Wisconsin In-State Wrestling Talent - Chicken and the Egg Question?

[Micah]

Handles, because I want to analyze this based on facts does not make me agenda driven, just fact based.  I just want to look at stats and see if Wisconsin's talent pool is as bad as it is made out to be.  I have already conceded that states like PA, IL, MN, OH, and NJ produce more AAs on a consistent basis.  After seeing the results I would put IA up with those other states.  These states are just better and have been for years, maybe it is population size or the way wrestling programs are ran in those states.  I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Looking at the site handles posted it is my observation that these states have a firm command on the rd 12 guys - low AAs.  These tend to be the guys that win you tournaments.  However, WI did run right with these states when it came to guys finishing in the top 3.  I had to look up the other guy placing top three besides Dieringer and it was Monk.  This was only for 2014 so not sure if this trend holds true for multiple years, it definitely didn't in 2012.

2012 was a bad year for the state of Wisconsin Yikes!

Teams not from the states listed above that are regularly finish top 10 or 5 are Missouri, OK State, and Cornell.  I think Wisconsin as a state is just as good at wrestling as Missouri, Oklahoma, and New York if not better, I have not seen anything yet showing these states produce better wrestlers.  Ok State I think you can throw out having John Smith is like having Gable, JRob or Brands as a head coach.  

If Missouri and Cornell are recruiting from a similar talent pool as WI how do they do it consistently?  Is it developing in state recruits or out of state?  Could just be luck on hitting on the right recruits.  Whatever they are doing is what WI needs to start doing.  Cornell is probably the closest match from an all around school considering academics.

States like Indiana and Michigan are also very comparable to the state of Wisconsin and I would say the Badgers are on Par if not better than Indiana, Michigan and Purdue.  I know they just lost to Michigan but over the last few years the teams have been very comparable.  Indiana and Michigan do have multiple D1 one teams that could play role although I would be willing to bet that Michigan gets it's pick of the litter in that state.

I think things could be worse at Wisconsin and maybe Cornell, Ok. State and Missouri are exceptions to the rule.  I don't see anything wrong with wanting the team you cheer for to be the exception to the rule and I don't think the talent pool in Wisconsin is preventing it from reaching this level from everything I have seen.

[DocWrestling]

When looking at All-Americans produced by a state you have to consider how many D1 programs that state has.

I think we all agree it is very difficult to predict which high school wrestlers would become AA's.  Thus a state like Iowa with three programs is certainly going to have more AA's.  Heck even if UW had another D1 program and they only took kids from WI that nobody else wanted, some of them would still become AA's.

I like to compare WI with Minnesota.  Demographics are similar and only one D1 program.  Minnesota competes better as a D1 program and has more AA's coming from the state.  Why is that?

[mdbriggs]

 Do not compare anything with Cornell.  Cornell and the other Ivies do not offer athletic scholarships . 

[Handles II]

Right, but you did throw out the multiple choice questions and answers, so you must be looking for some reasons. I took a somewhat educated guess at B. and explained my reasoning based off of coaching in IA, MN, WI.
I could be way off target, but just looking at numbers is only part of figuring out the solution.

Doc, JHI could be a partial reason why Mn fairs differently.If we threw D3 colleges in the mix I'm sure the gap would widen even more.   But as I explained before, I believe MN (and IA if we are looking at neighbors) have more emphasis on wrestling as a whole, have 2 year college programs, Better tradition and results from their D1 programs certainly doesn't hurt.

[Gutwrench]

I think the way this breaks down is pretty simple.

If few wrestlers from wisconsin high schools end up being AA, regardless of what university they attend, then this points to wisconsin high school wrestling not being as good as other states.

If wisconsin high schools are producing a statistically significant amount of AA's, then you can break it down by the different universities and possibly make assumptions regarding coaching and/or recruiting talent evaluation.

With that being said, based on the numbers gathered by others and presented in this thread, it looks like there are very few AA's that wrestled high school in wisconsin.  This would lead me to believe there isn't a high number of high talent level wrestlers produced from the state.  Not to say there isn't any high talent wrestlers, just saying that there isn't a high volume of them.

[jaguarwrestler]

mdbriggs showed us we rank 12 in total aa's since 1961... we rank 20th in overall population... so we are performing above average.

[MNbadger]

But you have to compare those above you according to population too, right?
rank (# of AAs) vs population.

[jaguarwrestler]

But you have to compare those above you according to population too, right?
rank (# of AAs) vs population.

as a state we perform above average, still have 38 states ranked below us. Yes other states are way above average and some well below. As Doc said in Iowa you have chance to be AA at Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa plus other schools in other states. It does make it easier for them when given more opportunities in your home state to wrestle for a D1 school. If WI had 3 D1 programs I could see more kids wrestling for a D1 school giving them more opportunities to have more AA's.   

[Dale Einerson]

I have to add, there are some simple numeric explanations for some of the disparities.  For example, population density by state.  Chicago is more than twice as large as Wisconsin from a population standpoint.  Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Minnesota are all larger.  We cannot discount, in my opinion, the fact that the numbers of potential wrestlers from a given state impact the number of AAs or National Champions from a state.

Another, we decide to debate a metric of success at the Cadet or Junior team level, which may be more indicative of how much a state invests its time and energies and talents in making being on a national team a big deal.  I have to say I understand the use of this type of predictor, but, I am honestly not confident it provides any truly meaningful information.  Having said that, I have watched many matches wrestled by Bruno, Polizzi, Thielke, Dieringer, Donar, Hein and others from Wisconsin from Schoolboy through Junior National Duals.  I only listed the top of mind wrestlers that ended up at D1, with apologies to those not listed.

On the other hand, when I watch a significant D1 tournament, such as Midlands, or a B1G Tournament, or Nationals, I see several competitors that I watched wrestle at Northern Plains and that I know excelled at Fargo.  Which goes a long way, I should think, to being the predictor that most D1 Coaches use in recruiting. 

All a Coach has to do to be successful in recruiting is find several blue chip recruits, that can get into that school, that want to come to that school; then totally commit to choosing and living the idea that between 1) socializing, 2) academic and 3) athlete, one can only do 1 or 2 successfully, not all 3.  Then find some diamonds in the rough that develop into high performing members of the team in 2-5 years, and enough depth to develop and fill in when injuries or absences inevitably occur. Simple concept really...

The sports psychologist for Iowa wrestling once told a group of parents that I was in, the best predictor of D1 wrestling success was found not in personality of a wrestler's Father, not a wrestler's Grandfather, but in the Mama.  A tough Mom was a good indication of a tough kid.  Probably a whole 'nother thread...

[MNbadger]

Dale, you are correct about the populations of PA, NY, and OH (all double or more than MN/WI).

But WI (5.7 M) actually has a higher population than MN (5.4 M).

Chicago proper is 2.7 M. 

"Chicagoland" is 9.5 M which stretches into parts of WI and IN.  IL has 12.8 M.

[billymurphy]

Recruiting the blue chip Illinois and Ohio guys is working great.
For a Wisconsin fan, this is as good as it gets.  Do you
realize how hard it will be to find somebody that can replace Medbery?
He was a Fargo national freestyle heavyweight champion and
is a serious threat to be a NCAA national champion this year and the next.
The odds of finding a high level replacement to take over at Hwt once
Medbery graduates is going to be extremely difficult.
Guys like him do not grow on trees.  I hope we can pick up
a top level heavyweight recruit at the end of the season
so he has a year to work with Medbery before he is gone.

[Dale Einerson]

Dale, you are correct about the populations of PA, NY, and OH (all double or more than MN/WI).

But WI (5.7 M) actually has a higher population than MN (5.4 M).

Chicago proper is 2.7 M. 

"Chicagoland" is 9.5 M which stretches into parts of WI and IN.  IL has 12.8 M.

Thanks MNBadger.  I am wearing my orthopedic shoes on comparing Minnesota v. Wisconsin (I stand corrected). But, in fairness, I was thinking of Chicagoland.

billymurphy - I don't think the problem is in replacing Medbery, I think it is in replacing all 10 weight classes when competing with 54 other D1 schools with all of them but Cornell having 9.9 scholarships to award to those coming and retain those already there.

[npope]

I was just over at the Harvard wrestling team's online wrestling forum (www.harvardwrestling.com) where they have a similar debate going on....



Get it? Somebody should take all of the content of this thread and do a search-and-replace for "UW" and insert "Harvard" instead and then send the thread to the Onion. I guarantee it would get published.

It's fine to want to be a fan of a program that has success on the mat, but all of this hand-wringing as to how the team competes on the mat (or doesn't) really seems to be losing perspective of the bigger picture; the reason for collegiate athletics supposedly exist to begin with. The real question to ask is whether the Badger program is accomplishing what the institution's mandate says it's supposed to be accomplishing - which is probably a lot more along the lines of building character, etc., instead of winning on the mat.

[Micah]

I do understand that MN as a state is comparable to WI in population and does have only one D1 program, but right now I don't think you can expect the Badgers to be on the same level as the Gophers.  There is a pretty large gap in my opinion between the number of D1 talented wrestlers in MN compared to WI.  I am not sure what the cause is for this gap, I think JHI could be a main reason, I also think JRob is extremely organized and amazing at promoting his product.  He runs the wrestling program like he is a CEO and seems to be involved in organization of everything from National Duals to his camps he is very hands on.  This might also create some trickle down into the HS and Youth level.  There are not many college wrestling coaches out there that promote as well as he does. 

I think for WI to compete with the big boys they have to almost be perfect in their recruiting due.  They need to hit on that one stud from WI that seems to come around every 2-3 years, bring in 3-4 studs from out of state like they have been doing, and fill in the rest of the starting line-up with guys that will qualify for nationals and win a few matches and possibly get lucky and AA.  They have a much smaller margin of error compared to the other top teams.  If the Badgers miss on something it is more noticeable and harder to cover with depth in the room.  I am not saying that can't consistently compete at the top level, they just need to be more perfect than some of the other schools.

I am not sure that having more in state D1 programs is necessarily going to create a dramatic increase in AA's per state.  It will no doubt create more opportunities, thus by chance increasing the number of AAs for a state.  But how many AAs are NIU, EMU and SIUE producing on a regular basis?  Having more D1 schools might improve the coaching pool and opportunities for wrestlers to get good coaching.

[shouldvewrestled]

Dale, you are correct about the populations of PA, NY, and OH (all double or more than MN/WI).

But WI (5.7 M) actually has a higher population than MN (5.4 M).

I think MN's population being basically in one main area St. Paul/ Minneapolis plus their suburbs help create the hotbed of wrestling for MN.  Much bigger overall schools, more kids in the room at one time for practice partners helps them a great deal. 

WI has similar population numbers but is much more spread out.  Much more D2/D3 type schools, many do not get the same numbers in the wrestling rooms.  Many MN schools their practice matches everyday are harder than their competition matches.  Helps bring out the best and toughness in those kids.  (Not saying WI doesn't have schools like this or isn't tough, just a possible factor).