Most underrated team in NCAA 2019-2020

[go_rines12 18]

Who would you have as the most underrated team in the NCAA for this year 2019-2020? 

I have Utah Valley easy.

125- Ty Smith

133- Taylor Lamont

141- Dylan Gregerson

149- Matt Findlay

157- Grant Lamont

165- Demetrius Romero

174- Kimball Bastian

184- Tanner Orndorff

197- Jayden Woodruff

285- Tate Orndorff

[Mphillips 625]

It's 'easy' for you to choose them as they are your team?  Correct?  Regardless they have some good guys.  

[WillieBoy 713]

First Utah Valley has to get a bigger athletic budget. As long as they are spending more on hair care and mirrors for Coach Williams than team trainers they won't be in contention.

Edited August 18, 2019 by WillieBoy

[Housebuye 2,071]

They are somewhat high profile but I think they are being underrated

NC State

They don’t have any guys taking an olympic I don’t believe and they are stacked. A lot will depend on if they can get their borderline AAs to place, but they are a serious podium contender I think and nobody is talking about them. Granted, they had a really bad NCAAs last year. 

125 - Camacho - solid redshirt year. Won’t win the title, but with a weaker 125 and Vito likely shirting and guys moving up, he can make the podium. Rumor is he is looking great in the room. 

133 - Trombley - had a solid redshirt year, but no crazy wins. 133 is still stacked but multiple guys are likely sitting out (Micic, Fix) and who knows if Gross will be healthy by NCAAs. I’m not picking him to AA but he may score a couple points. 

141 - Tariq Wilson - legit title contender is a depleted weight. He was injured half of last season. He may be my pick to win the weight depending on who shows up. He may be Abel to beat Lee and Demas due to his top control. 

149 - Grippi (related to the BJJ Star?) - another solid redshirt year but not spectacular. Weak weight though so who knows  

157 - Little Hidlay - he is huge. I know. Preseason #1 in my book. He wins the title. Carr is a threat but I think he beats Young and the rest of the field  

165 - Bullard - keeps improving. 2 time qualifier looking to make the podium. This weight has been crazy and this year is much worse without Mekhi, Marstellar and a few other AAs  

174 - other Bullard  - 2 time qualifier. Much weaker weight without Zahid, Amine, Lewis, Jacobe  and maybe without Hall. He could definitely make the podium. I may even pick it but I need to do my preseason rankings first 

184 - big Hilday - just won junior bronze and honestly won the semi but there was a dumb challenge initiated. Had an excellent redshirt year. He will place, and may end up beating everyone besides Zahid. Darmstadt is a challenge too  

197 - Reenan - he was a title contender last year until injury. He had surgery in the off season and is weight 215+  granted, he is a bit fat at the moment, but once he is back in form he is a title contender at 197. This weight is one of the worst I’ve seen in years. Moore is the only really good guy here.

285 - not sure who they start, but highly doubt they AA here.  Deonte has the ability to AA one day but he just isn’t very good at wrestling yet. He is huge, strong and fast for his size though. If he can get off of bottom he will be solid. Getting to train with Gwiz somewhat often can only help  

 

[nhs67 894]

2 hours ago, Housebuye said:

 

157 - Little Hidlay - he is huge. I know. Preseason #1 in my book. He wins the title. Carr is a threat but I think he beats Young and the rest of the field  

165 - Bullard - keeps improving. 2 time qualifier looking to make the podium. This weight has been crazy and this year is much worse without Mekhi, Marstellar and a few other AAs  

Any chance we see these two swap weights, in preparation for 2016 Olympic run?

2 hours ago, Housebuye said:

184 - big Hilday - just won junior bronze and honestly won the semi but there was a dumb challenge initiated. Had an excellent redshirt year. He will place, and may end up beating everyone besides Zahid. Darmstadt is a challenge too  

Interesting that our Junior rep is better than our Senior rep right now, especially since our Junior rep just came up from 174 this spring.

[WillieBoy 713]

Would be very interesting to see which make a run for the 2016 Olympics.

[Housebuye 2,071]

22 hours ago, nhs67 said:

Any chance we see these two swap weights, in preparation for 2016 Olympic run?

Interesting that our Junior rep is better than our Senior rep right now, especially since our Junior rep just came up from 174 this spring.

I’m not sure if Bullard can make 157. It would probably help the team though. He can AA at 157 - I could see him making R12 and facing someone beatable. 

Hidlay could best everyone or place 5th at 165. Hard to tell. 

[nhs67 894]

11 minutes ago, Housebuye said:

I’m not sure if Bullard can make 157. It would probably help the team though. He can AA at 157 - I could see him making R12 and facing someone beatable. 

Hidlay could best everyone or place 5th at 165. Hard to tell. 

My thinking is purely based on 74kg next summer.

Edited August 15, 2019 by nhs67
I have fat fingers and need to spellcheck.

[BadgerMon 173]

Missouri is always underrated.

I think that Rutgers is the next hot item- Joisey boys will be beating a path to Piscataway.

[Dr. Novak 147]

Lehigh will have 6 AA's.  

[go_rines12 18]

1 hour ago, Dr. Novak said:

Lehigh will have 6 AA's.  

Care to name them?

[Dr. Novak 147]

149:  Karam , 157:  Humphreys, 174:  Kutler, 184:  Weiler, 197:  Jackobsen, 285:  Wood

And possibly:  125:  Paetzell, 141:  Hoffman

Also have Ed Ruth Deux at 165 and several studs at 133.

Clearly #2 in the East and top 10 nationally.

 

 

 

 

[nhs67 894]

1 hour ago, Dr. Novak said:

149:  Karam , 157:  Humphreys, 174:  Kutler, 184:  Weiler, 197:  Jackobsen, 285:  Wood

And possibly:  125:  Paetzell, 141:  Hoffman

Also have Ed Ruth Deux at 165 and several studs at 133.

Clearly #2 in the East and top 10 nationally.

 

 

 

 

I love the optimism, however I see 3 at most. With the wrong draw it could be just 1(Kutler).

You're banking on everyone to make huge jumps and other teams  to not to. If last year I'd an indication of in-season progression as well as peak/injury management then by year's end they may not even be #2 in the EIWA, let alone Top 10 at NCAAs.

I mean no disrespect, as I am a HUGE fan if Lehigh, but they had it laid out to be sole champs last year in the EIWA but it seemed as if they were hexed.

[Perry 1,175]

Missouri as already mentioned. I think some people will be surprised by some of their guys coming in off red shirt. A very young team for the most part

[red blades 244]

7 hours ago, Dr. Novak said:

149:  Karam , 157:  Humphreys, 174:  Kutler, 184:  Weiler, 197:  Jackobsen, 285:  Wood

And possibly:  125:  Paetzell, 141:  Hoffman

Also have Ed Ruth Deux at 165 and several studs at 133.

Clearly #2 in the East and top 10 nationally.

 

Lehigh fans claim they have a top 10 team every summer.  Somehow, they never get there.

Princeton knocks them out of the top 10 this year.

[lu_alum 690]

6 hours ago, nhs67 said:

You're banking on everyone to make huge jumps and other teams  to not to. ...

I mean no disrespect, as I am a HUGE fan if Lehigh, but they had it laid out to be sole champs last year in the EIWA but it seemed as if they were hexed.

Let the record reflect that I don't believe Lehigh will have six AAs, but one can hope.  Four to five is a realistic team goal for the season.

1.  Those are not huge jumps for everyone. 

• Kutler and Wood are returning AAs. 
• Humphreys, Weiler are R12s. 
• Jakobsen was R16 last year, going 2-2. 
• Karam was a 13 seed at 141 as a frosh two years ago & went 1-1. 
• Paetzell beat AAs at 133 last year & will be a better weight (for him) at 125. 
• Not sure if Hoffman can make 141, but he did beat Kolodzik over the summer.

2.  Lehigh won their second straight EIWA tournament last year, even with three projected pre-season starters with AA potential (Schram/Little Parker; Scotty Parker; Cole Walter) out of the lineup.  If you're referring to USMA being the sole winner of EIWA regular season title... 

• USMA won the dual title with the tie breaker being more EIWA dual wins (they had one more dual on the schedule than Lehigh
• Going into the dual v Lehigh USMA was 6-0:
  • Wins weren't necessarily over the conference cream of the crop (with only Binghamton having a winning record):
    Opponent (Overall; EIWA)
    Drexel (4-8; 1-4)
    American (4-4; 4-2)
    Binghamton (7-3; 7-2)*
    Brown (4-6; 2-5)
    Penn (3-7; 2-2)
    Bucknell (6-9; 4-5)
    *Binghamton's wins were Penn, Columbia, Harvard, Brown, Sacred Heart, Drexel, Hofstra 
• USMA celebrated placing 10 guys in the top eight at EIWA. 
  • They managed to get 8 of their guys competing to the consolation SF. Their 125 & 133 dropped the first two bouts of the Cons SF dual (which would have punched their tickets to NCAA), and the USMA is went 4-9 on the day. 
• Lehigh beat USMA head-to-head.  
  • No. 21 Lehigh 28, No. 25 Army West Point 6
    133 – Brandon Paetzell (Lehigh) dec. Lane Peters (Army) 4-0
    141 – Dan Moran (Lehigh) major dec. Cole Wyman (Army) 17-6
    149 – Cortlandt Schuyler (Lehigh) major dec. P.J. Ogunsanya (Army) 14-3
    157 – Josh Humphreys (Lehigh) dec. Lucas Weiland (Army) 6-0
    165 – Cael McCormick (Army) dec. Gordon Wolf (Lehigh) 7-4
    174 – Jordan Kutler (Lehigh) major dec. Ben Harvey (Army) 13-3
    184 – Ryan Preisch (Lehigh) major dec. Noah Stewart (Army) 10-1
    197 – Chris Weiler (Lehigh) dec. Alex Hopkins (Army) 5-2
    285 – Jordan Wood (Lehigh) dec. Ben Sullivan (Army) 10-4
    125 – Ryan Hetrick (Army) dec. Luke Resnick (Lehigh) 4-2
• Lehigh's lone conference loss was by two to a good Princeton team
  • Lehigh put a 165 in at 184. No way Preisch loses that bout... but you wrestle with who you put on the mat.
    Princeton 21, No. 8 Lehigh 19
    125 – Pat Glory (Princeton) tech fall Luke Resnick (Lehigh) 17-2, 5:08
    133 – Brandon Paetzell (Lehigh) major dec. Jonathan Gomez (Princeton) 16-8
    141 – Ryan Pomrinca (Lehigh) dec. Marshall Keller (Princeton) 8-7
    149 – Matt Kolodzik (Princeton) tech fall Jimmy Hoffman (Lehigh) 17-1, 6:03
    157 – Josh Humphreys (Lehigh) dec. Quincy Monday (Princeton) 5-4
    165 – Dale Tiongson (Princeton) dec. Cole Walter (Lehigh) 5-3
    174 – Jordan Kutler (Lehigh) dec. Travis Stefanik (Princeton) 5-0
    184 – Kevin Parker (Princeton) tech fall Chase Gallik (Lehigh) 23-8, 5:12
    197 – Patrick Brucki (Princeton) dec. Jake Jakobsen (Lehigh) 7-4
    285 – Jordan Wood (Lehigh) Fall Obinna Ajah (Princeton) 1:24