NCAA Wrestling Opinions Piece

By Stephen Patrick

Opinions (Everyone has them)

• Cael Sanderson pulled Mark Hall's redshirt late in the season because he thought Hall's additional team points compared to Geno Morelli's would be necessary to win the team title. He was clearly wrong, as Penn State dominated the team standings, without Nick Suriano, without a 133 pounder, and without Gulibon and McCutcheon placing. Hall burns a year of eligibility and Geno sits the rest of his senior season on the bench. I don't like it. Especially considering they have 8/10 starters returning next year. What was the rush? I bet in four years Penn State will wish they had Mark Hall for another season
• Cael Sanderson did another thing I didn't like. Although this is purely speculative, it certainly appears that he waited until after the deadline to announce Suriano wouldn't be wrestling in order to prevent the bracket from changing. This would have moved Nick Piccininni to the 7 seed, or in other words, on the opposite side of Gilman. With PSU clearly viewing Oklahoma State as one of their main challengers for the team title, it looks as though they wanted to prevent Piccininni from an easier path to the semis. Again, this is purely speculative, but it looks bad and it forced another kid to stay home
• Don't think the 34th wrestler admitted to the bracket would do anything? Cash Wilcke of Iowa was on account of Jake Smith's injury, and he made it to the round of 12. His team points, and the points he may have prevented other teams from scoring, were crucial in helping Iowa to get a trophy. Cael absolutely did the right thing by Penn State - which is his job - but I would have much rather seen a full bracket at 125
• Navy, Northern Illinois, SIUE, Oregon State, Old Dominion, Appalachian State, Princeton, Stanford, Central Michigan, Wyoming, Rider, Edinboro, Rutgers, Northern Iowa, NC State, South Dakota State, Virginia, Lehigh, Wisconsin, Arizona State, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Cornell, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma State, Ohio State, and Penn State
• Those are the teams that finished ahead of Pitt
• Before the tournament I said Darian Cruz would be a tough match for Gilman based on conflicting styles. I didn't think he'd get two takedowns like that to win though. While I do feel bad for Gilman, he showed his true colors and good sportsmanship by coming out Saturday morning and beating Joey Dance in the consi-semis then almost majoring Piccininni in the 3rd place match. At the time, Iowa needed his team points, and he made his team proud. He also got a hearty, well deserved standing ovation
• Gilman losing and Clark winning was the least probable outcome of Iowa's dynamic duo's semifinals. I would have easily predicted them both winning or Clark losing before that. Matness as they say
• 125 Tim Lambert, 133 Mitch McKee, 141 Joey McKenna, 149 Anthony Collica, 157 Jake Short, 165 Anthony Valencia, 174 Zach Epperly, 184 Jack Dechow, 197 Matt McCutcheon, 285 Austin Schafer
• If that was your team, do you think it'd be pretty good? Well, you would have finished with no All Americans, you would have scored 28.5 team points and you would have finished 16th in the team race. Not terrible, but with that lineup you would have easily been a favorite to place top 3. Just more proof of how tough this tournament is 
• What can you say about Cory Clark's toughness? I'm certainly not a good enough writer to quantify it with words, so let's listen to what the man himself had to say

• Indiana, Maryland, Penn, Campbell, Buffalo, Bucknell, American, Michigan State, North Carolina, Cleveland State, Lock Haven, Northwestern, Gardner-Webb, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Purdue, Eastern Michigan, Ohio, Army, CSU Bakersfield, Drexel, Utah Valley, Binghamton, Clarion, Columbia, Iowa State, West Virginia, Cal Poly, George Mason, Harvard, Kent State, Boise State, Brown, The Citadel and Chattanooga
• Those are the teams that finished behind Pitt
• Zain Retherford deserves, and will win the Hodge
• Jason Nolf isn't far behind
• Vincenzo Joseph was always one of my favorite wrestlers to watch in high school and I've always been very bullish on him. I predicted him to make the finals, and although I picked Martinez to win, I'm not surprised that he was able to pull off that amazing win
• J'den Cox may be one of the best NCAA wrestlers of all time. 1st, 5th, 1st, 1st and an Olympic medal in between
• I hope Kyle Snyder's rib injury isn't too bad. Would hate if he missed any freestyle competitions this summer 
• Dom Forys, TeShan Campbell and Ryan Solomon will each All American next year
• I would say Taleb Rahmani would too but I seriously don't know how the lineup is going to shake out with him and Jake Wentzel
• This was my first trip to the NCAAs. During the finals they announced 3 gentlemen who have been to 65 straight NCAA tournaments. I hope to make 70
• With his 5 champions, Cael moved past J Robinson (fired mid season) and Rob Koll on the active coaching leaders list. He is only behind John Smith. 32 to 18
• Cael Sanderson is on his way to being the greatest coach in the history of NCAA wrestling
• PA 40% of the champs. WPIAL 20% of the champs
• Pitt's coaching search is ramping up...
• Here are some pics I took

crowd waiting to get in before session 1

warmups before session 1

closeup of warmups

from the upper level

one of the early sessions from the press box

TV equipment

trophies

finals mat from the press box

Parade of All Americans from the press box

St. Louis City Hall

inside City Hall

looking up at the arch

the Arch from the 28th floor of the Courthouse

Busch Stadium from the same spot

the "Great Hall" in the library

the altar at the Christ Church Cathedral. It was built in 1908 in England and shipped to America in over 200 pieces, then reassembled.

• Thanks for reading...
• See you all in Cleveland!