PSULou64

Nagao reminds be a bit like SVN last year. He kept losing close matches during the regular season, but he just needed to tweak a few things. The coaches worked with him and did just that and he had an amazing post season. I see that same thing for Nagao

That is definitely something we can all agree on

I thoroughly enjoyed the tough matches. The OSU guys came to wrestle. I also like how these guys seem to keep the right perspective after a loss. They show good character and coaching.

As long as he's got his PhD to go with it after 7 years I'm ok if he earns a championship.

Maybe we are putting too much stock into rankings especially at weights where there are a lot of guys who are good wrestlers but not a dominant guy or two at the top. We have all kind of become accustom to that but I find 125 kind of refreshing. I know come NCAA tournament time these guys will have to be ranked (and I'm not going to envy the guys doing that job) but prior to that it's just fun to see these guys wrestle it out.

He did lose the chance to wrestle in his last NCAA tournament. I feel that guys who lost that year in general really get left out of a lot of conversations. I know it was a very tough/weird/unpleasant year for most of us but because they lost the post season it ruined the finishing accomplishments for a lot guys but probably him the most. We were all very anxious to see how that tournament was going to play out.

All I care about is that, for the most part, they should be great match ups from bottom to top. There are a few that maybe won't live up to expectations but if everyone is healthy and everyone wrestles this should be a great event. I could see a situation that if Iowa gets some good wins in the lower weights they could put Arnold out there but that's just hopeful thinking on my part.

I didn't realize that the PSU wrestlers and coaches were griping? I must have missed the interviews that they gave regarding this. As for the people on here griping; there's pretty much nothing much else to do until the matches take place and we get more results but we have to pass the time doing something while we wait.

I think the reason they play it razor thin has to do with trying to be as healthy as possible going into the post season. It would appear that they believe you can be at the top of your game having only wrestled 15 or so matches prior to Big Tens and be far healthier as well. We also knew this year was probably more of an issue because they told us it would be a reduced schedule. There are a good number of guys on the PSU team who are training to be potential olympians (also training with current olympians and world team members at the NLWC) and they are trying to balance that with the college season.

We have seen the committee do some head scratching seeding in years past. In the end though none of these to guys are interested in taking the easy way to the championship. They all believe they can beat whoever steps on the mat across from them. I do believe that an undefeated Big Ten champion gets a #2 seed at the NCAA championship, given the caliber of other guys in the Big Ten, assuming Keegan goes undefeated and wins his conference as well and gets the #1 seed. Any other scenario after that and it becomes a crap shoot as to how they seed the bracket.

What's the over/under for the number of shots Lewan will take during the match?

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.

I vote that they skip over all Lewan matches in the future.

There is an Olympic archer from South Korea named Im Dong-hyun who was legally blind, I think he had some vision but not much. That was impressive to watch him shoot

Frankly, all I really want to see is a many good matches as possible and as few backups go as possible. I get that guys get banged up or catch a sickness (frankly, a common cold shouldn't really be enough to keep you out but nowadays it does) but a lot of these duals aren't as exciting as they should be because of guys not wrestling.

You know who does that for me in the Michigan team, Lewan. He has great shots and is really fast but refuses to take shots. You can hear his coaches begging him to open up and do something, anything, but he refuses. It's painful to watch.

To be fair by the 3rd period it looked like Amine had wrestled all day. I've have never seen him that battered before. Maybe he was sick or getting over something because although generally not would I would call an overly offensive guy, he usually has a good tank.

I think you have to look at styles and realize that no one was going to change Truax this late in the game. He also wasn't a super dominant guy to begin with. When you're accustom to guys like Taylor, Ruth, Retherford, Nolf, Nickal .... It is easy to be rough on the grinders who are very good wrestlers and win a lot of matches but who aren't superior to their competition. In Nagao's case, I love his aggressiveness and style but sometimes, against guys like Ragusin, it bites you. He'll learn from it, the coaches will tweak and next time he just wins the match. If they were calling stalling from the top position they the NCAA said they were going to, it wouldn't have been an issue anyway. I'm more concerned with Bartlett at the moment. If anyone looks lackluster at the moment it's him.

Davis needs another top ten win before I would even think of ranking him 1, unless he beats one of the current top 3 guys. That plus being undefeated would probably be enough.

Rag has been my favorite Michigan guy to watch. It was a great match literally could have gone either way. Lewan on the other hand...I didn't know how he expects to win matches against top guys... So frustrating to watch him

How many more stall calls did Michigan have than takedowns?

That just answered a lot of my questions

Someone can check this but I believe two things also to be true with Cael: 1. He only had to come from behind to win 1 match his entire career. In every other match he had the lead and never looked back. 2. The opponent who he had to come back and win against became a two time NCAA champion: Damion Hahn. The two only had a chance to wrestle 1 time though. This has been also said but look at his bonus percentage and pinfall percentage. Dake is a great 4X champion but I have to say he was a notorious rider with often little or no turns to show. And his stalling against Taylor in the NCAA finals was indicative of his boring style and lack of aggressiveness. (If that had been a regular season match he would have been hit at least another time for stalling IMO)

Not that anyone cares about my opinion but shouldn't the Brands be looking for guys who improve the Iowa image after this last year? I get winning is very important but at the cost of any remaining integrity seems like a steep price to pay.

I thought this was like Highlander: