PSU at Maryland 1/28 noon ET on BTN

[Wrestleknownothing]

Probably a shutout?

But who knows who goes, so who knows who wins.

If it is starter v starters it looks like:

125: Davis (4) v Capul (NR)
133: Nagao (5) v Brown (21)
141: Bartlett (2) v Miller (17)
149: Kasak (12) v Miller (14)
157: Haines (1) v North (33)
165: Mesenbrink (7) v Bell (NR)
174: Starocci (1) v Solis (NR)
184: Truax (5) v Mielnik (NR)
197: Brooks (1) v Smith (5)
285: Kerkvliet (1) v Nevills (25)

First question: I have the over/under on PSU starters at 7.5.

• Over?
• Under?

Second question: Who is your favorite to prevent the shutout?

• Will Nevills point out the error of Sanderson's ways and prove that recruiting over him was a mistake?
• Will Jaxson Smith pull off the annual Aaron Brooks upset?
• Nagao, Bartlett, and Haines have looked beatable. Can one or more of Brown, Miller or North get it done?
• The closest head to head ranking is Tyler Kasak v Ethen Miller, with only two spots separating them. Kasak is a true freshman while Miller is a third year with two NCAA tournaments under his belt. Is the experience enough to pull off the upset? Would it really even be an upset?

[1032004]

I’d go Kal Miller over Bartlett as the best chance for an upset.  He has 2 wins over Cole Matthews this year.  Ethen Miller got teched by Raike from U of Ohio that is 13-7, him beating Kasak was certainly an upset.

Are we counting Kasak as the “starter” for your over/under 7.5?  I’m not sure if he should count as there seems to be a chance he still redshirts.

[flyingcement]

I will root for the Terps, but I expect a shutout, and that's assuming at least a backup or two from PSU

[Wrestleknownothing]

27 minutes ago, 1032004 said:

I’d go Kal Miller over Bartlett as the best chance for an upset.  He has 2 wins over Cole Matthews this year.  Ethen Miller got teched by Raike from U of Ohio that is 13-7, him beating Kasak was certainly an upset.

Are we counting Kasak as the “starter” for your over/under 7.5?  I’m not sure if he should count as there seems to be a chance he still redshirts.

Good point. David Evans did wrestle the last two duals. So let's put it at 6.5 of the other 9 weights.

[flyingcement]

David Evans will summon his inner Nittany Lion and still pull off the upset I bet

Edited January 26 by flyingcement

[1032004]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Good point. David Evans did wrestle the last two duals. So let's put it at 6.5 of the other 9 weights.

Over

[fishbane]

5 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Will Nevills point out the error of Sanderson's ways and prove that recruiting over him was a mistake?

It would be at least the third such mistake of Cael's tenure.  First Bubba J. then Beard.  I think his judgement was good here.

[peanut]

How is it possible for this dual to be sold out?

[Alces Alces Gigas]

7 hours ago, fishbane said:

It would be at least the third such mistake of Cael's tenure.  First Bubba J. then Beard.  I think his judgement was good here.

Not sure if Beard was a mistake.    I don't see beard willing any NCAA titles anytime.soon 

[Le duke]

How is it possible for this dual to be sold out?

Penn State fan base travels well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[1032004]

33 minutes ago, Le duke said:

Penn State fan base travels well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only like a 3 hour drive.  I’m not looking forward to PSU having the home mat advantage at B10’s at Maryland 

[Le duke]

Only like a 3 hour drive.  I’m not looking forward to PSU having the home mat advantage at B10’s at Maryland 

Penn State has one of the largest alumni populations in the country. It’s not like they all live in State College and are driving to Maryland. Plenty of them are local to the area.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[swoopdown]

11 hours ago, fishbane said:

It would be at least the third such mistake of Cael's tenure.  First Bubba J. then Beard.  I think his judgement was good here.

I would take Talyor's and Deans's contributions to PSU over Bubba and Beard. 

Beard has the opportunity to build a case this season. 

But Bubba over Taylor's two titles, four finals, tournament bonus points and post graduations contribution to the RTC?  One match may have ending well for Bubba's revenge fantasy but does not rise close to being a recuiting error!

Cael's judgement was spot on in these instances.

[1032004]

6 minutes ago, Le duke said:

 

Penn State has one of the largest alumni populations in the country. It’s not like they all live in State College and are driving to Maryland. Plenty of them are local to the area.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Sure, makes it a lot easier though 

[fishbane]

1 hour ago, swoopdown said:

I would take Talyor's and Deans's contributions to PSU over Bubba and Beard. 

Beard has the opportunity to build a case this season. 

But Bubba over Taylor's two titles, four finals, tournament bonus points and post graduations contribution to the RTC?  One match may have ending well for Bubba's revenge fantasy but does not rise close to being a recuiting error!

Cael's judgement was spot on in these instances.

I think it's a mistake to look at Taylor vs Bubba's overall career.  The conflict only existed for a single season.  Bubba only had on year left and Taylor only wrestled one year at 157.  The obvious solution would be for Cael to keep Bubba happy at PSU and convince Taylor to move up a year earlier.  In a recent interview (post olympics at least) Taylor has said he regretted not moving up in weight sooner.  If Cael could have pulled it off it likely would have been a positive for both individuals and the team.

In 2011 PSU was not the favorite to win NCAAs.  They finished 14 points ahead of Cornell and without the contributions of mid-season Transfer Andrew Long (18.5 points) they probably would not have won.  I doubt Pearsall would have been able to contribute the requisite 5 team points to overtake Cornell.  Had they kept Bubba he scored 26 points at NCAAs that year (2nd most) and Taylor at 165 would have been an improvement over Vollrath, who did not qualify.  If you take away the points scored by Long and Taylor and add Bubba's to PSUs total in 2011 they finish ahead of Cornell.  PSUs best team in 2011 would have includes Long, Bubba at 157, and Taylor at 165 and they win NCAAs by 30.

Beard is more debatable.  I mostly included him because he defeated Dean last season. PSUs post NIL ability to pick up transfer AAs kind of negates the extra years Beard has available, but I suppose we will see.  

Suriano's name could also be included in this discussion, but Cael didn't really recruit over him and I doubt any program could have gotten 4 years out of him.

[buckshot]

Kasak and Evans are both registered at the Mat Town College Open so instead of wrestling Miller they'll pad their stats against a bunch of backups because number of matches is more important than quality of matches. 

[Le duke]

Looks like both Kasak and Evans will be missing the dual tomorrow vs Maryland.

They’re heading to the Mat Town II Open to get some matches. I imagine we might see this happen again next weekend. tOSU on Friday and an open on Saturday or Sunday.

Not sure who will go at 149. Maybe Pierce or Heard.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PSULou64]

Some of you make it sound like all of these situations where wrestlers leave are completely the fault of coaches or the wrestlers or that the coaches had it within their power to keep the wrestler in the program.  I don't understand how, without intimate knowledge of the situation, you come to those conclusions.  

In a lot of cases the coaches and wrestlers keep the details to themselves and won't speak publicly so it's purely conjecture on your part as to how the situation could have been handled to keep everyone happy.

[Wrestleknownothing]

29 minutes ago, fishbane said:

Suriano's name could also be included in this discussion, but Cael didn't really recruit over him and I doubt any program could have gotten 4 years out of him.

The second part of that sentence shows the first part is false.

[PortaJohn]

1 hour ago, fishbane said:

The obvious solution would be for Cael to keep Bubba happy at PSU and convince Taylor to move up a year earlier.

Have to respectfully disagree.  As has been admitted by himself and  his teammates who were on the roster prior to Cael's arrival Bubba had no intentions of jumping on board with Cael's vision.  Bubba and Cael both made the right decision.  

Molinaro: I’m sure Bubba will argue against this, but the thing about Cael is he’s the same with everybody. That’s what I liked about him most and that’s what made him change the culture so fast. He was consistent. He wasn’t picking and choosing which guys to discipline.

Vallimont: Cael came in and cracked down on some rules and a curfew. He had coaches come to make sure you were in class. If you weren’t there, you had to come into the wrestling room late at night on Fridays and do extra study hall hours.

The main thing I can remember is that under the former coaching staff, Bubba had a little more freedom. He would sometimes show up late to a lift. Cael came in very strict and was not really messing around with people tip-toeing the line, and I think that may’ve been a point of conflict between them. There was a bit of tension that was visible every now and then, but I don’t think anyone knew how serious was until he left the team.

Jenkins: [After the 2009 season,] some injuries were starting to catch up to me and I needed a break. I knew I needed to hit reset physically and mentally to get back to the podium. I made some personal moves to make sure that if I needed to redshirt, I would in fact redshirt for the first half of the season.

I purposefully didn’t show up to classes, so I would be academically ineligible. I had extra credits, so I calculated my ineligibility and eligibility to still perform in January for the Big Ten season, so I could at least have that half a year to get healthy and get back to being that wrestler I came to Penn State as. I forced my redshirt year and possibly my departure from Penn State when Cael realized I was ineligible for the first half of the season and that we had different demeanors.

Edited January 27 by PortaJohn

[swoopdown]

1 hour ago, fishbane said:

I think it's a mistake to look at Taylor vs Bubba's overall career.  The conflict only existed for a single season.  Bubba only had on year left and Taylor only wrestled one year at 157.  The obvious solution would be for Cael to keep Bubba happy at PSU and convince Taylor to move up a year earlier.  In a recent interview (post olympics at least) Taylor has said he regretted not moving up in weight sooner.  If Cael could have pulled it off it likely would have been a positive for both individuals and the team.

In 2011 PSU was not the favorite to win NCAAs.  They finished 14 points ahead of Cornell and without the contributions of mid-season Transfer Andrew Long (18.5 points) they probably would not have won.  I doubt Pearsall would have been able to contribute the requisite 5 team points to overtake Cornell.  Had they kept Bubba he scored 26 points at NCAAs that year (2nd most) and Taylor at 165 would have been an improvement over Vollrath, who did not qualify.  If you take away the points scored by Long and Taylor and add Bubba's to PSUs total in 2011 they finish ahead of Cornell.  PSUs best team in 2011 would have includes Long, Bubba at 157, and Taylor at 165 and they win NCAAs by 30.

Beard is more debatable.  I mostly included him because he defeated Dean last season. PSUs post NIL ability to pick up transfer AAs kind of negates the extra years Beard has available, but I suppose we will see.  

Suriano's name could also be included in this discussion, but Cael didn't really recruit over him and I doubt any program could have gotten 4 years out of him.

IMHO when evaluating whether or not to recruit over someone looking at the future upside (entire career) of the two wresters is the way to go, so you're right, our criteria differs off the bat.

Since PSU won in 2011 it is hard for me to say Cael was wrong.

Your arguments are plausible - but for me only for one year and only if some assumptions are made. 

~  Why was Bubba asked to leave the team?   My understanding (and I have no inside information) is that the real reason Bubba left PSU was that he broke team rules.  What team rules?  Cael and Bubba have different versions of what transpired.  If team rules were broken and Bubba was challenging the coaching staff would awarding Bubba the spot at 157 been the right LT move?

~ Would Taylor have stayed if he was compelled to go to 167?  If he was winning in the room?  As a RS freshman was Taylor ready for the move up?

In final anaylsis, I can't argue with results.  Cael won in 2011 and built a foundation for a strong run in years after.  You may be right but its a bridge too far for me.

 

[swoopdown]

18 minutes ago, PortaJohn said:

Have to respectfully disagree.  As has been admitted by himself and  his teammates who were on the roster prior to Cael's arrival Bubba had no intentions of jumping on board with Cael's vision.  Bubba and Cael both made the right decision.  

Molinaro: I’m sure Bubba will argue against this, but the thing about Cael is he’s the same with everybody. That’s what I liked about him most and that’s what made him change the culture so fast. He was consistent. He wasn’t picking and choosing which guys to discipline.

Vallimont: Cael came in and cracked down on some rules and a curfew. He had coaches come to make sure you were in class. If you weren’t there, you had to come into the wrestling room late at night on Fridays and do extra study hall hours.

The main thing I can remember is that under the former coaching staff, Bubba had a little more freedom. He would sometimes show up late to a lift. Cael came in very strict and was not really messing around with people tip-toeing the line, and I think that may’ve been a point of conflict between them. There was a bit of tension that was visible every now and then, but I don’t think anyone knew how serious was until he left the team.

Jenkins: [After the 2009 season,] some injuries were starting to catch up to me and I needed a break. I knew I needed to hit reset physically and mentally to get back to the podium. I made some personal moves to make sure that if I needed to redshirt, I would in fact redshirt for the first half of the season.

I purposefully didn’t show up to classes, so I would be academically ineligible. I had extra credits, so I calculated my ineligibility and eligibility to still perform in January for the Big Ten season, so I could at least have that half a year to get healthy and get back to being that wrestler I came to Penn State as. I forced my redshirt year and possibly my departure from Penn State when Cael realized I was ineligible for the first half of the season and that we had different demeanors.

I responded to Fishbane before I saw your post.  Thanks for refreshing my memory about this controversy.

Transfering was a win - win for Jenkins and PSU.  Not at all fair to be counted as one of Cael's errors in my opinion.

[peanut]

6 hours ago, Le duke said:

Penn State fan base travels well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I guess so. I wonder if kids in the area will show up to see the famous PSU team as well. 

[fishbane]

21 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The second part of that sentence shows the first part is false.

Plus it never fit with the original premise.  Can't really say Cael recruited over him when he's struggled to recruit a 125 that could even muster a winning record since Suriano left.

[TexRef]

On 1/27/2024 at 9:12 AM, Le duke said:

 

Penn State has one of the largest alumni populations in the country. It’s not like they all live in State College and are driving to Maryland. Plenty of them are local to the area.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

They are like bird maure...they're everywhere!