jmoney

that was a tough matchup! He has a hard road to AA but hope he oulls it off

He looked a bit scrawny this year and also wrestled poorly this season. Last season was year of his life

Him and Poulin. A Big 10 6th place conference performance at 125 is like a champ or 2nd in any other conference

he like gives everyone the stanky leg and dares them to shoot almost like Eierman, he doesn't even bend his knees!

Sloan has an impossible road to the finals. He lost to his first round ooponent Hoffman twice, and Cardenas is very solid still. Bonacorssi, Laird, and Truax drew the only easy paths to the 3rd round. My head is spinning deciding between that Trumble-Elam-Warner section. My gut says Elam v Truax but I'm going to pick Trumble to face Truax. Trumble has beaten more of the elite wrestlers than anyone. He is in the group of 3 to beat Bonaccorsi, the group of 3 to beat Elam, the group of 3 to beat Allred, the group of 5 to beat Braunagel, and the only one to beat Truax. His career resume is impressive. Sloan and Beard, to me, have the most to prove in big matches, which they have tended to fall a bit short in (only when measured against their very generous seeds for this weight class). I'm leaning toward a Bona, Laird, Trumble, Truax semi, and a Bona Trumble final, champion is Bona. But since Trumble has that impossible path I mentioned the safe pick is for a 1v2 Bona v Truax final, which is how I would bet on it! So now you have my thoughts. Bona v Truax in the finals. Now watch two thirds of this be all wrong!

No shame in being 3-time legit All American. Surviving the injury bug in Iowa's wrestling room might have been harder. It seems RBY/Fix are Fixtures atop the 133 throne

I may be totally off here, but I think the number of matches you’ve won at Nationals, quarterfinals, and prior All American status should count for 20% of your rating. I know it’s not about the past but the past is way more predictive than your conference performance. If conference tourneys are so important they should just replace Midlands with them. So people can wrestle mid year hope for the best and heal recover for nationals.

He’s 2-0 against each in his career. Interestingly enough, he has Hidlay on his bracket side, meanwhile Coleman who beat him on the other side. Coleman is matched up against the 4 seed who he’s lost to and 1 seed who he’s lost to twice ! This is shaping up to be a Keckheisen Brooks finale. I’ll take Brooks as champion

157 is pretty deep in the 4-10 spots. Some good all American battles to be had. Andonian Scott and Lewan as 7-8-9 seeds in no partic order

If you can’t spot the sucker in your first five minutes at the table then you are the sucker. I played poker at the Bellagio for 90 minutes at 1:30 AM before I realized that I was just getting my blinds stolen by these 5 remaining sharks for the last half hour. I wish I had gotten the hands my peers had to take the $600 off the old superstitious lady the first hour. There’s always an old superstitious lady at the fancy casinos ! There’s also good, better and best. Some people think that I’m the worse, but my grammar says that isn’t so.

Am I correct that Gomez beat Sasso final x or whatever that stuff was called ? Doesn’t count ! Gomez kicking himself. Also…the seeding committee “let’s get rid of 2 of the top 9 149 pounders in the second round and match 3 big 10 guys all against each other “ I’m becoming one of those SEC football fans except about Big 10 wrestling. It feels less obnoxious for big 10 wrestling. And I’m not even a die hard. I hail from a very bad big 10 sports school that’s impossible to watch at most things

He did but he was inches from losing to 14 seeded Surtin who is good but not really an All American and Surtin is a guy who takes risky low payoff chances and gets pinned. Looking at Caleb Smith that selection isn’t too bad. Poulin had a better early season than I expected. But id still take McKee’s losses over Poulin/Smith’s. McKee loses a lot so he does it to himself. This year he happened to have two losses to Lee/Barnett/Ramos which is a thought draw. He did lose to Smith last year in NCAA I had forgotten before going on a run. Maybe Poulin as a young buck will peak. Seeding is a crapshoot I’m just on my soap box

I feel for him. He’s always like the 6-10 seed watching everyone else All American. Another tough road. He will have to deliver strong wrestle backs. He’s capable if he shoots and scores on his feet

Yes it just seems like a lot to have to do as a 2 seed. Look at the Ramos side ! Feels a little gentler

133 is stacked ! Second round matches Phillipi Nagao Orine Ragusin McGee Cannon Arujau Mendez Colaiocco Byrd wow ! Fireworks in Tulsa

Glory could have to face two of Ungar, Courtney, kaylor , and then likely either McKee or Cronin. Rough ! Ramos at 4 seed with the gift of easy side

McKee 11 seeded at 125! Dude had a brutal number of top 8 matches this season. Did anyone wrestle a tougher batch at 125? Wow big 10 got hosed at 125. Smith, Poulin and Noto will be gone pronto. What a joke

Agreed ! The council here should hold votes for the definition of underrated, sleeper, and dark horse. Let me suggest a definitions methodology. We each get a certain number of votes to distribute across as many definitions as we can create for the terms underrated, sleeper, and dark horse . The number of points you get to allocate will be one less than the number of definitions for that term. Each person may then allocate his points however he sees fit. For example, my two cents “underrated”: 1) has a ranking below 6 presently and is better than 6 2) has defeated multiple guys ranked in the top 10 and isn’t in the top 10 3) has not been discussed by we the masterminds here much 4) is from an obscure conference like MAC or SoCon 5) has very few losses and has wrestled highly competitive opposition all year but isn’t ranked accordingly you get 4 points (5-1=4) I allocate 2 points to #3 and 2 points to #5 Hahaha. This is how my condo building votes. Everyone under 35 got together over beers and determined all the possible ways the older folks in the building would vote for candidates to waste our money. We destroyed the parties involved with this voting method which was in our bylaws. The woman we ousted recently moved from the building. What a relief. She cost us over $400,000 in insurance claims for a $4 million building. Anyone interested ? Bueller ?

Haven’t seen anyone pick him to even make the ncaa finals. For a guy with the track record he has, he has gotten only doubters predicting Hamiti over Griffith all season. The guy seems to show up at nationals

Michael McGee, Ragusin, Shane Griffith, Ethan Smith, Sam Schuyler, Lucas Davison

125 Lee 133 Arujau 141 Woods 149 Yianni D 157 O'Connor 165 Carr 174 Lewis 184 Brooks 197 Bonaccorsi HWT Parris

It definitely appears that if you're not in the 97th to 99th percentiles of natural talent (Rivera, Lovett, Hidlay, Lewis come to mind) the cutting weight thing really matters. It takes extra strength to offset any deficiencies most definitely at the highest level. I know some don't agree cutting weight is a good thing but I think it's the difference maker around the margins.

I'm a fan of Harrison. I did not think Cormier did a good job- he also seems to be enjoying not cutting the weight, looking round haha

He was so good at 133

Big 10 Hardy vs Woods 141 finals Big 12 Poulin vs Surtin 125 finals Big 10 Zack Braunagel matches are exciting he really works to the wire 197 big 10 McKee Barnett is always great 125