dragit

Could help. People give Lee a hard time for a few times gassing. Way better to see him going hard from the whistle and getting tired than watching guys conserving energy. Your idea of 2-2-2 could capture some of the benefit of freestyle 3-3 with more aggressiveness and risk taking.

The best, most exciting wrestler in the country and a special 2x champ whose opponent forgot the game plan. Followed by very little action. Look, as someone who follows and loves the sport, I can find some good stuff in several of those other matches. But this product just isn't anywhere near what it should be. There is simply too much of top athletes just circling each other for 3 minutes at the beginning of every match. What is the point of the 3 minute first period? I'd rather watch 2 minutes of light sparring than 3 minutes of light sparring.

No one who isn't already an established, serious wrestling fan is going to have watched that dual on Friday and have thought there was exciting action and going to be looking forward to watching more wrestling. This is not a good way to grow interest. The refs have definitively shown they won't use the stalling tool to make a real difference. The only way to get more action will be thoughtful focus on rule change(s).

This is a ridiculous post. First is the complete difference between a coin flip and performance on the mat affecting scoring. Second is the fact that the pushout and shot clock were put in as a highly successful reform to the joke of the ball grab.

The big one is the pushout. They need to try it. No one can guarantee it will work, but it was very good in freestyle and it makes sense that it would help in folkstyle. The lack of action in neutral Friday, and generally in big college matches, is greatly holding back the sport. It's so bad that the rides are actually better to watch than neutral wrestling. And I wouldn't mind combining it with a shot clock when no Pointe scored.

Answer is, Yes, somewhat, And, Who cares? It works for him, he backs it up, and, from what I've seen anyway, it's not out of control.

I don't know anything about WWE but I wonder if Kerk could be a bigger star than Steveson. He's got a really strong physical presence and movie star looks. Steveson just doesn't strike me as filling up the camera, he's reserved without a lot of natural charisma. Or am I just wishing that he fails and comes back to competing instead of pretending to compete.

I had no expectation of anything different from the crowd and would have been very surprised by an ovation. The program and its fans strike me as ruthlessly focused on winning with no sentimentality. (I mean that descriptively, not pejoratively.)

Yep, completely understand, just substitute "clients" for "compliance officers." Anyway, everyone here should be glad you need the diversion.

Every time I read one of your gems like this, I think, "Why can't the people I work with be this thorough, engaging, and insightful?" And then I think, "I wonder if the people he works with ask why he goes through the motions with them while saving all his thoroughness, engagingness, and insightfulness for that gang of has-beens and ne'er do wells on that pathetic wrestling board?"

I would go with the fellow that has engendered so much discussion on the other threads tonight. There is something unique about watching Lee fire off the opening whistle and go as hard as he can as long as he can. I haven't seen O'Toole since the preseason exhibition. Through that match I'd probably have had him second, I love his balance and crispness. But I have seen a couple of comments like Vak's about him being a little flatter during this season than he was before.

And I do not disagree that senior level is going to be a big challenge, success not by any sense guaranteed. Looking forward to watching and fervently hoping that his knees give him a chance to take his best shot.

Obviously wrestling fans will all be very interested to see -- and their ultimate judgment of his career will be heavily influenced by -- how he does at the senior level when he gets a chance. He blew through the U.S. Open in 2019 and fate hasn't allowed him to wrestle there again since. Part of him not being able to have any senior matches in three years is due to "his decisions," which I am quite sure he will "feel good about" when his career is over; he has a strong personality, weighs information, makes decisions which he feels are right for him, and lives with them. Kind of like an adult.

... this is becoming ridiculous ... 2018 NCAA semis, third period, last minute pin of Tomasello... 2018 NCAA finals, 0-0 after 2 minutes, 5-1 win over Suriano... 2019 Senior Nationals semis, down 2-1 to Arujau after 1:45, wins by 14-4 TF in sixth minute of match... 2019 Senior Nationals finals, vs Tomasello, up 5-0 after 2 minutes, wins 8-2... These were the rare windows when he was relatively healthy... He's had many matches where he was visibly hurting/gassed when he was out on the mat still recovering from major surgery or illness, this has happened repeatedly and it's obvious that he's gutting it out at far less than full strength... Furthermore, that's exacerbated because he wrestles so much harder than anyone else from the whistle ... no circling around for 3 minutes killing time and faking a couple of shots for him ... I hardly think that shows up on the negative side of his ledger ... it would be nice to see more wrestlers walk off the mat tired after not saving energy the whole match but rather having gone at it as hard as he does... ...

... while I enjoyed the interesting flashbacks to junior greco matches from the aughts, I wanted to give a thought about the topic question ... ... And with reference to the other thread and the "GOAT" question. He's not a GOAT at anything - even PA high school. The injuries and illness have made that impossible. I think what Brands is saying is that when Lee isn't burdened by a major injury or illness, no one he's seen is better. Such as freshman year NCAA, 2019 senior nationals, the last few weeks. I don't think it's a ridiculous statement, if you view it in context -- obviously he hasn't had a chance to wrestle senior world tournaments. That's the injuries and illness. But when he's been able to wrestle freely, against the competition he's been able to wrestle, he's a force of nature. It reminds me a little of Sandy Koufax. Extraordinary injury problems, a pitcher's elbow is somewhat akin to a wrestler's knees. His 5 or 6 years before he retired, no one ever was better. But he wouldn't be a GOAT because he had half the wins of others in his category. The difference between him and Lee now is that Lee hasn't wrestled at worlds and shown his stuff there whereas Koufax had a 0.95 ERA in four World Series, two of which he was the MVP of.

I gave both in my post. Both were an "NCAA champ over 157 since the Brands Bros took over," which was the statement in question. Perry twice. Borschel of course couldn't have been more Brands - he went through the whole Va Tech ordeal with him. And Perry, in addition to meeting the definition in question, is a nice feather in the Brands coaching cap. A lengthy film was made about the hurdle he cleared between his 2-3 under Zalesky and his 1-1 under Brands -- particularly that first "1," a big upset over Hendricks.

Not better. False.

Which makes it even cooler when the guy who wrestles in front of full houses and who the TV network changes the schedule to cover is the one showing up at your competition.

He never claimed to be majoring in geography.

Yeah for sure. Related to that is him saying that he wrestles hard all match, every position, and says most don't. That's why he sometimes (particularly coming off injuries when he's not full strength) is called a "first period wrestler." He ain't conserving energy - he's getting after it.

This is great. At the 10:05 mark, Brands says that the Big Ten Network has taken to calling Iowa before matches to ask if Spencer is going to wrestle, promising confidentiality on the answer, so that if so, they would want to delay the start of the dual so when the preceding basketball or whatever game goes over, the wrestling broadcast doesn't miss the 125 match.

Ladies and gentlemen, 11 minutes with the great Spencer Lee. This goes about the length of half a dozen of his matches. Some thoughtful stuff in here. Most interesting revelation -- he is extremely engaged with other Iowa sports, roots for and talks to athletes in other sports to pick their brains and says he's attended events for every Iowa varsity team except rowing, "just because I don't really know how to go to a rowing event because I don't think we've have a river we go to, I've certainly watched them compete but I've never been to one.".

He is _____ strong.

He does spend more money than everyone else in the first period, in that most college wrestlers conserve energy in the long 3 minute period and he goes all out from the whistle. His being tired directly correlates with a typical 10+ point lead, which you can't get against a top ranked D1 wrestler without spending energy. So the strategy you mention is usually going to involve needing big points to win which i dont see happening by riding. Mueller tried that after massacring Rivera with his ride and even got a cradle locked up -- and never got close to turning Lee (in a match where Lee tore an ACL). He gave up a very quick count 2 NF today but wasn't in real danger. I actually do think there is one tiny chance to beat him, which is to pin him in a scrambling type situation, not off a regular ride. He got pinned off a takedown by Picc and then against Purdue was pretty close to getting deckedn after a throw. That's the only way I see him losing. No one can outscore him.

Nope