I still feel very good about 5 of our 6 in the championship bracket. I would be extremely disappointed if we dont have two finalist and at least one champ. If we have 3+ finalist, it would really ease the sting of being out of the team race.
NCAA Tourney Session I Thread
- Thread starter sadiehawkins
- Start date
I'm just pointing out that all the grinding and intensity in the world accomplishes nothing if you can't score on your opponent (and at Big Tens and NCAAs, accumulate bonus points). And this isn't about Cael (or Gable, for that matter). They're not the only coaches capable of teaching offense. I like Brands and I like the mentality he tries to cultivate among his wrestlers. But he needs to hire a technician who can also teach them how to use their toughness to punish their opponents. And I don't think Morningstar is that guy.
But I, too, hope this little uptick in recruiting makes a difference. If you can't teach offense, recruit it. I just don't think Iowa will be able to out-recruit PSU.
Recruiting has been very good at Iowa the past 5 years but not Great.... We have got to start getting some of the TOP wrestlers in our room.
We can't keep losing out on the top-notch talent to Penn State. They are gobbling up the Mark Halls and Bo Nickals of the world and we are settling for left-overs.... That IS NOT the Iowa way...
We can't keep losing out on the top-notch talent to Penn State. They are gobbling up the Mark Halls and Bo Nickals of the world and we are settling for left-overs.... That IS NOT the Iowa way...
So you're saying it's okay that PSU dominates because they have the best wrestlers? In that case, I agree with you. And that's the problem. Isn't it?
The coaches don't wrestle the matches so I'm hesitant to blame them, and we have no idea what's being taught in the room. Also, as many have pointed out, many of our recruits have not been elite. Finally, you can have "holes" in your lineup (whatever "hole" means) - this year PSU has had limited production at 141 (until now), 165 and 285, but they make up for it with studs. So "holes" are inevitable and have little relation to winning titles.
So here's the good news...
1. Ohio St is in the lead and they have 6 guys on the top side...so do we. They wrestled their absolute best with all those guys getting bonus. That won't keep up.
2. Nebraska is going to start to fall back here. Lambert, Montoya, Wilson, Barnes and Jensen will likely go to the backside of the bracket tonight.
3. Gilman, Clark, Sorenson, and Brooks will likely bonus tonight.
As this tournament wears on PSU will pull away and the rest will balance out. If Cooper can upset Mille and Meyer beats Ramos then we're in business.
This, as you all know, is a going to be a dog fight for 2nd.
Don't panic just yet.
1. Ohio St is in the lead and they have 6 guys on the top side...so do we. They wrestled their absolute best with all those guys getting bonus. That won't keep up.
2. Nebraska is going to start to fall back here. Lambert, Montoya, Wilson, Barnes and Jensen will likely go to the backside of the bracket tonight.
3. Gilman, Clark, Sorenson, and Brooks will likely bonus tonight.
As this tournament wears on PSU will pull away and the rest will balance out. If Cooper can upset Mille and Meyer beats Ramos then we're in business.
This, as you all know, is a going to be a dog fight for 2nd.
Don't panic just yet.
Please please please --- SPENCER LEE --- BROC BERGE --- others
I still think we can finish in the top 4, but damn it sure would have been nice to see a little more from Rhoads and Meyer...especially Meyer. I still think Clark and Sorenson will be finalists, and Brooks and Gillman third or fourth, at the worst. Gillman can beat the field at 125...I think they just get in his head. And I really think Brooks is capable of winning it all as long as he stays focused, and doesn't allow that one bad move in the upcoming sessions...
Burak with bonus points as well. He had several shots in his match...just didn't finish them. This kid from WV won't be as squirmy as the one he faced in session 1.
Thanks for the low-down, fellas. Tough round for a few of our guys. Good news is that I'm finally getting wi-fi as we fly over the southeastern US!
No chance to see anything streaming on ESPN3, but it's probably for the best. Might have had a heart attack up here at 30,000 feet.
Can't say I'm the least bit surprised about Rhoads or Stoll. Patrick was an underdog there and it sounds like he fought hard in the loss. Hopefully he wins a few on the back side. Stoll's knee was just so bad I had a hard time in imagining him getting much done at Nationals. It hurts, as he's good enough to place top 5, and he knows it. Time to heal up and come back stronger next year. Disappointed for Alex, to say the least. Let's remember that nobody's more upset about the loss than he is and that nobody wanted the win more than he did. Easy to forget that as fans.
Hey -- life's tough sometimes. Let's pick ourselves up and get after it tonight! Still like very much what we have going at 125, 133, 149, 157, 184, and 197. Let the fur fly, fellas!
No chance to see anything streaming on ESPN3, but it's probably for the best. Might have had a heart attack up here at 30,000 feet.
Can't say I'm the least bit surprised about Rhoads or Stoll. Patrick was an underdog there and it sounds like he fought hard in the loss. Hopefully he wins a few on the back side. Stoll's knee was just so bad I had a hard time in imagining him getting much done at Nationals. It hurts, as he's good enough to place top 5, and he knows it. Time to heal up and come back stronger next year. Disappointed for Alex, to say the least. Let's remember that nobody's more upset about the loss than he is and that nobody wanted the win more than he did. Easy to forget that as fans.
Hey -- life's tough sometimes. Let's pick ourselves up and get after it tonight! Still like very much what we have going at 125, 133, 149, 157, 184, and 197. Let the fur fly, fellas!
I just love tournament time when the football and basketball posters come over with their Captain Obvious insights. GO AWAY!
Well said. However, I think once Iowa starts winning titles again, the elite recruits will come (not that Marinelli and a few others don't fit in that category, but we need more).
Can we at least keep Blair around until the tournament is over?
Love Burak, always have, but I don't think he looked himself in his first match. That worries me because he rarely fails to put on a good ride in close matches against lesser competition and he didn't seem to put much effort into it the first match. Hope I am wrong, but I'm worried about any of his upcoming matches without seeing him look himself first. Burak is one guy you can typically count on beating the guys he is supposed to beat, hope it continues.
For Nathan, it's all about advancing. He's never been a real bonus-point machine, not that I'd complain at all if he scored some. He wins a lot of pretty close matches. The good news is that he has a lot of experience and almost always comes out on top in the close ones. He probably had some jitters to work out that first round, and all of the upsets happening throughout the round might have had him thinking too much. I think we see a steady, consistent effort out of Nathan and still like his chances of placing highly.
Haha! I was just thinking the same thing. Anyone who follows Iowa wrestling much should've known our chances were slim when Stoll went down 2 weeks ago.
I agree ... time to root for the individuals going after the finals or All American status. Sure would be nice to see the Hawks finish second (which is where I and most of us probably hoped for). I'll be tuned in to the TV and computer the rest of the way hoping for the best. Go Hawks!!!
Welcome the new posters, but it is a bit frustrating to have them come over and be so negative and say negative things about the wrestlers. Meyer is the only one* that is really disappointing and he wrestled the way he does too often. He wrestled the other guys match and got beat at his game. Not too surprising for all that have watched him. Rhodes just doesn't have the skills to be really successful at NCAAs, but gives it his all.
I thought Gilman, Cooper and Sammy Brooks looked great. Clark and Sorensen looked good. Burak got the job done against a guy that was tough to finish on.
*Stoll is the most disappointing for me because I really like the guy, but obviously not his fault.
While this round was a little disappointing for all of us optomists, it wasn't too surprising for the realists out there. The perfect storm that we needed to happen - well yea, that didn't happen. I'm still expecting second place though.
With Spence Lee - that would give iowa the intermat #1, #2, #5, and #8 120 guys in HS. Brady Berge is #3 at 150 behind #2 Kaleb Young. Not sure what / where broc is
Agreed that it would be nice to land more studs, and next year is going to be just as tough to deal with, but landing Justin Mejia, who is a complete stud and Marinelli, who despite the loss to Hall last week, is an absolute beast, will have a major impact. I have not seen as much video on J Rent or K Young as these other two, so don't really know, but the way AM dominated the state of Ohio was amazing and knowing that Mejia might leave the state as the greatest HS wrestler in Cali history is unreal. Throw is Kem, and this is a solid group.
Jesus everyone is allowed an opinion. It's not like I came over and claimed any of the Iowa fits were bad kids. And just because I don't post very often in the wrestling threads doesn't mean I know nothing about wrestling. I know I'm not the smartest wrestling guy here but I do know some things about wrestling and I know plenty about athletics in general. I'm frustrated because I personally believe there is enough talent on this team right now to win a national championship. That's hardly a negative thought about our team. I persist believe that or big five left are all capable of winning this whole thing. That's hardly a negative thought. I understand how hard it is and the stars would have to seriously align for all 5 to make it happen, but there was a day when five guys as talented as the five we have would get it done for the Hawks. Bit it was a different mindset and approach then. It's great that we have guys like Sorenson and Burak who are incredibly hard to take down, very good defensively. But what good does it do you as a wrestler to not give up any takedowns if you can't execute any yourselves? That's an exaggeration a little but it's also an honest assessment of how they perform against to talent. I'd rather have a guy that gives one up once in a while but will work his way into 4 or 5 during a match and stay on his offense for 7 minutes. Gilman has really improved this way. Usually Clark is solid this way. And Brooks obviously brought that in the first round. You know going in and going against Cael and PSU that they're gonna stack up bonus points and they're gonna show up with their foot on the gas. You gotta be ready to match it from the opening whistle. That's what's frustrating for me.
I guarantee you I'm every bit as big of a Hawk fan as any if you on here and I would be willing to bet I watched just as much if not more wrestling than a lot of you during the last 38 years. You don't have to agree with me, you're all entitled to your opinions, some of you knew more about this stuff than me. I'm a football and basketball coach bit I've always loved wrestling and I love the Hawks. Just wanna see us get back on top like everyone else does.
And I'm not bailing. I still think we can have a strong showing here, have 5 capable guys of getting to the finals, and I still think Cooper can find the podium, and Rhoads and Meyer can salvage something out of this. I still feel like 4 finalists and 2 champs.
Pretty good points, but a few clarifications:
Gilman has been great this year, but he hasn't faced very tough competition, either. Megaludis was his first really tough match of the season and he lost, only getting in deep on one shot.
Similarly, Clark hasn't face the toughest competition this year, either, outside of Richards (he's 1-1 against him) and Taylor, who he did beat.
So yes, Gilman and Clark have had great seasons, and both are fully capable of winning titles, but 1) they've racked up a lot of bonus points this season in large part to a less than brutal schedule (no fault of their own, of course) and 2) they were pretty darn prolific offensively before this year, too.
Talent has a lot to do with how explosive you can be offensively. I love our guys, but Burak just do isn't a phenomenally talented wrestler. He's done a lot with his ability and has built himself into a stud with an outside shot to win Nationals, but if you expected him to mow down the field this weekend with falls and tech falls, you were setting yourself up for disappointment. Sorensen is a hammer, but he's not a Bo Nickal kind of guy. He's methodical and tough as nails, and that works pretty well for him. I'd like to see him open up the offense more, but that hasn't been his style for about 2 years now, so we shouldn't be expecting some dramatic transformation this weekend.
PSU's guys scoring bonus points are great talents. They do have relative weak spots, too, like 141, 165, 184, and 285. They just happen to have super studs at 125, 149, 157, 174, and 197. Those guys dominate and make their program look good, to their credit. But they're not lighting the world on fire at 133, 141, 165, 184, or 285. Gulibon got the tech fall against a guy who could barely move due to injury. His year has been far short of stellar.
So probably not advisable to go apoplectic during a fairly rough, but not entirely surprising, first round. We did fine at 125, 133, 149, 157, 184, and 197. We were an underdog at 165, our 174 has struggled all year, and our 285 was on one leg. Yes, Meyer's loss was disappointing, but it wasn't a shock, and we shouldn't have been expecting much from 165 or 285. This round showed that we aren't in the running for a team title, but those of us who have been watching this team closely pretty much knew that coming in. Really not grounds at all for going nuts with negativity right out of the gate.
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Fair enough. I still think there's enough talent on our roster to have won this but that pretty much disappeared with Stoll's injury and Meyer getting upset in the first round. I still think this can be a very productive tournament. You're right in your assessment of things with most of our guys but I still counter that all 5 of Gilman, Clark, Sorenson, Brooks, and Burak are good enough to win titles. Need to have some luck and really wrestle well but they're talented enough. Good news is the team title is out of the question now so I promise I'll curtail my negativity. Now I'm just focused on individuals and hoping we see some good things the rest of the way.
If there is a specific comment or poster that you take issue with, then address that. As was already stated, many posters are sufficiently knowledgable, but just don't live on the message boards. Further, more wrestling fans are good for the sport, not bad. I am glad that more folks are taking an interest in the sport.
As for the first round, the Stoll situation just sucks, but shut him down now. Rhoads was as expected. My feeling on Meyer is that many expected too much. He showed flashes last year and usually has a big gas tank. But he never showed me anything leading up to this year that convinced me he was a top 4 kid. I don't think he should have lost today, but I didn't reastically expect him to finish top 4. All American is reasonable. I feel good about Gilman.
