Can you say...IMPROVEMENT! Badgers send 7, maybe 8 to the NCAA's!

[Harris]

Great job by the Badger wrestlers and coaching staff today. 

[MantyShip160]

Great job by the Badger wrestlers and coaching staff today. 

+1

[Brett Favre - R.I.P.]

I'm glad all you guys are happy with placing 7th out of 12 teams. I guess it doesn't take a lot to satisfy you. 7 qualifiers is great and I wish them the best of luck. 

[stp]

Great job by the Badger wrestlers and coaching staff today.  

Two thumbs up for all of Madison!  Heard from family who attended that everything was awesome.

Sitting at home Sunday I watched a few other conference wrestling championships.  The Big 12s attendance was supposedly 2000 people (looked like a few hundred) while the B10's had over 10k with hardly an empty seat in the Kohl!  
Plain and simple the B10's for wrestling is light years ahead of every other conference.  


Hope everyone makes it to C-bus next season!  

I'm glad all you guys are happy with placing 7th out of 12 teams. I guess it doesn't take a lot to satisfy you. 7 qualifiers is great and I wish them the best of luck.  

Instead of looking at is as 7th out of 12 teams consider the national team rankings.  If Wisconsin was in any other conference they would have won......but who cares, right?  

[jeast]

I am happy for the badgers that qualified for the national tournament.  Good luck and great job getting to the big show!

With that said, I have to agree with Favre here. 

Thank goodness the Iowa, Minn, PSU wrestlers have done fantastic at Nationals in the past so that the Big Ten sends so many wrestlers from each wt. class or there would be a lot fewer badger wrestlers going.

The underclassmen wrestled well.  My prediction is that they will mature into wrestlers wrestling not to lose just like all of the Badger wrestlers seem to do.

If every Badger wrestler had wrestled the entire match like they did the last ten seconds of every match they lost, maybe I would be on unions side of this debate.  I would rather see them go out and be aggressive and lose spectacularly than lose by one or two points because they didn't do anything for 6 and a half minutes.

Iowa wrestlers are always looking to score.  Always putting the pressure on, always getting after their opponent.   
PSU wrestlers, well...what more needs to be said.  They are light years ahead of Wisconsin. 

I guess I want more.  I guess one Big Ten title in anyone's lifetime is too much to ask because, well...there is Iowa and Penn State and Minnesota and...

[brave112]

Jeast you must be kidding, right?

"Iowa wrestlers are always looking to score.  Always putting the pressure on, always getting after their opponent."

Were you at the same tournament that I was at yesterday? Yes, Iowa puts a lot of pressure on their opponents and are great at hand fighting, pulling down/putting pressure on the head and they have great cardio, but DO NOT say they are always looking to score. I would say out of the 10 wrestlers Iowa Clark was the only wrestler that actually took a shot in any of his matches. Ramos, St. John, Moore, Evans, hardly, if ever, took a shot in their matches! And if it was a shot, it was a counter shot off the other wrestler generating offense.

Iowa's dominance and reputation precede themselves and it is well deserved, but there is a reason Penn St. is the NEW Iowa and won the last 4 Big Ten tourneys. They are the team that actually works on offensive moves and looks to score, NOT Iowa.

The Iowa style, IMO, is boring and predictable. Yes, they get results, but they wrestler conservative and do just enough to win the match by a point or two at the end. However, when they get to the finals of the Big Tens they usually lose to a guy who is the better offensive wrestler.

If you need anymore proof of this then watch Joe Colon in 2 weeks for N. Iowa beat Ramos b/c of his Offensive style. Iowa won't have any NCAA champions, whereas Penn St. could have 3-4. Taylor, Ruth, Megaludis, McIntosh.

[bigoil]

And yes, the UW, The Kohl Center, and all the Wisconsin Wrestling Volunteers, put on a fantastic show.

The announcers could not have raved more about Madison. NCAA? Was sad to hear it will probably be 14 years before it comes back for the big tens.

[stbird]

This is exactly what I was thinking. 

Jeast you must be kidding, right?

"Iowa wrestlers are always looking to score.  Always putting the pressure on, always getting after their opponent."

Were you at the same tournament that I was at yesterday? Yes, Iowa puts a lot of pressure on their opponents and are great at hand fighting, pulling down/putting pressure on the head and they have great cardio, but DO NOT say they are always looking to score. I would say out of the 10 wrestlers Iowa Clark was the only wrestler that actually took a shot in any of his matches. Ramos, St. John, Moore, Evans, hardly, if ever, took a shot in their matches! And if it was a shot, it was a counter shot off the other wrestler generating offense.

Iowa's dominance and reputation precede themselves and it is well deserved, but there is a reason Penn St. is the NEW Iowa and won the last 4 Big Ten tourneys. They are the team that actually works on offensive moves and looks to score, NOT Iowa.

The Iowa style, IMO, is boring and predictable. Yes, they get results, but they wrestler conservative and do just enough to win the match by a point or two at the end. However, when they get to the finals of the Big Tens they usually lose to a guy who is the better offensive wrestler.

If you need anymore proof of this then watch Joe Colon in 2 weeks for N. Iowa beat Ramos b/c of his Offensive style. Iowa won't have any NCAA champions, whereas Penn St. could have 3-4. Taylor, Ruth, Megaludis, McIntosh.

[stbird]

When do we find out if Thielke gets a wild card or not?  He definitely deserves one. 

[hammen]

Whenever they release the brackets - I believe it is Wednesday?

[harley]

I was watching the McIntosh vs. Hefflin final and someone kept yelling "You're the reason our sport is boring!".  Does anybody know who that was?  I couldn't tell if it was Cael Sanderson or not, but I think they were yelling at Hefflin.

I am pretty sure it was Cael and I thought he was yelling at the official, for no stalling calls

[sadpanda]

I was watching the McIntosh vs. Hefflin final and someone kept yelling "You're the reason our sport is boring!".  Does anybody know who that was?  I couldn't tell if it was Cael Sanderson or not, but I think they were yelling at Hefflin.

That was coach Sanderson. He was directing that remark at the refs for allowing the wrestlers (both IMO) to stall most of their championship match.
There are a couple different schools of thought on the 'non-action' rules in college wrestling. The hwt. final was an even better example of 'non-action'.

Awesome tournament! Badgers looked great and are definitely improving. Good Luck at nationals!

[Handles II]

More than once I heard people say "the badgers need to wrestle with some urgency".  This was noted the most when they were on bottom. If you need one point to tie the match, it won't happen if you lay on the mat with your head down or continue to crawl out of bound or not once attempt to stand and peel hands.It was by far the most obvious flaw in the badgers wrestling and something that the top 3 teams did far better, throw IL into that as well.
In addition, while mat returns by the team were great overall, how about preventing a stand up in the first place? Not every mat return worked.

Knowing the riding time situation and/or time clock situation could have easily won us a few more matches. Is that on the coaches? we lost or failed to gain points there within a +/- 5 second margin of being able to. If your opponent needs :18 to gain riding time advantage, and you don't attempt any type of movement from bottom until 25 ticks of the clock occur, well, you will lose that point every time.

I believe everyone I spoke with is excited with the potential that this team has now and in the future years but the majority thought the badgers were showing they were content to stay on the bottom and not score. Scott Leigel was a notable exception as he was on his feet within seconds on most of his starts, and more often than not earned or was given an escape.
Hopefully this can be a coaching point and something they work on over the next two weeks. If so, and it takes, then yes, we have something to be very excited about.

And Sanderson was right. The refs aren't doing their job. It's typical of college and pro basketball where traveling and carrying the ball aren't called. These guys are supposed to be the best, they should know the rules the best, make the calls.

[MNbadger]

One way to make it less boring would be to eliminate riding time.
Why do we reward someone for NOT SCORING?
If you like riding time, why don't the wrestlers get a point for NOT getting a takedown?
The reward for "riding" should be near fall points or pin points.
I would like to go to the scoring of the late 70s and early 80s.

decision 1-7 (3 team points)
major decision 8-10 (4 team points)
superior decision 11-14 (5 team points)
tech fall 15 match termination (6 team points)
fall (6 team points)
matches were 8 minutes, 2-3-3
Wear your opponent down, lots of take 'em down let 'em up in the third, trying to earn team points.

I am not sure if all my point differentials are correct.  If someone else remembers better than I, correct me please.

Lots more action and reward for scoring.  Lots of takedowns, more exciting.  I think more falls come from takedowns  than riding anyway.

[jaguarwrestler]

My case for JT to get a bid

7-2 in last 9 matches

the two loses where both matches that where up in the air in the 3rd period... one was against a wrestler that was 28-0 and the other to a wrestler that was 23-7

Had an 18-6 decision over a 22-11 wrestler in last match

is 20-13 with all loses coming against wrestlers ranked during the season.

how do you not let him in?