FanPost

A way to early look at next year Wrestling 2012-2013




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Losing sucks. It doesn’t matter if we were second, third, or forth, not first is the same in my eyes. Not much is going to change between now and next season. Some injuries might occur, off the mat incidents, and rumors about who or who isn’t looking good in the room. I’m going to take this opportunity while everything is fresh in our mind to look at what are expectations should be. PSU has made us all realists. Now is this a short lived “phase” that the best has to deal with every once in a while? Maybe, we certainly haven’t won it every year since 70s. But I don’t see us going another 7 years without a title. Let’s not talk about the real distance future, and just see where we stand instead. I’m too lazy to do write ups on spots we didn’t compete at or will lose a wrestler at. Those spots will be insanely important come tournament time, but we don’t know who it will be or how they will fair.

125—McD 2x National Champion—

At this point for McD it becomes about increasing margins, and limiting people’s ability to slow him down. He needs to put space between him and the guys at the top. He avenged the overtime defeat twice in close matches against Delgado. Matt doesn’t seem like the type of kid who is going to sit around and bet on himself being ok for next year. We need his continued winning, and need more dominance every time out. He needs to push guys like Tony, DSJ, and others to be on his level.

133—Tony Ramos All-American 3rd Place

Good news is that Tony improved a lot this year from last. Going from not placing to a 3rd place finish at the NCAAs is pretty impressive. He will need to continue this pace cause 133 doesn’t get any easier. All but one quarterfinalist will have another year of eligibility. As far as how he fairs against the top wrestlers. He narrowed the gap against the now national champ in Stieber who beat Oliver, so it confirms that Oliver is not the titan everyone made him out to be. Stieber rode Tony hard but Tony had some offense. He beat Carter at the tournament again avenging his loss from earlier this year. Ramos seems like the type of cat who is going to work his ass off next year/over the “offseason”. He has solidified himself as part of the elite class of 133ers and will be a big contender next time.

157—DSJ NCAA Finalist and 2x All-American

Well good and bad news here. Good news is that DSJ looks pretty god damn good even after sitting out part of the year via injury. Second, is that he didn’t look bad against Dake (minus being ridden out /sigh), and with a whole year of training ahead of him his chances can only get better. Bad news Dake is still Dake and Dake rode him an entire period. Although there are chances of Dake moving up (more rumors cause he has done it twice already) again to 165 I really doubt it will happen. He would set himself up for a crash course with David Taylor and he would again have to deal with putting on another more weight. Dake has a much better chance winning a 4th title at 157 than he does 165 and he knows it. I like our chances here, no one really looked like they could compete with DSJ at the Big Tens or here other than Dake. For Derek it is going to be about putting space between him and the middle/upper part of the pack, wrack up bonus point wins, and polish his game against the best. My expectations are another return to the finals.

165—Mike Evans DNP—

This is where we will need to make up a lot of ground. Evans had a good season for a freshman but he had his ups and downs. This weight class sorta clears out as a bunch of guys at the top will graduate. I say sorta cause THE guy at the top isn’t going anywhere. My reasonable expectation after another year in the room is that Evans will have a better more balanced season as he matures. Optimistically he pulls a Tony Ramos, and will be competing at the top. Realistically he probably does more of a Ethen Lofthouse move, but with 165 clearing out more isn’t at all out of the question.

174--Ethen Lofthouse-All-American

His Frosh to Soph jump was positive but he needs to start picking it up. This class doesn’t get a whole lot easier, PSUs Ed Ruth and Minns Storley are both going to be back. The good news is against the top of the pack (other than Ruth) Lofthouse isn’t getting beat badly. Other than that this is really a copy-paste of Evans minus the terrible performance at the tournament. We need more from him, and it will be a spot that we can make up a lot of ground if we can advance farther and pick up early BP wins.

184—Grant Gambrall 1x All-American (2011) DNP 2012

So whatever is wrong with Grant had nothing to do with wrestling at 197…He went from 2011 where he wrecked the bracket and finished 3rd to um not doing anything. As the 25 seed he drew a “tough” first round where he lost, had a good looking major, and then lost before getting to a placing round. This class doesn’t really get much easier at all. The number 1 seed who ended up placing 7th via a FFT is leaving as is the 3rd place finisher Austin Trotman….Everyone else, including lots of guys Ethen has lost to will be sticking around…He needs to pull a 180…I’m not sure if he can, but we need him to. Your guess is as good as mine, as to if we will see the GG of 2010-2011 or not.

HWT—Bobby Telford All-American

So Bobby ended on a pretty decent note, especially with where he was at some points in time this year. He is another wrestler who I hope will make the same type of leap Tony made after his first year of competition at the starting spot. This weight will lose some wrestlers but will keep national champion Tony Nelson. Ryan Flores, Clayton Jack, and Cameron Wade all graduate. McMullan who came out of sorta nowhere to finish third will be back and will join Nelson as Bobby’s only real proven competition in the big ten. Tucker Lane the cat from Nebraska who beat Telford this year will be gone. Another All-American finish is certainly the expectation, and anything lower than a top-3 would probably be disappointing.

So the good news is we have a pretty young team. We return everyone who went to the tournament minus Marion. We should improve a lot, as our middle level guys are younger cats who should get a lot better. The bad news is Minn and PSU also return a ton of guys. Penn State will be down their national champion Frank Molinaro and Cameron Wade (who had a pretty disappointing tournament). Minn will be down Sanders and the heavier Yohn. Blah Blah Blah Cornell….F**k them…Kyle Dake can take more pictures with his shirt off during the offseason.

The following are team points earned by wrestlers who will graduate this year—number in ( ) indicates number of wrestlers

PSU--23.5 (2)

Minn--27.5 (2)

Iowa—17 (1)

What this means to me is that we can’t count on our lack of graduating people as a comfort blanket. This team is going to have to work their asses off in order to win it next year.

Unless otherwise expressly indicated by BHGP editors, this FanPost is strictly the viewpoint of the author and is not endorsed by BHGP in any way.