Originally posted by IA_Hawk81:
Just thinking of what I projected for each weight and how it turned out. What were your biggest shocks of the tournament?
To start...
125--Peters going 0-2 and Dance not placing. Garrett getting 5th, Moisey getting 2nd. Crazy bracket.
133--Schopp losing 1st round, winning 7 straight and getting 3rd. Brewer dismantling Dardanes.
141--Kevin Jack placing 5th.
165--Moreno losing 1st round, not placing. Walsh to the finals.
174--Kokesh losing. Didn't think he would.
184--Dechow and Thomusseit not placing, Courts 5th.
197--Gadson sticking Snyder, Cox losing twice.
HWT--Coon making the finals.
125 - Peters 0-2 was no surprise. In another thread, another poster and myself pointed out that Terao was going to be a very tough match and then the loser had the Cox/Delgado loser in consy Rd 1. That was a killer mini bracket. Nobody medalled out of there, but all of them could have. Very tough spot in the bracket to be placed in. Garrett was hurt from what I was told early on in St. Louis. Moisey was a surprise - especially the pin of Gilman. Although in retrospect, he had a game plan which I'm not sure Gilman was ready for.
133 - Brewer dismantled everyone in the tournament, including - NOT TRYING TO BE A TROLL HERE - Clark in the finals. Yeah, he rolled up 5 TDs to 0 in first 2 periods before shutting it down to seal the victory - AGAIN, NOT TROLLING. It was shocking how dominant he was. Never would have thought this. Bonused everyone he faced, and if it means anything, probably bonuses in the finals. Performance was up there with guys like Stieber, Dieringer, IMar
141 - True freshman from Connecticut whose RS got pulled in mid Feb finishing 5th. Pretty crazy, but also a indictment of the weight class' strength after the top guys.
165 - Not terribly surprised with Moreno losing first round. Walsh to the finals WAS a surprise. Great tournament for him.
174 - Kokesh losing was surprising until you saw him wrestle Brown in the finals. That game plan could have beaten anyone of the Big 4. Crutchmer's performance was - but then again the seeding committee set that up for somebody to have a surprising performance by seeding Storely 6th.
184 - Thomusseit got screwed by Brown's seeding and then had a shitty match after he dropped to the blood round - not that uncommon for a guy who is primed to wrestle for a NC. The best 3 all year were at this weight were Dean, Thomusseit and Brown. Nobody in the top 20 coming in 4th or lower is shocking - this weight was THAT wide open this year.
197 - Top 5 were crystal clear all year at this weight and no order was all that surprising. Cox' performance in the consys not shocking as he couldn't have been super motivated after dropping his semi. Before the tournament I would have told you that Gadsen winning would be a surprise, but not after watching him wrestle his first few matches. I'm a PSU fan and I wasn't all that upset when McIntosh lost his quarter because there was no way he was beating Gadsen that day.
285 - Telford losing to Myers was a surprise no matter how you slice it. It ended up working out for the Hawkeyes, because he probably got 4 extra points he wasn't going to see on the front side. But Telford is so damn big, that was just a puzzling loss. I know Myers was an AA a few years ago, but he is not in Telford's class.
