Wrestleknownothing

I like it.

? Do tell.

Your early bird status will definitely count for something (TBD). Thanks for kicking us off.

That's right. The seeds are in. I feel like the NCAA should have Burpee Seeds sponsoring all of these bracket reveal shows. Missed opportunity. Oh well. Now that the seeds are out we can see how they impact potential scoring. And there are some interesting takeaways. Pretty much all of the front runners are giving up a little bit over the final rankings. The March 12 numbers below are based on the final Intermat rankings, while the March 13 numbers come from the seeds. Among the podium favorites only Oklahoma State, Lehigh, and Virginia Tech came out better in the seeds than in the rankings. Arizona State is the clear winner in the matrix process. From only 6 ranked wrestlers they have 8 entrants in the tournament. We see you Cael Valenica and Tony Negron. As the #33 and #31 seeds at their respective weights, we are not expecting much. But, hey, chip and a chair.... Only Ohio State and West Virginia among my top 20 failed to get all of their ranked wrestlers through the gauntlet. The race for second tightened up a bit with the OK ST rally, but it is still NC State's to lose. And it sure looks like Iowa will have something to say about that. I am atingle with anticipation.

I will also post some analysis of the brackets here to help with your picks. Stay tuned. I have to do a pitch first.

I know. How can it be annual if it is the first? But here we are. Rules: Pick one wrestler at each weight with a seed between 17 and 33. Tournament scoring. 1 point for a champ bracket win, 1/2 point for a consol win, etc. The person whose "team" scores the most is the winner. Tiebreakers: Score of lowest seeded wrestler in the two teams combined. (if Team A picks all 17 seeds and Team B picks all 18 seeds, Team B wins automatically). The wrestler with the highest percentage of their college team's points. (if Team A has a wrestler from Little Rock who scores LR's only points of the tournament, and Team B has a wrestler from Campbell who scores half of Campbell's points for the tournament, Team A wins). Submit your entries here and I will track. Feel free to change as many times as you like up until Wednesday night. As @ionel knows, I may or may not notice. Awards for the top three, no, four teams. Screw you NCAA, you penny-pinching bastards. Oh, and please ignore that prior sentence, and thanks for continuing to sponsor wrestling.

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I think the post match interview with Haines gives us a clue. Lewan's defense is elite. He uses it to look for the counter attack. So you either need to be very clean and very careful in your attack (and you see Haines take a couple cautious attacks in the first two periods), or you need to wear him down to blunt the effectiveness of any counter attack. In the interview, Haines talked about needing to stay on Lewan's head to wear him out and get that clean attack. And in that match Lewan does not budge from the M in the center of the mat for 6 minutes. But then you can see him wear down and he starts backing up in the final minute. This is when Haines makes it look so easy to take him down that you wonder why he didn't do it sooner. And I think the answer is, it would not have worked sooner.

This has @cowcards written all over it.

If Lewis thinks he is good enough to win, then it won't matter to him either.

I think some on here care a lot more than Starocci does.

Good point. I have no problem with the seed. You get what you earn.

Seems like punishment for not having an RPI

Tough semi for O'Toole.

He will always be Crooham in our hearts.

I'm not buying that he doesn't read social media, either. The thing I liked about this, and Sanderson's prior interview on the topic, is they both admit he was pissed when Sanderson told him not to risk injury. Not trying to throw the other guy under the bus, but also not pretending we didn't wee what we saw.

Ohio State's Bryce Hepner at #24 in 165 is the highest CR wrestler to not make the field or the alternate list. Little Rock's Tyler Brennan at #23 in 174 is the highest ranked 1st alternate. Davidson's Tanner Peake #33 in 157 is the lowest. Northwestern's Troy Fisher at #27 in 184 is the highest ranked 2nd alternate. Oregon State's Gabe Whisenhunt at #31 in 133 is the lowest. 23 of the 330 in the field (7%) are unranked by the coaches. But 24 ranked wrestlers did not make the field (there was a tie for #33 in 133).

Yeah, like I said. First Alternate.

I love that three guys from Campbell (Taye Ghadiali, Domenic Zaccone, Anthony Molton) and two guys from Little Rock (Stephen Little, Nasir Bailey) are among the top 10 tech fallers.