from simply blocking off attacks and waiting for an opponent's mistake and usually ending the first period at 0-0.
If a solution is found for wrestling on their feet, we might then look at solutions for mat wrestling where riding to build riding time rather than turn the opponent is prevalent along with curling up on the bottom to avoid the risk of being turned.
By Tim J.
Agree one-hundred with your tweet about the first two matches at the Big Tens having no takedowns. NCAA wrestling is soooo boring. I try to take my girlfriend and younger kids to matches and have them watch it on TV, but I can barely watch it so they hate it after a couple minutes. It's basically come down to be all defense in first period, ride guy in second by dropping down on leg, getting a riding point, and then an escape in the third. Mason Beckman at Lehigh, Chris Perry at Oklahoma State, and Jesse Delgado at Illinois are the worst. I wish people would start calling them out non-stop.
Without Taylor and Ruth next year, how will the Big Ten finals be? Talk about watching a pile of crap.
By Mr. Juice
I feel like letting out a Chewbacca style rrroooaarrrrrr when I hear and read that the National Duals are key to our sport's growth. The National Duals, from a fan's (and former wrestler) perspective, feels "forced." Crowds that attended the Big Tens and other conference championships want to be there and show up to root their teams on. They know how our sport works. No matter how aggressively the National Duals events are promoted, attendance, interest, etc. will not be there. The results in these conference tournaments are key to seeding, as we all know. But for growth of audience, interest, etc., shouldn't we celebrate the uniqueness of each conference more? Celebrate and promote the unique coaching styles within each? And how these styles, victories, and defeats in each conference lead to the most spectacular tournament in the country? Isn't the obvious best path to simply promote our existing system better? Push for an entire afternoon of wrestling coverage on TV compiled from a variety of conference matches. This amplifies audience metrics and opens doors to sponsorship/advertising opportunities beyond "wrestling products." FYI: The Big Ten Wrestling Championships production/matches were fantastic this year.
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