Maybe a difference? They pulled the shirt officially in January and he won the BTT. He scored 19 team points.
Kid is a stud as I said back at the time of the Iowa/PSU dual. Our fans just don't want to see it.
There is no doubt he is a very good wrestler. But, 157 is really thin and he got a gift with that no call takedown against Robb. I think 157 is AOC's by a solid margin. After that, Haines will still have to navigate Andonian, Robb, Humphreys, Franek, Coleman and even Cardenas. That doesn't even account for him having an off match against guys like Lewan, Gfeller, Scott and Jacques.
He is good enough to beat ALL of them. But, he hasn't distanced himself where a loss to any of them should be a significant surprise. Now, I get recent history makes everyone just expect a PSU wrestler to win these matches, but he DOES have a loss to 18-11 Vince Zerban.
Against the top guys, he is winning 1 takedown matches. Having to do that multiple times at NCAA's is very hard to pull off. Maybe he does. But, he is FAR from a lock to do so.
Still, even without Haines placing high, the distance is too great when you pull out a top 33 field per weight. PSU's top 5 are almost certainly all placing top 3, with several champs. Even if Iowa wrestles like they did at B1G's, the gap will probably still widen to about 20 or so...