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A Week of Wrestling is one fanboy’s thoughts on the wrestling week that was and those that will be.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

There have been many versions of this quote throughout history, but as a huge Kung Fu Panda fan, I like to attribute it to the venerated founder of The Valley of Peace, Master Oogway. In the first movie, he introduces the quote with a brief admonishment to Po which is deeply related to a popular wrestling concept of ‘surrendering the outcome’: “you are too concerned with what is and what will be.” I figure it provides a fun framework for blogging about wrestling.

Yesterday is History

My January roadtrip to State College for the home duals versus the visiting Michigans was so rewarding, I decided to use its momentum to check out some D1 wrestling a little closer to my home here in Northern Virginia. That PA trip brought with it so many reminders of the quality of the wrestling community and its personal value to my IRL social life, I knew I wanted needed more.

I live 2.5 hours from both Philly & Charlottesville, and I’ve only ever spent like one weekend in Cville, long ago. I go to Philly 3 or 4 times a year. So I reached out to my friend and longtime coach, Jim Harshaw, and an ‘internet friend’ I’d not yet met in person, Robbie Wendell, to make some plans to attend a UVA Dual.

After picking the date (2/10/23, hosting Duke, in the last home dual of the UVA season), and learning my trip might be too tight to squeeze in a dinner before the 7p start, I asked about tickets. Did either of them have a spare? Where can I buy one that might be near them?

Robbie surprised me with the answer: “Memorial Gym is free and you can move about as you please!”

I enjoyed a pleasant drive down, not too terrible on 95S, got lucky to cross Lake Anna just as the last bits of sun were glistening off the water, and arrived just in time. I found Jim and was introduced to two of his buddies and teammates on the late 90’s UVA wrestling teams, Ryan & Johnny. Jim has very experienced networking skills, and immediately mentioned that I was a visiting Penn State fan who writes for Black Shoe Diaries. Johnny said: ‘wait, my buddy sent me an article the other week...about the Michigan dual & looking for tickets?’ Excitedly, I replied: ‘yes, that was me; I wrote that!’

Wow, so cool. Turns out Johnny’s got a daughter at PSU and his good friend is a professor and now a Dean, and we had a lot to talk about.

Harshaw is a 3x ACC Champion and a 1999 All-American. He placed 8th from his 11-seed at 165 in the tournament in State College, where two weight classes above him, Cael Sanderson won the first of his four titles. They’ve even got a picture of Jim on the wall in Memorial Gym; here he is posing in front of it with his daughter:

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

So I’d been looking forward to watching live wrestling with him, and to getting the inside scoop on the UVA lineup and future (they’ve recruited well lately and should be unveiling some new studs next year).

When it came to 149, I actually had some experience I could share, when former Penn Stater Jarod Verkleeren took the mat.

via Trackwrestling

Man, it was fun to watch him attack and attack in neutral, and to overpower his opponent to his back en route to a Tech Fall.

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

We were seated right next to the Duke bench, and could see the pain and strain on the faces of the Blue Devil wrestlers, and hear every word of coaching from their hard-working staff. Here’s a fuzzy shot of legendary Duke Coach Glen Lanham:

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

With the route on, we were also checking in on the NC State - Pitt dual happening at the same time:

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

It was great.

Afterward, Jim pointed out another All-American to me, and this time a Penn Stater! He invited Eric Brugel over and introduced us. When I shook his hand, I could feel the weight of his granite forearms, and he was fit and youthful-looking. I was legit surprised to learn that he had almost 10 years on me:

via Penn State Wrestling Club’s Find a Wrestler Search

Brugel earned 8th place from his 9-seed at 167lbs, in the 1984 tourney in the Meadowlands. As Jim & Eric caught up, I had a lovely chat with Eric’s wife, Nina, and learned all about their lacrosse- and field hockey-playing children who have each now finished college.

Later, I also found this interesting interview with Eric on the Penn State Wrestling Club site. I think this section is pertinent to modern discussions of our favorite sport, don’t you?

Do you still follow collegiate wrestling? How has it changed since you wrestled at PSU? I still watch college wrestling. I do not think it has changed that much. Different techniques will cycle in and out, but the basic concepts are the same. I like some of the new rules, like the ride out. When I was in school, if a match went into overtime it was often decided by criteria, rather than on the mat. I don’t really like the idea of starting dual meets at a different weight each time; I liked the idea of the match occasionally hinging on the heavyweight match. I am definitely in favor of the new weight loss rules and the additional safeguards they bring to the athletes.

After saying goodbye to Jim and Eric and Nina, I finally met Robbie, Intermat’s ACC Correspondent, in person. Before we could go grab a beer and a bite, he had some work to do, starting with UVA Head Coach Steve Garland.

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

Robbie’s really interesting. He and his wife are both special education teachers; he in a school and she homeschooling their 3 children. He’s got a diverse background and lots of good stories, including a few crazy barefoot distance races on his resume.

He’s my kind of people: kind, smart and tough.

I didn’t get to see enough of Charlottesville to give a fair public assessment, but I did learn one thing and kind of corroborated another. Apparently, it’s a faux pas to call the campus a campus? Instead, it is ‘the grounds.’ I may be butchering that one; have any of you all been through there?

I’d also read a little bit about how the city’s design is somehow unfriendly to both pedestrians and to drivers, and my perception from my short in and out did seem to agree with that. Although, when I finally headed home around 11p, I had the back windy roads all to myself, and a great Wrestling Changed My Life podcast in my ear. I went to bed at 2p a happy boy.

With my wrestling appetite whetted, and back home in the DMV, that Sunday I headed into DC to American University to check out their dual with Air Force. Wrestle Like a Girl was hosting a free clinic before the dual I wanted to see, and I was curious how my 90s memories of Bender Arena held up against any modern changes.

My kid had a flag football event at Georgetown, so I didn’t get to see what the clinic looked like, but I met Julia Salata, WLAG’s Sr. Manager, Women’s Collegiate Advancement, after the dual, and she seemed very happy with the 40+ turnout and instruction and general vibes.

And I did get to see the two Women’s Exhibition Matches between the 157 & 165 Men’s bouts, although I can’t seem find the results or the names of the athletes anywhere.

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

Women’s Wrestling is growing extremely quickly, and partnerships like this between WLAG & AU are one of many reasons why. In fact, just this week, D1 Women’s Wrestling Twitter quoted USA Wrestling’s announcement:

“National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championship (NCWWC) Executive Committee announces the success of over 40 programs meeting all their divisional rules allowing for the consideration of the NCAA to sponsor a National Championship in women’s wrestling.”

The Men’s Dual was won by Air Force, 7-3 / 28-13.

via Trackwrestling

It was a treat watching AF’s stud Heavyweight Hendrickson go to work. Dude’s a pinner, and he showed me a pin.

It was also interesting to watch AU’s coaching staff, led by second-year Head Coach, and longtime Stanford coach, Jason Borrelli. He has stacked his staff with Alex Tirapelle, Joey Dance and, stop me if you remember this name: Ganbayar Sanjaa. He was one of the All-Americans that Dylan Alton defeated en route to his 3rd place finish in 2012. They were all vocal and full of energy.

After the dual, the Air Force families looked eager to get a visit in with their athletes. The DC area is packed full of AF vets and active service members, and it’s likely they hadn’t seen each other in some time.

Jp Pearson, Black Shoe Diaries

All in all, the Sunday dual was a lot less social, but was still very rewarding to attend.

It’s good to travel.

Nittany Lion Duals

Penn State continued along its expected road, and extended its Dual Meet Win Streak to 44.

#1 Penn State 33, Clarion

• BSDWrestle’s SWHA wrote the postview:

Bonus, bonus, bonus. There’s no doubt this squad continues to push themselves to get better technically in the wrestling room, but in these duals it’s all about scoring. It’s especially nice to see guys working on getting turns and scoring from top as it’s a much easier way to build a lead than through a series of takedowns. I can’t wait to see what Beau, Van Ness, Haines and Facundo can do deeper in tournaments when guys are getting worn down and they’re still fresh. It’s going to be a fun tournament season.

• BSDWrestle’s Cari Preview + Commentariat + Bubbacast

Fyre Duals

#2 Iowa 28, #6 Oklahoma State 7

via Trackwrestling

Oof.

OkSt had looked to be on a bit of mid-season revival, but in this visit to Carver Hawkeye Arena, momentum was definitively snatched by their hosts. Sheets started out well enough, but Kennedy is a precise leg-attacker (refreshing for a Hawk lineup that has been rather light on them of late) and that bout’s end result was never in doubt.

When Dustin Plott tried the Starocci approach of attempting to go toe-to-toe with the thumb-blocking, hand-fighting Nelson Brands (but got out-pummeled) and Travis Wittlake tried the opposite dance & attack from space (but still didn’t shoot), and each lost, the 8-2 bout rout was on.

The bout rout was on, but inside the bouts themselves was another low-scoring affair. Of those 8 wins, 5 of the winners scored 4 points or less. Trackwrestling reports a 9-5 takedown win by the Hawkeyes. About which, Tom Brands had this to say: “We want to emphasize that we’re a dominant team, and sometimes dominant wrestlers have to win close matches.”

I agree with that.

Comparatively, when #1 Penn State beat #2 Iowa 23-14 / 6-4, the Nittany Lions’ dominant wrestlers won some very close matches. Haines, Starocci, Dean & Kerkvliet each scored 4 points or less, and neither Starocci nor Dean earned a single takedown.

I think we’ve seen a lot of that in the dual season this year: lots of low bout scores when a higher-tier team is competing against an opponent in the tier just below them. To what would you all attribute that phenomenon: current rule sets, wrestler/coach gamification of those rule-sets, generalized parity, modern techniques or something else?

Dudley Duals

#4 Cornell vs #8 Ohio State

via Trackwrestling

Unfortunately, here’s another thing we’ve seen a lot of this year: starters sitting out. Cornell sat the following starters:

• 125 Ungar
• 141 Cornella
• 149 Yianni
• 174 Foca

Ohio State sat starters:

• 165 Kharchla
• 174 Smith
• 184 Romero
• 197 Hoffman

All that after flying each team to Tampa for something they branded as the Spartan Combat Duals.

Thankfully, all eight starters are set to compete in their conference tourneys this weekend. Let’s hope they’re all healthy.

Dual Season Final Standings

Part of my mission for this college wrestling season was to learn more about other teams and their programs and their fan & writer communities. And part of that learning involved learning which teams even wrestle in which conferences. To that end, and with this dual season’s end, I’m again liberally borrowing from Jason Bryant’s Almanac site at Mat Talk Online, to share with you fine people. Maybe you already knew this stuff, but maybe you’ll also learn something.

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

At first glance, a mere 6 teams in conference feels light, but the upside of that is that every bout carries more weight. That phenomenon will be on display this weekend in the ACC Tourney, as Pitt tries to show again that it belongs at the top with NC State & Va Tech.

Big Ten Conference

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

A 14-team conference with only an 8-dual conference season leaves a lot of holes in the final standings. Nebraska only lost to Iowa in conference, but never wrestled Penn State or Michigan. Still, they beat Ohio State, Minnesota & Northwestern, the teams most directly behind them.

At the beginning of the season, who had Wiscy tied with Maryland for next to last place, behind Rutgers, Sparty & Indy? Raise your hand and collect a liar’s cookie.

Big 12 Conference

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

I like this conference for wrestling. It’s deep at the top! With Iowa State’s continued ascension under Kevin Dresser, OkSt’s continued plateauing under John W. Smith, and Missouri’s steady consistency, that’s a mean Top-3. Add in the ever-improving Dakotas & Northern Iowa, and this is an exciting conference.

Should be a great tourney this weekend; who ya got?

Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA)

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

17 teams!

This is by far the most academic of the wrestling conferences. Led by the 6 Ivies, and including big time engineering schools Lehigh & Drexel, a couple stud liberal arts colleges and two military service academies. Man, a young student athlete looking for tough wrestling and a great education can hardly go wrong choosing any of these schools.

As much fun as it has been watching Pitt overtake Lehigh for the #2 D1 program in Pennsylvania these past few years, I think watching U Penn overtake Cornell at the top of the EIWA’s in these upcoming years might be just as much fun.

Speaking of ... how do you all say the name of this conference when using the spoken word? I used to feel like saying ‘EYE Was’ wouldn’t feel right, but I abhor spelling out acronyms, like ‘Eee Eye Dubya Ayys.’ Thankfully, Army Assistant Coach Todd Green saved me the other day, when I saw him refer to this weekend’s tourney as ‘Easterns.’

Mid American Conference (MAC)

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

I love that the MAC has 13 teams, and still separated into 2 divisions. George Mason is in my back yard here, and I let another season go by without getting over for a dual. The last time I was there, I saw Mitchell Port, David Habat & Vic Avery when Edinboro came to town, in 2015.

Bonus for me this year: the MAC Tourney is being held at George Mason! And I’m all set with my general admission ticket to meet up with some other wrestleheads to #BeUncommon, in cheering for the Patriots. Let’s go!

Pac-12 Conference

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

Cal Poly with their first conference Dual Meet championship!

Arizona State’s been a little banged up this year, but are they still? Flowrestling’s got a feature they call Sun Devil Insider, and it’s written by ... Jim Carlson of the Harrisburg Patriot News? Interesting.

In any event, here’s Carlson quoting ASU Coach Zeke Jones discussing 141 pounder Jesse Vasquez’ season-ending injury, and his replacement Emilio Yasguirre:

Yasguirre will have to win the 141-pound title to qualify for the NCAA tournament in Tulsa, or else be in the hands of the wildcard selection committee. “You take somebody out of redshirt, you don’t do that lightly,” Jones said. “You only do it because you feel it can help your team and they’re good enough to get on the podium. That’s the only reason you would ever pull a redshirt, at least in my mind, and we believe he can do both those things for us.”

Additionally, @ASUWrestling twitter teased this pic of All-American Jacori Teemer who hasn’t wrestled since tearing his pec last year. Ahh, Coach Zeke. Always has something up his sleeve.

Southern Conference (SoCon)

via Mat Talk Online Almanac

App State ran the table, and finished the season with a fun flourish against second-place Campbell. From Intermat’s SoCon Correspondent, Rachel Gallardo:

This set of duals was pretty spectacular. There were TWO officials on the mat (finally!!), plenty of fans, and as I mentioned before - football teams. Campbell brought their football team, and when App State heard about it they answered accordingly. A gym full of football players who may or may not have wrestled in high school is just as fun as you think it would be. A lot of yelling “TWOOO,” “he’s stalling,” or other various heckling ensued. I was in the area near Campbell’s football team, and they were the nicest group of guys. It’s really awesome to see sports programs buy into each other in this way, it’s a creative way to grow the sport, and it made for an awesome atmosphere to have so many students there supporting both programs. It’s too bad we couldn’t have an App State/Campbell football scrimmage (LOL) now that would’ve been added fun!

Dual Season Final Rankings

via nwcaonline

Iowa State fell from 3 to 5, after the Missouri loss at the end of the season. And the coaches rewarded Cornell’s weird trip to Florida and loss to Ohio State by dropping them from 4 to 8, while NC State and Nebraska took those spots.

Tomorrow is a Mystery

Conference Tourneys

Lots of cool stuff coming up this weekend, as the 2023 Postseason officially kicks off. Following are some good previews & resources I’ve found for the different conference tourneys.

• Big Ten Tourney Preview, by Earl Smith of Rokfin Intermat ($: requires a subscription login to read the full thing). Earl’s structure names a First Round Match to Watch, and predicts the winner and loser of each weight’s 1st, 3rd, 5th & 7th place matches. A few samples:

Despite winning nine of the last 11 NCAA titles, Penn State is seeking its first Big Ten championship since 2019. Four of the ten top seeds at the 2023 Big Ten Championship hail from Penn State. Just going by seeds, the Nittany Lions are a significant favorite this weekend. Of course, that won’t discourage rival Iowa from attempting to spoil a Penn State party. The Hawkeyes have a strong starting ten that features two number-one seeds, including two-time Hodge Trophy winner Spencer Lee. Fast on the Hawks’ heels are their neighbors to the west, Nebraska. The Cornhuskers have four wrestlers seeded in the top-two and seem built for big tournament action.

and

For those that have never attended the Big Ten’s, it’s a bucket list tournament for wrestling die-hards. Seven of the top #1 ranked wrestlers in the country will take the mat. There will likely be previews of many NCAA semifinals and likely even a few finals in Ann Arbor. There’s the possibility of a 2022 NCAA finals rematch…in the 197 lb semis. Basically, most of the tournament is like Friday at the NCAA Tournament.

I agree with Earl on this. I had an absolute blast hangin with the Bloodround & Inside Trip boys at the 2018 B1G Tourney in Lansing, and this year’s Crisler Center setup looks delectable:

• Big Ten Tourney Preview, Weights 165 - 285, by Andrew Spey at Flowrestling. With this link and no subscription, you can read Spey’s words; with a subscription, you can also watch the videos they’ve embedded. Weights 125 - 157 are in a separate link, by a separate author, Jon Kozak. Their structure organizes each weight into 3 groups: Favorites, Contenders, and Sleepers & Landmines. A sample, from Spey, on 165:

It’s difficult finding sleepers in a conference with 10 ranked wrestlers but how about Nick South from Indiana? He’s 7-5 on the year against D1 competition including five wins over Big Ten rivals. He’s in his fourth season in Bloomington having started the previous two years as well.

Predictions: 1) Amine, 2) Hamiti, 3) Kharchla, 4) Facundo, 5) Kennedy, 6) Braunagel, 7) Mayfield, 8) Fish

With only eight auto-bids allocated to them (Amine and Kharchla did not have enough matches to get an RPI rating and thus could not earn bids for the conference), this is going to be an absolutely brutal bracket, with at least two ranked wrestlers guaranteed to be on the outside hoping for a wild card bid to NCAAs after the conference tournament.

• Big 12 Tourney Preview, by Adam Engel at USA Wrestling

A battle for Big 12 Conference supremacy continues and it appears similar to last year’s edition. Missouri enters the Big 12 Championships this weekend at the BOK Center in Tulsa as the favorite, based on projected points via seeding. Missouri earned 10 seeds while Oklahoma State and West Virginia earned nine.

The Tigers seek its second straight Big 12 title and its 11th consecutive conference title. Oklahoma State looks to regain its top spot, and Iowa State comes off one of its best seasons in years. The tournament can be viewed on ESPN+ with Sunday night’s finals on ESPNU. You can watch each mat using this link. https://www.espn.com/watch/collections/22508/live-upcoming

• Big 12 Preview, from Earl Smith at Rokfin Intermat. A sample:

64 total allocations/58 in 2022

When: Saturday/Sunday

Where: Tulsa, Oklahoma

How to Watch: ESPN+/ESPNU

Two weeks before the DI wrestling world descends on Tulsa, Oklahoma for the 2023 NCAA Championships, the BOK Center will conduct a trial run of sorts for the Big 12 Championships. This Saturday and Sunday, to be exact. Tulsa has become the unofficial home of the Big 12 Championships, one of the most important conference qualifying events. Only the Big Ten will be responsible for more wrestlers at the 2023 NCAA Championships than the Big 12.

All year our Big 12 correspondent, Seth Duckworth, has gone back and forth over who was going to win the conference. Since there was a tie during the dual season, we have to extend this question into the conference tournament. From day one this year, Iowa State has looked like one of the best dual teams in the country. As the year progressed, they’ve turned out to be a really strong tournament team as well. Defending champion Missouri is responsible for Iowa State’s only Big 12 loss this year and can get it done in any format. At one point this season, the Tigers had two wrestlers ranked #1 in the nation at their respective weights. Oklahoma State may have been written off too early. The Cowboys came back and edged Missouri to hand the Tigers their only Big 12 loss.

• Big 12 Brackets, via Iowa State Wrestling. The records in them are kinda wac (incomplete), and the conference only seeds to 8. Note our Northern Colorado friend Baylor Fernandes at the 8-seed, with a path to a Quarterfinals matchup with David Carr. Let’s all hope Fernandes keeps his toughness clean this weekend.
• EIWA Tourney Preview, from Austin Sommer of Rokfin Intermat ($: requires a login to read the full thing). This is super thorough, and Rokfin’s reading time estimator lists it at a whopping 42 minutes. If you have a subscription, it’s well worth that amount of time. A few samples, which describe the controversy over EIWA seeding, and the systems in place that produced them, very well:

Patrick Glory is the clear number one seed at 125 lbs when looking at record (16-0), win percentage (100%), coaches ranking (#2), and head-to-head in the conference (zero losses to EIWA opponents). Somehow, he ended up with the 2nd seed, even though he majored the 1st seed a few weeks ago. Why was he the 2nd seed? You guessed it, he did not meet the RPI required. That 15-match number is important because Glory only had 11 matches at 125 lbs against D1 opponents. He was up at 133 lbs for some of the season, but those matches do not count towards the RPI, since he’s entered the postseason at 125 lbs. He lost a handful of points for his non-RPI ranking - essentially zero points for that category.

and

You may be asking, is there any way to overrule the seeds, since this is a calculation done via computer with very little common sense? The answer is “yes, of course!” Without giving away all of the details, there is a way to “challenge” a seed if within a certain number of seeding points to the wrestler above. Because Yianni and Glory were outside of this threshold, there is one final step in the process to get the final seeds “correct.” The EIWA calls it the outlier rule. When Glory’s 2nd seed was challenged as an outlier (but still outside of that challengeable criteria), 13 of the 17 (75%) coaches needed to vote yes to overturn and give him the top seed. It only took five votes to block these challenges from happening. The same situation occurred for Yianni’s seed at 149 lbs.

• MAC Preview, by Earl Smith of Rokfin Intermat. A sample:

23 total allocations/22 in 2022

When: Friday/Saturday

Where: Fairfax, Virginia (George Mason University)

How to Watch: Will Update Later (Editor Note: come along with Jp!)

The DI postseason gets kicked off on Friday as the MAC Championships start day one of their two-day competition. 13 schools will be fighting for 23 automatic berths to the 2023 NCAA Championship. That number has increased by one from 2022, so it represents a small measure of progress for the MAC. The favorites will be the 2022 champion Lock Haven Bald Eagles. Scott Moore’s team will come into the conference meet with four nationally ranked wrestlers and a couple others on the cusp of the top-33. After a down showing in 2022 (8th) Rider is back and looking to significantly improve on that placement. The Broncs boast the highest-ranked wrestler in the conference (Ethan Laird - 6th at 197) among their three ranked wrestlers. Never count out Tom Borrelli and Central Michigan. The Chippewas had a difficult schedule at the beginning of the year, but seemed to wrestle better as the postseason grew closer. Other schools that haven’t necessarily been regulars at the top of the conference standings, but will play an integral role this week are Cleveland State and SIU Edwardsville. The Vikings have a very balanced team, while SIUE has impressive individual firepower.

• Pac-12 Preview, by Earl Smith of Rokfin Intermat. A sample:

19 total allocations/23 in 2022

When: Sunday

Where: Palo Alto, California (Stanford University)

How to Watch: Pac-12.com/Pac-12 Network

On a busy weekend, out on the west coast, the Pac-12 Championships will take place on the campus of Stanford University. At the beginning of the season, this conference looked like it would be won by Arizona State, running away. That may still happen, but the Sun Devils have come back to the pack. Injuries have decimated ASU and their dual record suffered. Arizona State, as currently constructed, should function well in a large tournament format. With a small tournament like the Pac-12, anything can happen. We saw that last season as the Sun Devils edged Oregon State by a half-point for their third straight title.

• Pac-12 Brackets, via USA Wrestling. Lists Max Willner for ASU at 157, not Jacori Teemer.
• SoCon Preview, by Earl Smith of Rokfin Intermat. A sample:

12 total allocations/25 in 2022

When: Saturday

Where: Boone, North Carolina (Appalachian State University)

How to Watch: ESPN+

Over the past decade, one of the most competitive conference tournaments, from a team standpoint, has been the SoCon. Five times in the last ten years the top-two squads in the team race have finished within six points of each other. The 2022 edition of the SoCon Championships was one of those occasions as Campbell edged Appalachian State (100.5 to 95) to claim their fourth consecutive SoCon title. Can the Camels make it five? As has been the case in each of those four previous tournaments, the Mountaineers have an imposing team and are capable of winning it all. Appalachian State posted a perfect dual record this year with a 22-14 win over Campbell accounting for the only time that a SoCon team posted double-digits in team points against them. Campbell is battle-tested with their tough dual schedule and a history of recent success at this tournament. Also in the mix is Chattanooga. Though it doesn’t appear that the Mocs have the firepower to unseat either of the top-two teams, they are a talented group that looks secure in third place.

If you’re counting at home, that’s 5 conference tourney previews that Earl has written himself. The only conference tourney preview I’m missing is the ACC, and since I’m blogging from the basement tonight like a good little stereotypical blogger and can’t check my texts, I’ll guess that Earl & Robbie are working on that one & will likely have it up tomorrow. I’ll update this if I see one.

Interesting & Possibly Useful Miscellany

• The Ann Arbor Travel Guide, from Kevin Claunch at Intermat. For those of us not traveling to Michigan this weekend, two samples from this bit of vicarious reading:

Now I don’t expect you to be able to fit all of what I’m about to tell you into your trip to Ann Arbor for the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, but I will give you a guide so you can make the most of this trip. Now I don’t claim to be the main authority on the city of Ann Arbor Michigan, so I collaborated with Myles and Malik Amine on some places they suggested as well, so you can have confidence that these were largely suggestions from two world-class athletes and myself. I hope to share with you some great places to check out in between sessions, and some fun things to do at night. Let’s begin:

and

The last place I intend to check out is called The Circ Bar. It used to be called The Circus, which was this awesome place with free popcorn, pool tables, and they did karaoke on Saturdays. Now it appears to be more high-end, but still looks cool, and they have karaoke on Saturday still, so best believe I’ll be singing a song or two… or three or four. I’m for-sure signing Area Codes. They are just off of Main Street at 210 S 1st St, just two blocks west of Main Street.

Man, now I’m extra regretting not traveling to Michigan this year.

Today is a Gift

You’re dang right today is a gift!

D1 College Wrestling is about to light the eff up. It’s postseason, baby.

78 teams in 7 conferences are fighting for limited allocations to the 330-wrestler National Tournament 2 weeks from now, and that fighting begins today!

Get with your people. Get some new people. Find a stream, or a TV, or an arena near your house, and get you and your people there together, to watch.

To socialize. To admire, and to appreciate.

Let’s goooo!

Be well, and take care of each other, wrestling friends.

As always, I invite feedback of all flavors. Please feel free to engage in the comments below or on twitter @JpPearson71. Also please consider bookmarking this link to BSD Wrestle’s Home.

--------------------------------

By: Jp Pearson
Title: A Week of Wrestling Is Saying Goodbye to the Dual Season, Hangin With All-Americans & Getting Absolutely Stoked for the Postseason
Sourced From: www.blackshoediaries.com/2023/3/3/23604385/a-week-of-wrestling-is-hangin-with-all-americans-getting-absolutely-stoked-for-the-postseason
Published Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 07:49:17 +0000

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