Taco is hurt. Not sure about 141. G has been hurt and don’t know if he can make that cut.
Cowboy Challenge
- Thread starter SAWolverine
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Taco is hurt. Not sure about 141. G has been hurt and don’t know if he can make that cut.
I haven't checked (and probably don't need to) but did anyone beat "anyone" today? I think not. This was good experience but nothing to get excited about.
Why do so many keep getting injured in practice? I'm thinking clear back to Schmidt, that cost a team title. What the heck is going on in the practice room?
We all know there is a big difference between "in the room" and competion especially in a tournament.
You can’t just give the kid the spot. He’s had chances to earn the spot and hasn’t. How many times does Mastro have to beat him to secure it?
He hasn’t beat Mastro and he‘s not exactly killing it on the mat right now.
I think we see mastro Improve similar to Whitlake .
Do you know if Gfeller is an option at 141 for the postseason?
In fairness to Witcraft, he was put in a tough spot this year. Daton was out and Nieman struggled at 133, so Reece was asked to wrestle up.
He's 8-4 on the year, but all 4 losses came at 133 after weighing in at 125 (yesterday I'm guessing he was around 129.6). Against 125 lbers, he's 4-0 with all bonus point wins.
That's why seeing him at the right weight in a tournament setting would have been interesting.
He’s 4-0 with 3 of his wins coming against UALR backups. What would Mastro’s record look like if it was nothing but going against UALR backups?
I don’t honestly care what weight Witcraft wrestles at and I think Mastro was our most disappointing wrestler yesterday. I just haven’t seen much evidence he is a threat to Mastro at 125. Our coaches, who watch them compete everyday in the room, seem to agree.
I want that best guy out there and if that is Witcraft great. I just don’t see it. I feel like I’m missing something.
I was providing some context to you saying Witcraft isn't exactly killing it on the mat right now. He has 4 blowout wins in his only matches at 125. Can't do any better than that.
I was looking forward to Mastro/Witcraft & Plott/Montalvo yesterday. Put them on opposite sides of the bracket and see what happens.
I posted an article on Wittlake a few months ago. He said at an Open tournament last year, the coaches said whoever made the deepest run would win the starting role. Wittlake met Andrew Shomers in the 165 finals and said he had never beaten Shomers in the room before. But Wittlake won that day and became the starter. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to see 125 & 174 play out the same way.
I don’t know why Witcraft is at 133 but if he was close to being able to take the 125 spot he would be at 125 no? Some fans seem to think there is a competition at 125 but all evidence seems to point to that weight being pretty settled.
I get Mastro has struggled at times (he is still 9-2) but I feel like I’m missing something with Witcraft. There is some handwringing over his situation that I don’t understand. We’ve seen Mastro beat Witcraft with our own eyes and I would have to guess the gap has done nothing but grow in the room. I just don’t see a scenario where Witcraft is better than Mastro yet not at 125.
No handwringing from me. This is just wrestling talk on a message board. So hopefully this isn't coming off the wrong way.
I think we are both saying we want the best guy to win the spot and just have different opinions on who that is (and how to determine it).
I think Mastro is going to be really really good, but he's not quite there yet. He doesn't pull the trigger in neutral unless he has to and he struggles on bottom - typically freshman stuff. To me, Witcraft has the far better offense right now. I think the ranking match even showed that. He was all over Mastro's legs, but couldn't finish. That's why I was hoping for a rematch. Especially in a tournament setting, when all the marbles are on the line like with Wittlake/Shomers.
I frankly am concerned about the shape our team is in. Fix looked great, but several others lost matches, and Hone and Plott got hurt. We will be wrestling some of these same guys, so how will we win it ? Hoped our team would be a lot better by now.
Not sure what you mean by win "it". We wrestled pretty poorly yesterday but it is not hard to see how a lot of those matches could easily flip our way.
Nothing wrong with watching some of the performances yesterday and being a bit concerned but I would tell you to look across the country. Several upsets, several wrestlers not wrestling and up and downs all over the place.
It’s a weird season and was one we aren’t in the NC picture. Good experience for Mastro, Plott, and AJ and looking for NC runs for Fix, Boo and TW is what the goal is for this weird season.
True...but if you think Witcraft is the answer at 125...Well I can't help you!! Witcraft at 125 isn't gong to yield different results. One could definitely make the case Witcraft at 125 would be worse. Both are similar expect one has more upside and more skill...and it's not Reece.
Problem is that the competition for most of our wrestlers was above average to average Division 1 wrestlers. West Virginia, Wyoming and Missouri"s backups except for 149. Maybe we can win many of these matches next time we wrestle these opponents. These are not suppose to be the teams and individuals we strive to slip by. Wyoming is rated 21 and West Virginia is rated 22 and we wrestled them at our home. Daton wrestled great, and Travis Wittlake wrestled good. Maybe AJ wrestled good. HWT we are very weak at and Harris won the HWT division. Dustin is very good but his shoulder seemed to really limit several of his performances lately. Boo wrestled good but to beat Mauler you have to wrestle better than good. He got the first takedown and did not shoot much after that. When he was behind he shot but if he gets stretched out some I think I notice that he has to let go probably to protect his shoulder (which is smart with his history). We will have to as a team wrestle at least a notch better to win the Big 12(which we should be capable of).
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All true but I didn’t really argue otherwise. We didn’t wrestle well Sunday period. I was just replying to the comment that said it was hard to see how win those matches next time. I don’t think it is that hard for most of those matches to flip.
I think you are downplaying the competition a little. WVU and Wyoming aren't world beaters as a team but for the most part our starters lost to really good competition. I think you can only classify 125 and 184 as losing to subpar competition.
I have the same disappointments as every one else but possibly the biggest is Plott. He is not the same wrestler and that is not a knock on him as it apparently is all to do with his shoulder. He sat out all last year and I thought it was due to having surgery on his shoulder. Does anyone know if he had surgery or if they just sat on the injury and hoped it would repair itself. IMO he should have had the surgery, similar to Boo and then return. We are not challenging for a championship this year anyway. I would pull him out of the lineup and get the needed surgery and get him ready for next year. When he is healthy he is probably the second best wrestler on the team behind Fix. He has not shown that this year. I am also not denigrating his opponent who is very good. It just shows how great Plott can be if healthy.
Can someone who saw the Ferrari/Amos match describe the takedown? It's been a long time since I've seen AJ taken down because he's so quick. Just curious.
You are right Oberebo. I just watched his match against Patrick Kennedy( top Iowa recruit) and I think he got 6 clean takedowns ( Willie expressed shock how clean and quick takedowns were). It was a close match but Dustin got the last 2 takedowns and won going away. I think this was the finals of the Super 32's. He did get sloppy a couple of times in the match like Saturday but with his takedown ability it didn't matter. We need a Plott that is at 100% in the future and improving.
AJ vs Adams, AJ was in real deep on him twice. Helooked to have the takedown but Adams was able to sprawl his hips away.
Thanks. Did you happen to see the takedown by Adams? Was wondering what that looked like.
Another thing John mentioned to the media yesterday is that there's a possibility the allocations may change (increase). Said the committee is taking another look.
The allocations are messed up the EIWA ( I think it’s the right conference) got 45 but Cornell, Princeton and Harvard are not wrestling this year and on the 5 year average they counted UNI qualifying for the MAC.
The issue is the allocations belong to the conference not the universities. It was spelled out in the manual 2 months ago how it would go. It said MAC will get credit for UNI the years they belonged to the conference. It also said the MAC won't get the EWL bids because the conference no longer exists. It stated that the EIWA would receive the bids from all universities in the conference regardless if they compete this year or not. I'm not saying I agree with how it was done but it was spelled out for the coaches 2 months ago and nobody said a word. Now that's the bids are out everyone is up in arms. So nobody read the manual obviously
I think regardless of how they got to this point, the allocations need to be adjusted. As an example, the Big12 received 2 allocations @ 157, but the coaches' panel ranking has 6 guys in the top 20.
That's nothing 133 has 11 guys in the coaches poll and Fix didn't qualify so will be 12 guys in top 33 and only 5 bids. The issue is the big 12 got the 5 year average. And they've no way to determine who should get what with no data this year hence why they used a 5 year average
I'm thinking about what Sheets needs to do to qualify, but you're right, 133 is pretty bad also. 157 is 2 qualifications with 6 ranked in the top 20. 133 is 4 qualifications with 8 (to be) ranked in the top 20.
It's going to be a mess no matter what this year, but maybe they need to give more weight to the coaches' rankings.
Just hard to change the rules now . They were laid out before hand. Coaches should've been talking with the powers that be months ago not after allocations were released.
Big 12 was hurt the most they've 27 guys who would need at large if everyone placed according to coaches rankings. Next was the Big 10 at 18.
Big 12 27
Big 10 18
MAC 11
ACC 9
PAC 12. 9
SoCon. 7
Eiwa 1
It’s hard to blame the coaches for having faith that the allocations would make some sense. Based on these numbers, 84 (roughly 25%) of the ranked wrestlers are going to need at large bids to get into the tournament. This has been screwed up badly.
Exactly. This is ridiculous. While the EIWA has the same amount of allocations and their best teams aren’t even wrestling this year. So dunb.
There are 64 at large selections available. Does the committee have greater discretion awarding them this year?
