BAC

Carter might want to pick a new 2Pac quote. I'm guessing PSU admin will let everything else slide but not that.

That's brave of you to admit, Jimmy. Remember, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.

PA's transfer rules are absurdly draconian. We don't penalize parents for moving to another school because it has a better science curriculum, or fewer students, or cuter girls, or more (or less) diversity, or better teachers, or a nicer building, but the hammer comes down if they go for athletics? It makes no sense. We should be encouraging schools to do thinks well, academically and athletically, so they attract other students. Instead we are catering to the lowest common denominator: schools whose programs are so bad that parents want to leave. And they have no incentive to improve, since the PIAA makes them stay. But even if you're inclined to agree with the PIAA rules, what is indefensible is that PA lets parochial schools compete in PIAA (e.g. Bethlehem Catholic) but doesn't require they comply with the same rules as a condition of entry. So if you move to Bethlehem to go wrestle for Nazareth, you're out, but if you're moving there to wrestle for BeCa, no problem, carry on. How is that fair?

The IOC statement is maddening on so many levels. Just a few: 1: What has changed since the IOC's statement in 2/22, prohibiting Russian (and Belorussian) athletes from participating at all? https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-eb-recommends-no-participation-of-russian-and-belarusian-athletes-and-officials Answer. Nothing. Nothing at all. Only that Russia has stepped up its aggression and kept even more Ukranians from participating. And, apparently, that Russia's influence over the IOC won out over concerns over Russia's murderous territory grab. 2. We already know from anti-doping scandals that this remedy is not only ineffective, it is pointless. Referring to athletes as "Russian Olympic Committee" is a distinctoin without a difference, and even the media refers to the supposedly "independent athletes" as Russian. The athletes privately carry Russian flags and thank Mother Russia in their speeches. Seriously, why even bother pretending its a sanction, when it so clearly is not? 3. I firmly believe that the only way Russia backs down from its territory grab is if faces significant internal pressure. That is very hard to create, especially where Russia lacks democracy and has forbidden public criticism of the attack. One of the VERY few ways such pressure could arise is if the athlete ban were lifted, instead of remaining in place until Russia retreats: then, eventually, the sports-loving public would revolt. As it is, Russian athletes and fans have been willing to "wait it out," based on assurance from Putin and Russian government that the IOC will cave. Putin was right, and now the single best point of leverage is lost. 4. The trigger for prohibiting a Russian athlete is so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent. My guess is 0% are barred from participation. You need to be "actively supporting the war in Ukraine," and Russian athletes already know to keep their mouth shut -- and Putin knows not to put athletes in a position where they might be disqualified, because he needs to keep the masses behind him. In fact, the way the IOC resolution is written, you could literally be on the front lines of the Russian war and have killed countless Ukranians and still be allowed to compete, since most of the current Russan soldiers were drafted -- and since a draft is involuntary it argubly is not "actively supporting." 5. Worse, you can be assured that this is being sold in Russia as not merely letting Russian athletes participate, but rather as an outright vindication. "The IOC has reviewed the situation and concluded we should be able to participate EXACTLY like we were able to participate in the last Olympics, before there was ever any invasion!", they will be told -- accurately. In an unfree media, this will be sold to the Russian populace of an international blessing of what they are doing. 6. Now that this hurdle has passed, Putin is also free to step up his assault on Ukriane. He no doubt realized the public backlash he'd face if there were a full-scale ban by Olympic committees, so he must have know that he had to keep it at a level where he doesn't invite an indefinite ban until Russia withdraws. Now that the risk has passed, he is free to step up the aggression again, even to the point of crushing Kiev entirely if he can. Its not like the IOC will change its mind. Needless to say, it is just a matter of days before UWW alters its position to mirror that of the IOC. I don't even blame UWW, as wrestling is hanging on by a thread as it is, and they certainly aren't going to want to go crosswise with the IOC and get themselves booted from the Olympics again. But even so, this feckless, gutless IOC capitulation is going to cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives, and prolong this war by untold years.

Keep the shirt on. He can compete now but Slinger is a senior and Pitzer is still a bit undersized.

Bad take on Starocci. His bonus rate is still over 80%. Brands is very hard to bonus because he does absolutely nothing except stay in your face hand-fighting. Labriola only beat him by a point too. Brooks couldn’t major him a couple seasons ago either, and it since then the only thing he has added to his arsenal is post-loss lack of sportsmanship. I’ll add that Starocci’s march philosophy appears exactly identical to RBY: always start out going for bonus, but the moment it looks like the match is going to be too tight for bonus, just focus on locking down the win by giving up nothing. You won’t see many wins by 4-7 points by either guy.

My list is pretty much the same. Bryce, Austin, and Ed Scott is fun to watch too. Go for broke styles all around. Appreciate the artistry from RBY and Brooks, and Spencer's power, but hard to beat throw-or-get-thrown guys for sheer entertainment value.

RBY says he wants to wrestle Lee… https://www.pennlive.com/penn-state-wrestling/2023/01/spencer-lee-one-of-pas-all-time-great-wrestlers-will-lead-off-iowas-lineup-friday-night-at-penn-state.html?outputType=amp

Brands lost me when swept in freestyle, saying he was better than Fadzaev and Belaglazov. In folk, Lee will be in the all-time-greats conversation, probably top 5, but in freestyle he's yet to make a senior world team, let alone win 8 World/Olympic golds like those other 2.

OK fine. Lee dec RBY, and Iowa wins 16-15. If Lee ducks RBY and stays at 125, then I have Lee TF over Steen and RBY m. dec. whoever, so PSU wins 19-15. So Iowa's chances of winning depend on Brands/Lee having the cajones to bump Lee up.

Match starts at 141 141- Woods m. dec. Bartlett Iowa up 4-0 149- SVN dec. Murin Iowa up 4-3 157- Haines dec. Siebrecht PSU up 6-4 165- Kennedy dec. Facundo Iowa up 9-4 174- Starocci dec. Brands PSU up 9-7 184- Brooks dec. Assad PSU up 12-7 197- Dean dec. Warner PSU up 15-7 285- Cass dec. Kerk PSU up 15-10 125- Ybarra dec. Steen PSU up 15-13 133- Lee vs RBY ???? Let it happen!

My main takaway is Lee is still salty about getting booed at PIAAs when he took late-match injury time during his eventual loss to DeSanto.

There's a compelling argument for keeping Haines in redshirt. Realistically, PSU is not likely to need whatever amount of additional points he is apt to score than Barraclaugh -- especially with how well guys Bartlett, Van Ness and Facundo are doing. FAR better to the '26-27 Nits to have a 5th year Haines -- who will be a killer by that point -- than have a few extra meaningless points at NCAAs this year. PSU is in this for the long haul, needs to plan for life after Starocci/Brooks, and Haines has future-champ written all over him. But point #2 above is the only thing that gives me pause. What if Haines can't cut to '57 any more next year, creating a Facunso-Haines-Starocci log jam? I don't know. If that's a real risk, then it makes sense to redshirt Haines next year, maybe throw in Sealey at '57 if he can make the cut, Sealey redshirts the following year, and you still get '26-27 5th-year Haines (barring injury and all the other bad stuff that can happen).

Also rans, really? Pretty tough words considering Henderson was in Final X in 2022, beating out Lee and McKenna (and Lugo), and Garrett was Final X champ just a few years ago. But whatever.

I can't speak for them, but can you think of any bigger domestic freestyle wins either has had? I don't think either has sniffed the top ranks of US freesyle, yet both knocked off a world team runner-up.

I think it depends on one's perspective as to which is more compelling: number of titlists, number of titles, or number of multi-time titlists? Active multi-time NCAA champions are as rare as hen's teeth, and this dual will have 4 wrestlers in it who are multi-time champs -- which itself probably a record, in addition to what appears to be a record for the total number of individual titles in a dual (10). But tough to beat the 2018 PSU-tOSU dual for number of titlists.

Thanks. That's the one I was thinking of.

LOL 1998, 2018, same thing. :]

I'm just talking about titles among the wrestlers in the lineup, of course. But that reminds me of the 1998 dual between tOSU and PSU, which I think would've had 8, except Nolf didn't wrestle.

Has there ever been a NCAA D1 dual meet with as many individual NCAA titles between the two teams as PSU v Iowa this weekend? I count 10: 3 Lee, 2 RBY, 2 Brooks, 2 Starocci, 1 Dean. I think it might be a record.

Some big wins by DeSanto and Lugo. After the HWC being dormant for so long, its good to see them start to get back into the swing of things. DeSanto taking out Nashon, and Lugo over Henderson, suggests they'll be in the hunt for a Final X spot.

I meant to say apart from Starocci. Hopefully that was evident when you got to the part about Starocci arguably being on his own tier.

Well maybe you can point them out for me. I always thought of Lee as the guy who, even if you hate Iowa, you respect the hell out of HIM. The kid goes hard, respectful of opponents (Ayala may disagree, but loved the “nice throw” comment to Ramos), willing to wrestle hurt, defies the shove-him-out-of-bounds-and-demand-a-stall-call Iowa stereotype, smiles, nice to his mom, kept ADS’s head in check, willing to sacrifice future freestyle success to help his collegiate team with bum knees. I admit I’m still a little salty at Iowa about that last one, but I can’t recall anyone taking shots at Lee. Not denying it, just saying he seemed pretty impervious to criticism from my standpoint.

And what are Steen’s top 20-ranked wins that give you such confidence in him? Ok, top 50? No? How about top 100? Oh wait, my mistake, the dreaded Tyler Klinsky had cracked the Wrestlstat’s top 100 at #93 when Steen eked out a 6-4 win over him. Look, I’m not saying Steen has no chance, and you are probably right that a regular decision for Ybarra is more likely. And if Steen were a little bigger he could be more competitive — in time he can get there. But Steen is out of his depth right now. If he were to beat Ybarra it would be the best win of his career.

How so? Not my fault that Ayala’s mom started teeing off on Lee on Twitter, or that Lee and Brands were jawing at each other at the Soldier tournament after Lee roughed up Ayala. If you don’t like it, don’t go name-calling to me, tell Iowa to stop airing its dirty laundry. My “motive” is pretty clear: I’d like to see Lee and RBY wrestle. What kind of sorry excuse for a wrestling fan are you if you disagree with that?