steamboat_charlie v2

Not sure I follow you here... I mean, sure, he doesn't have any duals on the schedule with top 5 guys. But VT has both CKLV and Scuffle on their schedule... arguably the two toughest tournaments this year. Is he not going to show up to those? At CKLV alone he could face: Shields, Massa, Steiert, White, Flynn, Fogarty, D. Romero, K. Romero, etc...

Wilcke didn't have anything for Rasheed last time around.

Period 1 Micah TD, left side low single, 2-0 MJ Sasso escape, 2-1 MJ Sasso short offense to an ankle pick, 3-2 SS Sasso looks for cradle, Micah defends and is able to stand up, 3-3 Micah swing single attempt, Sasso closed whizzer, period ends 3-3 Period 2 Sasso starts down, quick escape, 4-3 SS Micah turning up pressure, gets a leg, Sasso forces scramble, action out of bounds Micah in on Sasso's left leg two more times, finally is able to turn the corner, 5-4 MJ Sasso with short time gets a clutch escape, all square, 5-5 Period 3 Micah starts down, quick escape, 6-5 MJ Micah back in on Sasso's left leg... can get this at will, no finish Sasso from front headlock is thinking big, swing and a miss on the inside trip, takedown Micah, 8-5 MJ Sasso goes tripod standup, hits a switch, is looking to slap on a cradle, Micah bails, 8-7 MJ Short time, Sasso cuts him, can't find an opening, match over, 9-7 MJ Probably more detail than you needed, but I don't think track is planning to remove the paywall on any of these matches, so there you go. Micah initiated most all of the action in this match and could get to Sasso's legs with relative ease. Finishing was a different story... it's very difficult to finish on Sasso from a head inside single position, and he's always looking to put you in danger after you get stuck under him. Micah looked to have a decent size advantage on Sasso, as to be expected. I disagree with silvermedal a little bit though... the match didn't start out with great intensity, but by the time both knew it was going to be a match, I think what you saw was pretty close to 100% effort from both guys. Always difficult to gauge with teammates, but for what it's worth it didn't feel like Micah was holding back.

Yeah, it's quite a long shot, but really the only possibility this year given Iowa/PSU won't meet.

If Ohio State pulls Heinselman's shirt, they'd be favored at five weights (125, 133, 141, 149, 184) with the swing match at 197 (although Nickal will rightfully be favored) and perhaps an outside shot for Singletary to knock off Cassar or Nevills. Michigan could theoretically keep it competitive with PSU as well. Would require a couple of big upsets though, plus pulling Parris' shirt. The rest of PSU's duals will look like the Kent State match...

Watching people struggle on bottom for years with little to no signs of improvement...

Not a huge upset, but a noteworthy one--Ethan Smith beat Campbell 8-5 in the finals at the Ohio Open.

Assuming Warner is ready to go after this 1 week sabbatical, he'd have Brucki next week, and Brunner the week following. Both top 10 opponents with wins over Warner last year. Then Miklus the following week (who Warner holds a win over), and finally Weiler, who's decent. None of Penn State, Ohio State, or Kent State, attend Midlands, so if he can make it through that stretch, in theory, he's home free until B10's except for Weigel in the last week of the season. I suppose the logic is that he's about to have a string of 5 (excluding Conel, now 4) matches in a row against top 10ish opponents, and starting off by potentially getting pinned could be harmful to the kid? If they're really already thinking about end of year seeding... talk about putting the cart before the horse.

Real shame, was one of the better early season matchups. Warner is healthy and practicing with the team, but needs a rest because he wrestled 1 match at Junior World's back in September? For what it's worth, Conel tweeted this morning just "F"... think he may have been looking forward to the match.

At some point it's a bit of a numbers game as well. Russia simply has many more athletes competing or attempting to compete at a high level internationally. Looking just at freestyle, outside of the 10 wrestlers that Russia sent, which took home 7 medals, there were 34 native Russians competing for different countries. Of those 34, just 4 medaled (Sanayev, Friev, Shabanau, Batirov). Honestly, a pretty poor return. Add 34 more guys to a tournament and you're bound to get at least 4 medals IMO. Beyond those "extras", you have a handful of relatively proven elite guys that were left home in Russia. Tsabalov, Kurbanaliev, Bekbulatov (if he's healthy), Baitsaev, Naifonov, Idrisov. These guys are all going to be medal contenders. Behind that 2nd tier group, you have a 3rd tier that runs really deep. On any given day, depending on how many entries we're supposing Russia gets per weight class, those guys have a shot at medaling. Looking at guys that weren't on our team that I think on their best day could potentially medal--and this is casting a wide net, I know: Lee, Fix, Maple, Garrett, Graff, Zain, JO, Yianni, McKenna, Nolf, Molinaro, Martinez, Lewis, Dieringer, Zahid, Hall, Heflin, Nickal, Moore, Gadson, Zillmer, Steveson? These guys are, for the most part, outside shots. Russia has 5 times this number of similar quality.

Would probably be one of the only things that could possibly slow PSU down... Cunningham finally taking a head coaching gig. Gotta be the highest paid assistant in the country, no?

Who are you to deprive a hungry man of a good honest meal? There are kitchens all across this great country, and every once in a while, Cael Sanderson just ends up inside of them.

That's an easy thing to say and another thing to do. I hope he commits to competing internationally. God knows the NLWC has the funds to support him. How many years did Dake go without consistently competing internationally? How about JO? DT? Sit at home during the year, you're likely to get SENT home at the World Championships. Just how it is.

If Smith is down at 174, Rogers to 184 is a safe assumption. Rogers wrestled 86kg at U23 trials, for what it's worth.

Again...care to explain your reasoning for this? Multiple people are making this assertion, and I'm not sure where it comes from. Based on every metric I've seen, freestyle is the more popular style--and I mean globally, not in the US.