ILLINIWrestlingBlog

As much as I hate Purdue and Northwestern, I do appreciate the fact that they are to the ILLINI like the people who sleep with open windows are to vampires. Even with the ILLINI's starting 133 pounder out for the season, the heavyweight out for the rest of the season, the 165 and 197 pounders on Olympic redshirts, the 157er out for multiple weeks with an injury, the backup 197er having knee surgery, and the other 133er pulling his hamstring twice during the season, they got this. Purdue does have a conference win, but it was against Northwestern. For a full preview of the Fighting ILLINI versus Boilermakers dual, check out this link. A Northwestern preview will be added to the link tomorrow. Ramos and Blaze are the main threats in the Purdue roster. There should be four pretty close matches. Of those, the match that interests me the most is the ILLINI's third-string (still a true Freshman) 197 pounder taking on the Purdue heavyweight who is 3-18 on the season. I think the youngling wins. As for Northwestern, they have Trevor Chumbley. This dual was supposed to be wrestled earlier in the season in Champaign, but Northwestern pulled the rare "full team duck" because of unspecified medical reasons. The dual this Sunday will be in Evanston. Coach Poeta explains why in his Coaches Corner. Here's a short trailer from his Coaches Corner about the ongoing "feud" between the two teams: While looking for the tweets that Coach Poeta described in the video above, I stumbled across the tweet below that I hadn't seen before. Apparently Colonel Storniolo didn't appreciate a comic strip that I had published before an ILLINI/NW dual back in 2022.

In my opinion Zach Glazier is the biggest surprise of the entire season. He goes 9-7 against D1 during his first four years as a Hawkeye, yet he now looks like a Finalist. The best wrestler he beat in those first four years was #51 Wyatt Voelker of Northern Iowa. The upper weights haven't been the problem what with Cassioppi, Kemerer, Warnerov, Brands, and Assad (even hampered by injuries). Before y'all think I've gone soft on the Hawks, let me just say that I still plan to do a video of Tom Brands' strange faces during interviews set to the "Theme from the Benny Hill Show."

They are rhetorical challenge bricks. You never get an answer, only the satisfaction from asking the question.

Yes. His arm is still in a sling.

You are correct. Very sad. He has had surgery, and his arm is in a sling. We're hoping he comes back stronger than ever. Cheers!

I have no idea. THEY HAVE A WHOLE VILLAGE OF BRAUNAGELS!

This was fun! The ILLINI have an Italian, a Greek, and Madrigal is Hispanic/Latino. Dylan Connell can't be more Irish unless you added the "O' " Also, Chris Moore and Joe Roberts are as English as you can get. In other words, Chicago area. Joey Braunagel has started this season, and that's a German name. I asked Danny and Zac about their last name, and Danny said that there was a "whole village of Braunagels" in Germany. Think about that. A whole village of Braunagels.

I'm not a rules maven and have been called out as wrong, rightfully, in the past, but it seems to me that the issue is control and loss of control. In this case, I believe that Morvari lost control when Cardani gained control with the tight front headlock. I could be wrong, but I think I see what the ref did there. On another note, the refs were very fair in my opinion. I say that based upon the fact that I was upset with them a couple of times during the match! LOL! One of those instances, and I think it was during Pucino-Vombaur, the refs decided to review a call even though the stupid Gophers had used and lost their only challenge. I think it was the Pucino match because I wanted the wrestlers to keep wrestling, and I believe that Pucino has the best gas tank in the NCAA. It turned out all right (see image below) but I was angry that the refs were being fair.

The way the dual started, I was very excited. Three wins in a row for the good guys. Of course, Patrick McKee didn't wrestle, but neither did Lucas Byrd, both Brawlnagels, Luke Luffman, Kannon Webster and Braeden Scoles. (Blockhus is on a mission and very hot right now, so Scoles really wouldn't have helped here. Someday.). Excuses, you say? Yes. I've got lots of them. But the fact of the matter is this: The ILLINI will be 5x more powerful next season, assuming everybody stays healthy and comes back. Having interviewed the Braunagel twins recently and having watched Lucas Byrd on the sidelines at duals, along with his coaching of the younglings at open tournaments, they are craving their return to the ILLINOIS lineup. I thought the dual was going to have a number of competitive matches because although Minnesota has a very nice dual record, their competition, on average, hasn't been that stellar. Winning four matches was the upper limit of my predictions for this dual, and the ILLINI met that. Of course, the stupid Gophers have a lot of impressive young talent as well. Should be fun the next couple of years!

Good point. However. How do you say somebody is in control when their opponent has a tight front headlock on them? You can see in the image below that Cardani had cinched up a real tight front headlock before the ref called time:

ILLINI lose at 165, but Edmond Ruth wins 7-1 over Andrew Sparks. 13 Minnesota; 12 ILLINI. Connell versus Salazar up.

10-9 Minnesota at the break. Coach Poeta was smart and started the dual at 125, McKee was a no show. Cardani beats Morvari. Then, at 133, Tony Madrigal picks off another ranked wrestler in as many weeks. At 141, Vance Vombauer goes down to Danny Pucino. The ILLINI could've used Kannon Webster at 149, as stupid Minnesota gets the major. At 157, Michael Blockhus with the pin off a headlock throw from the knees. The ILLINI need wins at 165 and 174 and to pick off another weight--most likely 184, then 197.

Wherever he is needed. Whenever he is needed. You can count on JOMBO™. The hero of the people!

They still have Luke Luffman listed as the starter at Wrestlestat.com, but he's been out since the end of December because of injury. Very sad. He won't be back this year. To add insult to injury, he's lost all of his digital preview matches on Wrestlestat.com against heavyweights from Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan State and Nebraska, even though I think he would've beaten them in real life. Also, Kannon Webster is taking his redshirt. He's wrestled in six duals this season, but two of the duals happened on the same day, so they count as one for his total of five freebies.

We have a preview of this dual at The ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus. It's a tad more thorough than what y'all'd currently find over to the Guillotine, which looks like this: I think they're wrong on all accounts. First of all, Kannon Webster put his redshirt back on. Secondly, I see a bunch of competitive matches, including but not limited to 133, 141, 165, 174 and 184. Wrestlestat.com is alleging that the ILLINI will win only a couple of matches. I see three plus, as I have the O&B favorites at 133, 165 and 174. Also, 184 was a one-point match last season. Moreover, if the 125 pound bantam rooster they have wrestling for the Gophers gets a little tuckered out in the third period.... Finally, here's the latest episode of the Threeee Is the New Twoooo podcast featuring an interview of ILLINI Head Coach Mike Poeta. I swear that after every time I talk to him this thought crosses my mind: "How can a recruit say no to Mike Poeta?"

To muddy up the waters, Professor Carl gave a strange response to questions from a PSU sports reporter:

Well, that makes me sad. Not for the hazed nerds. They signed up for that. Didn't they see Revenge of the Nerds? I'm talking about one of my favorite all-time photoshops being less relevant. I'm tearing up a little thinking about it. If other Big Ten schools start to add women's wrestling, though, maybe that would jump-start the process out West? It might even save Northwestern wrestling.

The Big Ten was always a wrestling conference. Even when it expanded, it expanded to include schools that had D1 wrestling. At least from 1896 to 2022, or about 126 years. This quote from another website about conference expansion is illustrative (and not a little funny, and I mean the "Michigan is voted out" bit): 1896: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, Univ. of Chicago, and Northwestern form the “Western Conference” 1899: Iowa and Indiana join, the conference is referred to as the “Big Nine” 1907: Michigan is voted out of the conference 1912: Ohio State joins the conference 1916: Michigan rejoins, the conference is first referred to as the “Big Ten” 1946: Univ. of Chicago de-emphasizes varsity athletics and leaves the conference; the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Nine” 1949: Michigan State joins, the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Ten” 1993: Penn State begins conference play after being invited to join in 1990 2011: Nebraska joins the conference 2014: Maryland and Rutgers join the conference 2022: UCLA and USC announce they will join the conference effective in 2024 2023: Oregon and Washington announce they will join the conference effective in 202 Here's where the rubber meets the road: Will the conference promote wrestling in the future? Penn State, then Nebraska, were wrestling schools. I personally thought that Maryland and Rutgers were weird choices to join the Big Ten, but I did love the fact that they were wrestling schools. It seemed that a requirement to join the conference was a wrestling program. But UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington? Not wrestling schools. Will they add programs? Or, will Northwestern now have an excuse to drop theirs? I don't know. I just wanted a chance to publish this picture of the Wildcat's football coach:

My bucket list includes insulting every one of the other 77 Division One wrestling schools. Today's topic: Missouri.

I started watching Lee-Yanni in the second period. Yianni looked gassed. Concussion makes more sense. That sucks. Lee's my favorite NLWC guy behind Jimmy Kennedy, so I'm glad he won, but hate any and all injuries. Now we get to see Amit Elor versus Nick Lee for the spot, right?

Standing ovation for Michiford Western. They got the job done.

Brian Swaw and I got to talk with Jesse Delgado about his NCAA Championships, the match he had with Matt McDonough at Carver Hawkeye arena when he was a redshirt Freshman, his move from California to ILLINOIS, his high school series versus IMAR, and so on. I could talk to that man for a week nonstop. Has there ever been a week-long wrestling podcast? In any event, one of the statements below is false per the interview. Can you guess which one? A. The high school series between Jesse Delgado and IMAR stands at one win apiece. B. Jesse once ate a 72 ounce steak in an hour to win $500.00. C. In his matches with Nashon Garrett, Delgado scored 8-9 takedowns to none for Nashon. D. Jesse is the current head coach of the Relentless Training Center (South) in Champaign. As for the dual, this could be a tight one. Brian Swaw thinks it could be 5-5 in match wins, maybe 6-4 for the ILLINI depending upon who wrestles. Because of injuries and redshirts, Sparty has a distinct advantage in the upper weights, while we have the home team winning a majority of the lower weights. MSU has had a pretty easy schedule so far, but they've made the most of it with a lot of bonus points, especially pins. The dual is Friday at 7:00 pm (Central), and it will be streamed on BTN+. Here's a link to the full written preview.

Your Jombo™ slander can't hurt me. But to answer your question, yes. The Jombos™ traveled real well even on probation. Here's the latest:

Can anybody top the ILLINI's 2005 win with the score of 25-7? The question is whether PSU has wrestled a dual this season with its full, expected, post-season lineup. 149: #16 Anton Dietzen dec. #5 Ty Eustice (Iowa), 3-2 3-0 157: #2 Alex Tirapelle dec. #7 Joe Johnston (Iowa), 7-5 6-0 165: #4 Mark Perry (Iowa) maj. dec. Cal Ferry (ILL), 12-2 6-4 174: #5 Pete Friedl (ILL) dec. Luke Lofthouse (Iowa), 12-5 9-4 184: #3 Brian Glynn (ILL) dec. #5 Paul Bradley (Iowa), 2-1 12-4 197: #13 Tyrone Byrd (ILL) dec. Adam Fellers (Iowa), 3-0 15-4 Hwt: #7 Matt Fields (Iowa) dec. #14 Mike Behnke (ILL), 6-3 15-7 125: #2 Kyle Ott (ILL) maj. dec. Charlie Falck (Iowa), 14-6 19-7 133: #4 Mark Jayne (ILL) dec. #14 Mario Galanakis (Iowa), 7-5 22-7 141: Cassio Pero (ILL) dec. #11 Alex Tsirtsis (Iowa), 4-3 25-7

Your logic is impeccable. I hope you're right because I actually don't dislike Nick Lee.