I saw this today on BHGP. One of their better pieces of wrestling content in a while. Also good food for thought.
https://www.blackheartgoldpants.com...tom-brands-spencer-lee-big-ten-wrestling-bhgp
They do a good job arguing “on paper” how much the team has improved over the course of the season and our relative position v pre-season expectations — even post-OKST. While I think Warner & DeSanto were low-balled pre-season, and Stoll and Lee are dealing with some pretty big x-factors that could swing their final performances, I was surprised to see objectively (again, on paper) how little has changed since the pre-season, and what has changed is mostly positive (e.g.: Young, Lugo, Marinelli).
It’s a nice, simple, quantitative reason to be optimistic for the post-season. Qualitatively, the most important insight in the article to me was that prior to 1970, Iowa fans would have been happy with a year like this. Kurdlemeier and Gable made us care differently about wrestling and we still care.
For all the talk of culture on another thread, “We, the fans, care” is a pretty defining part of our culture others can’t replicate.
https://www.blackheartgoldpants.com...tom-brands-spencer-lee-big-ten-wrestling-bhgp
They do a good job arguing “on paper” how much the team has improved over the course of the season and our relative position v pre-season expectations — even post-OKST. While I think Warner & DeSanto were low-balled pre-season, and Stoll and Lee are dealing with some pretty big x-factors that could swing their final performances, I was surprised to see objectively (again, on paper) how little has changed since the pre-season, and what has changed is mostly positive (e.g.: Young, Lugo, Marinelli).
It’s a nice, simple, quantitative reason to be optimistic for the post-season. Qualitatively, the most important insight in the article to me was that prior to 1970, Iowa fans would have been happy with a year like this. Kurdlemeier and Gable made us care differently about wrestling and we still care.
For all the talk of culture on another thread, “We, the fans, care” is a pretty defining part of our culture others can’t replicate.
