Who had the best wrestling team?

[Jackhawk87]

I guess the answer most everybody would come up with is tOSU because they won the National Championship (with 5 guys). They didn't even sniff winning National Duals as a "team". Iowa and Missouri were the best "teams" this year, IMO, but that is not the way most see it and definitely not the way that the National Championship Tournament rewards "teams".

Iowa seems to recruit "teams" of very good wrestlers at all weights and, likely, distributing scholarships along that line. We are always a great dual team because of this. The key to winning the national championship tournament is more about having 5 superstar wrestlers than 10 great wrestlers. The points are heavily weighted towards high placers and bonus points. Is this how a National Championship team should be crowned?

It would be good if they would reward a wrestler for making the tournament. A wrestler in the 16 - 33 range will get you 0 - 3 points. Is that fair? Is this wrestler worth so little to the "team"? Is he no better than having a 5-20 wrestler? According to the National Championship Tournament, the answer is "YES".

I, for one, am not that opposed to having the National Duals part of the equation of crowning a National Champion. Of course, how and when they currently do it could be improved.

I understand all the tradition, etc., but maybe they could modify the scoring at Nationals modified. Bonus points seem to be overvalued and the quality, but non AA wrestlers ,seem to be severely undervalued to me.

As a result, if things don't change, it would be smart to give out 9 full schollys and 1 0.9 sholly and hope that half of them work out. If they do, congratulations, you are National Champions! You may have 5 huge holes, but that doesn't really matter.



This post was edited on 3/22 1:27 PM by Jackhawk87

 

[WWDMHawkeye]

Good points, Jack. It does seem like the scoring system could use some more revision. Seems to me that it would make sense to award placement points beyond 8th place. Still consider the top 8 AA's, etc., but I'd like to see a more gradual and continuous decline from 1st place to perhaps 16th. Hard to say exactly what's most fair, but I do think it would be better to reward teams that qualify and score points with most if not all of their guys, as opposed to teams that have a handful of studs but a relatively weak lineup beyond them.

 

[Hawknado]

I think the system is just fine. Our team score completely reflects what our team was. We had Clark, Gilman score a bunch of points like they did throughout the year. Sorensen was near the top but not quite on top. Burak being top 8 has been true all year. Then you have mike who made it top 4 but didn't give any bonus. Brooks who was on the cusp of being in the top 8 and didn't quite make it. Telford finished about where he should have IMO. Jeva got us a couple and was .500 against top competition all year and ended the same way at the tourney. Kelly and Moore pretty much did what they have done all season which is not beat top guys. Your dual team is actually well reflected when it comes to a tournament I believe.

 

[sloehawk]

Originally posted by WWDMHawkeye:
Good points, Jack. It does seem like the scoring system could use some more revision. Seems to me that it would make sense to award placement points beyond 8th place. Still consider the top 8 AA's, etc., but I'd like to see a more gradual and continuous decline from 1st place to perhaps 16th. Hard to say exactly what's most fair, but I do think it would be better to reward teams that qualify and score points with most if not all of their guys, as opposed to teams that have a handful of studs but a relatively weak lineup beyond them.

Good points indeed. It is a bit of a conundrum for sure. The team with the most Finalists (and better if Champs), coupled with bonus, usually wins for the most part I think (not 100%, but I think the data would support it, Iowa Titles included, short of 1 or possibly 2 off the top of my head as far as our number of Champions and/or Finalists being equal to or greater than everybody else - my memory is probably crap, so....................).

I'm not a proponent for adding Dual results to the Team Scores at NCAA's, but maybe it would be bring more of an overall team component to it. I guess that's the idea, or the reasoning behind it. Haven't put a lot of thought into it to be honest.

I don't know for sure how many scoring adjustments have been made and what years they were all instituted, but I do recall a scoring adjustment was made I believe the year before Minnesota won in Iowa City with 10 All-Americans. They would have won with the "old" scoring system also, the gap would have been narrower is all. That's been awhile ago.

Tournament Scoring is skewed toward the "stud" component more than the overall team component. Maybe it's arguable, but I don't believe that's the case. It's you against The Field. Duals are probably a better reflection of an overall team, but for sure you'd have to wrestle everybody in contention, which Iowa pretty much did this particular year, and we didn't win either format so bummer for us, even though we had a solid overall year.

I am old school to the core about these things, that's for certain, but there probably is a better way to balance the scoring at NCAA's to reward both the teams and the studs. I don't have the answer, but there is probably a formula that would work better (and has probably been addressed here on multiple occasions - complete with formula's and the whole shebang, with our without the Dual "thing" ).

To summarize: The 10 All-Americans concept to win a National Title is pretty much a pipe dream, and has only been accomplished 1 time in History. The optimists among us had Iowa on the cusp of being able to pull this off earlier in the year, when we had all 10 guys ranked in the Top Ten at the same time I believe. Then reality reared it's inevitable ugly head and we "fizzled" to 6 AA's. With the parity everyone speaks of across the country, that's harder today than it's ever been, but still a goal for sure. It seems apparent to me a handful of Studs is the way to go, then hope for some contribution from the rest.