Big Ten Tourney

[npope]

They'll never be close to an Iowa or Penn St. but they can do better than they have. The ceiling and energy rises with a new coach/change. His reputation isn't good right now, deserved or underdeserved, and that's unlikely to change at this point. It's actually more likely to keep eroding once that starts

Yah, they could use a better facility too.

Gentlemen, I don't understand why there is any further discussion of the matter - any debate has already seen its day - it is over. NIL money has killed the sport. Those who have the money have been able to attract the best talent in the country, even two-deep talent. The winners will forevermore be those with money and all others are merely standing around for show - bit players in the show. Once the disparity is ingrained there will no longer be competition - the winners will win and the losers will lose. The fan base of the losers, and that will be the vast majority of the programs, will lose interest, as will university administration. And in a very foreseeable future, wrestling will disappear as a DI collegiate sport (although it may still survive as a "boutique" sport at the DIII and NAIA level [where money DOESN'T talk]). The end is already upon us but we are too blind to see it. It's not Bono. It wasn't Davis (he was just in charge when the ship started tilting). Install a new coach? He's just the place holder and the fall guy for when the ship finally slips below the surface. Sorry that its a bleak view of the future, but if you stop for a second and look at the dynamics can you really come to any other conclusion?

[MNbadger]

Dead on read Mr. Pope.

[stbird]

I think DJ got hurt shortly before he got put on his back. His energy level died after that and he was limping badly after the match. Hated to see that match get away from him. He was dominating and Messenbrink was dragging

[wrestlemania]

You're exactly right Mr. Pope.

[CLC FAN]

I think DJ got hurt shortly before he got put on his back. His energy level died after that and he was limping badly after the match. Hated to see that match get away from him. He was dominating and Messenbrink was dragging

I was wondering that at the end of the second period.  Not that he gave up a TD but the way he thought about fighting the position and bailed on it I would say disgustedly read as "injury" to me.

To anyone wondering it's not that Messenbrink doesn't deserve credit or isn't capable of beating DJ if healthy - I think they can both beat each other.  I was just wondering if anyone knows more or saw it the way I did.

[Ghetto]

Maybe I'm seeing the world through rose colored glasses.

Barnett- 3rd seed. Took seventh. Lost to the eventual champion and the 1 seed on his way there. Did anyone see Barnett being a national champion at any point in his career? Remember that he was going to North Carolina and decided to come home? I've always said that Barnett's style is going to get him into trouble but also can put him high on the podium at NCAAs if he runs into guys that arent familiar with him. He AAs in Kansas City. Wisconsin kid

Rivera- 9th seed. Lost to the 7 and the 8. Guys seeded above him. Up a weight. In the Big Ten. Wisconsin kid.

Lettini- 14th seed. The lowest seed in the weight. Did we expect him to win matches? I did not. He's won twice this season. The fact that he goes out there every match to get when he knows he's gonna get his tail kicked deserves a bit of respect.

Zargo- 7th seed. Took 8th. Lost to 2, 3, and 8. Yeah I was disappointed that he lost to Rooks, who I think he can/will beat. Love the way this dude wrestles. He's relentless. While I'd love to see Gomez at this weight, Joe Zargo has improved from last year. Zargo had a losing record and got wrecked at NCAAs last year. I expect him to win some matches there this year.

Mechler- 13th seed. Took 11th-ish. Lost to 4 and 12 by 1. Disappointing loss to 12. That win wouldn't have changed anything, as he would have gotten wrecked by Saldate anyway. Getting into the 9th place tournament was as good as it was gonna get. Wisconsin kid.

Hamiti- 1st seed. Took 2nd. Was beating a 2x age-level world finalist pretty handily and the wheels absolutely came off the wagon. Has the ability to be on that level, if he could just. get. over. the. hump. This would have been a huge win for him.

Maylor- 7th seed. Took 7th. Lost to Shane Griffith and pinned by Turley when he had taken Turley down in the first period. Wisconsin kid who has improved this season. Will win matches at NCAAs.

Liegel - 7th seed. Took 8th. Another Wisconsin kid. Quick reminder that HE WRESTLED D3 and is now going to wrestle at the NCAA championships in D1. That jump is huge, and he's been a surprise.

Otto- 14th seed. DNP. Wisconsin kid. I have nothing other than huge props to Josh Otto for wrestling 197 when was a 165 pounder at one point. Took one for the program while Amos was away. Would he have wrestled varsity at any other weight in the program? No. He took his opportunity

Rosenfeld- 12th seed. DNP. Lost to 5 and 6. Seemed to improve over the season.

Not sure why I went through all that, other than to say, kids (young men) wrestle their tails off and do what they can to win every match. Do they always win, no. We want them to do great things, and sometimes they don't.

For the 1000th time, I'll bring up that Wisconsin wrestling is underfunded. It simply doesn't have the backing/resources that others do. There are public high school wrestling programs in this state that have better wrestling rooms than our D1 wrestling program. This part is a university issue.

The other part of the funding issue is the NIL/fundraising money. Let's say one of the Askren brothers took over the program for next season. Would the funds be there to immediately bring in the Messenbrinks, the O'Toole's, the Mirasola's etc. Keep Amos? Would people all of the sudden come out of the woodwork to donate enough money to put the Wisconsin program on top?

The other part of that is do the Askrens want that? Would they (or one of them) give up the money pouring into their academies to take a pay cut? They clearly build talented wrestlers, but are THEY willing to suck up to donors, kids who want to get paid, etc.? Do they want to or know how the administrative side of things works? Do they hire an "old guy" who has been around the block with compliance/fundraising/all the other things that go with being a D1 college coach?

Congratulations to the Badgers who qualified for NCAAs. I'm super disappointed that I can't be there this year to watch.

[littleguy301]

Nice breakdown Ghetto.

[DocWrestling]

The NIL part is the worst.  Even if UW gets a pretty good recruit who out wrestles his high school rankings and does well early the big programs will throw money at him and he will leave.  So even if you strike gold you likely can't keep him.  UW can't miss on recruits and then probably has to rely on transfers of guys that got over recruited somewhere else.

Hamiti is going to be offered some big cash.  Hopefully he stays one more year but after he is done and Barnett is gone I don't see another All- American on the roster.

[vsmf2010]

Maybe I'm seeing the world through rose colored glasses.

Barnett- 3rd seed. Took seventh. Lost to the eventual champion and the 1 seed on his way there. Did anyone see Barnett being a national champion at any point in his career? Remember that he was going to North Carolina and decided to come home? I've always said that Barnett's style is going to get him into trouble but also can put him high on the podium at NCAAs if he runs into guys that arent familiar with him. He AAs in Kansas City. Wisconsin kid

Rivera- 9th seed. Lost to the 7 and the 8. Guys seeded above him. Up a weight. In the Big Ten. Wisconsin kid.

Lettini- 14th seed. The lowest seed in the weight. Did we expect him to win matches? I did not. He's won twice this season. The fact that he goes out there every match to get when he knows he's gonna get his tail kicked deserves a bit of respect.

Zargo- 7th seed. Took 8th. Lost to 2, 3, and 8. Yeah I was disappointed that he lost to Rooks, who I think he can/will beat. Love the way this dude wrestles. He's relentless. While I'd love to see Gomez at this weight, Joe Zargo has improved from last year. Zargo had a losing record and got wrecked at NCAAs last year. I expect him to win some matches there this year.

Mechler- 13th seed. Took 11th-ish. Lost to 4 and 12 by 1. Disappointing loss to 12. That win wouldn't have changed anything, as he would have gotten wrecked by Saldate anyway. Getting into the 9th place tournament was as good as it was gonna get. Wisconsin kid.

Hamiti- 1st seed. Took 2nd. Was beating a 2x age-level world finalist pretty handily and the wheels absolutely came off the wagon. Has the ability to be on that level, if he could just. get. over. the. hump. This would have been a huge win for him.

Maylor- 7th seed. Took 7th. Lost to Shane Griffith and pinned by Turley when he had taken Turley down in the first period. Wisconsin kid who has improved this season. Will win matches at NCAAs.

Liegel - 7th seed. Took 8th. Another Wisconsin kid. Quick reminder that HE WRESTLED D3 and is now going to wrestle at the NCAA championships in D1. That jump is huge, and he's been a surprise.

Otto- 14th seed. DNP. Wisconsin kid. I have nothing other than huge props to Josh Otto for wrestling 197 when was a 165 pounder at one point. Took one for the program while Amos was away. Would he have wrestled varsity at any other weight in the program? No. He took his opportunity

Rosenfeld- 12th seed. DNP. Lost to 5 and 6. Seemed to improve over the season.

Not sure why I went through all that, other than to say, kids (young men) wrestle their tails off and do what they can to win every match. Do they always win, no. We want them to do great things, and sometimes they don't.

For the 1000th time, I'll bring up that Wisconsin wrestling is underfunded. It simply doesn't have the backing/resources that others do. There are public high school wrestling programs in this state that have better wrestling rooms than our D1 wrestling program. This part is a university issue.

The other part of the funding issue is the NIL/fundraising money. Let's say one of the Askren brothers took over the program for next season. Would the funds be there to immediately bring in the Messenbrinks, the O'Toole's, the Mirasola's etc. Keep Amos? Would people all of the sudden come out of the woodwork to donate enough money to put the Wisconsin program on top?

The other part of that is do the Askrens want that? Would they (or one of them) give up the money pouring into their academies to take a pay cut? They clearly build talented wrestlers, but are THEY willing to suck up to donors, kids who want to get paid, etc.? Do they want to or know how the administrative side of things works? Do they hire an "old guy" who has been around the block with compliance/fundraising/all the other things that go with being a D1 college coach?

Congratulations to the Badgers who qualified for NCAAs. I'm super disappointed that I can't be there this year to watch.

We must shop at the same store. Those are the glasses I have as well. 

[asdf]

-8th in Big Ten, way, way behind #7 (Minn.) and just above Purdue and MD. 
-Tied for 12th for worst placement vs. seed differential (Its under Stats in trackwrestling).  Just above Michigan State for last place.
-Mechler 14th seed, placing somewhere around 11-13th was the best of the weekend.  Otherwise not one wrestler ended up placing higher then their seed with Maylor only the one that placed at seed of those expected to place.
-Everyone other lower tier team had one or in most cases multiple wrestlers upsetting higher seeds, surprise entrants to NCAA's, etc. And in many cases freshman/ RS-FR/sophmores.

Illinois will get Lucas Byrd and another Red shirt heavier kid (can't recall his name) back.  Purdue, Indiana, and even Maryland have some young wrestlers to develop.  UW loses 3 of their 5 qualifiers after this season. 

Not snarky or being a hater, but how can UW be expected to place higher then 10th next year at Big Tens?

[Healthy and happy]

I think the Big Ten final team standings this year is very telling.  If you look at all the teams that finished ahead of Wisconsin, what do they have that the Badgers don't have?

1. Investment in newer/better facilities
2. Good to robust RTC's and money associated with it
3. Larger to crazy amounts of NIL money spend on bringing top level guys into the program

These are very key points to long sustainable success into today's world. The teams below Wisconsin in the Big Ten's share a similar type of profile in these three areas. Until some these areas improve, top 4/5 level of success in the Big Ten will be very difficult.

[wrestlemania]

Agreed H&H, good post. But beyond these things, there's just this culture of high-level failure, of many of these athletes not performing up to their best when the team needed it, injuries and just general all out bad luck that plagues this program and is seeped into its culture. While having more money, RTC, NIL better facilities will certainly help with structuring the program, making it a long-term success requires purging a lot of this bad history.

I think it was last year npope had downloaded some old NCAA meet programs from the late 70s, early 80s. Those UW teams had the talent, the coaching and the opportunity to win a national championship but, and I wrote this looking back at those programs, there was always a UW wrestler, a top seed, who got upset in the first round (and back then when you lost once early on in the national meet you were done), or who wrestled well below his seed, just all out disappointing. That disappointment just carries on through the years and never goes away. It's just insidious! It was no different Sunday.  I was monitoring Hamiti's match on the Dashboard. I turned my head and all of a sudden he's trailing 13-11 after had been leading nearly the entire match and all I can think of is "Here we go again!"

Indeed, look at how many close matches UW wrestlers lost during the B1G meet. It wasn't just Hamiti. They could have done better. Four thirds and a second, even with Hamiti's loss would still have been a good outcome. But, nope.

[hornbuckleb]

I think the Big Ten final team standings this year is very telling.  If you look at all the teams that finished ahead of Wisconsin, what do they have that the Badgers don't have?

1. Investment in newer/better facilities
2. Good to robust RTC's and money associated with it
3. Larger to crazy amounts of NIL money spend on bringing top level guys into the program

These are very key points to long sustainable success into today's world. The teams below Wisconsin in the Big Ten's share a similar type of profile in these three areas. Until some these areas improve, top 4/5 level of success in the Big Ten will be very difficult.

Nebraska.....

[Gutwrench]

I think the Big Ten final team standings this year is very telling.  If you look at all the teams that finished ahead of Wisconsin, what do they have that the Badgers don't have?

1. Investment in newer/better facilities
2. Good to robust RTC's and money associated with it
3. Larger to crazy amounts of NIL money spend on bringing top level guys into the program

These are very key points to long sustainable success into today's world. The teams below Wisconsin in the Big Ten's share a similar type of profile in these three areas. Until some these areas improve, top 4/5 level of success in the Big Ten will be very difficult.

Nebraska.....

I was thinking of Nebraska as a potential outlier to this thought exercise. The Nebraska's, Ohio State's, and Minnesota's aren't pulling in the transfer's like PSU, Iowa, and Michigan are, but maybe they have the NIL money on the front end to attract the high school kids signing? 

I would add a fourth category to these three: development of wrestlers to a championship level.

A program can probably be successful if they have 3 out of 4 of these categories.  Maybe even 2 out of 4.  Unfortunately I feel that UW is behind in all of these categories, and I don't see any change in the foreseeable future for the Badger program. 

[DocWrestling]

I don't know if it is culture but you do need a style to really drive your program and hang your hat on.  Something all wrestlers have.

I was thinking about 165, 174, and 184.  All three guys are taller wiry guys that certainly don't scare people in the looks department with built muscles.  But they all use their length and leverage to their advantage most of the time.

Do you want to recruit the same body types so you can coach a certain style?  They are all kind of the same.  Are they missing something by not being able to wrestle a shorter "built" wrester to practice against different styles?