Wrestling: Grajales 149, Coon HWT are going for championships at prestigious Midlands. update: grajales 2nd but coon WINS!
December 30th, 2013 at 9:16 PM ^
Michigan is currently ranked 19th in wrestling, which is a bit of a down year for them. Suffered a pretty undesireable loss to Kent St, and lost to a Stanford team that is decent, but lost pretty badly. A really nice win over Oregon St and a beat down of a young and very down CMU team are giving them some hope to have it turned around by B1G play. But the B1G is loaded again this year, fielding the top 3 teams in the country (with PSU looking great once again), 6 of the top 11, 7 of the top 16, 10 of the top 21.
The two unranked teams are Indiana (fringe top 25) and MSU (who isn't very good).
FWIW, Maryland will come in and be alright (around top 25ish, currently sitting outside it), as will Rutgers, but both will probably be in the bottom group of the B1G rather easily.
The B1G is by far the best conference for wrestling, and I'm honestly not sure another conference is as strong in any other sport as the B1G is for wrestling.
December 30th, 2013 at 11:46 PM ^
They've done some good things bringing in top notch assistant coaches lately, and really locked up top Michigan kids. It wasn't long ago that Metcalf and Reader were going out of state, but the only really big time Michigan kid to leave lately was Morse.
Now, hopefully this holds true to kid's who are originally from Michigan and they can convince Mark Hall to sign on.
December 30th, 2013 at 9:38 PM ^
Conference wise no one compares to the Big Ten, Penn State hiring Cael Sanderson was a stroke of genius. Iowa is always a top 5 team and ohio has come on strong lately. Outside of this conference only Oklahoma State is a consistent contender.
December 30th, 2013 at 10:13 PM ^
One of the most incredible sporting events I ever watched was an Iowa vs Penn State match on BTN last year I think. IIRC both were top 5 and I thought, "oh I'll sit and watch this for a bit. There will probably be a good crowd, maybe a few hundred people" and when the camera opened at Carver-Hawkeye, I was shocked that it was full and the crowd was way into it.
By far the craziest crowd I've ever seen for a non-Big 4 sport. Just watch this minute (from about 25:00-26:00)
December 30th, 2013 at 10:28 PM ^
BHGPs runs wrestling live blogs. PSU's coach (Sanderson) is also a pretty big rival for Iowa fans, as he was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, and went to Iowa St. When he took over PSU 4 years ago, Iowa was the best team, getting a lot of their best talent from Pennsylvania. Sanderson pretty much closed that door, and PSU took the last 3 national championships.
So yeah, wrestling pretty much sells out every time at Iowa, and when they face PSU it has even added weight.
FWIW, since 1989, only 4 different teams have won national championships: PSU, Iowa, Minnesota, and Oklahoma St. Arizona St and Iowa St snuck in a couple wins after Iowa won 11 titles in 12 years (Iowa St stealing the one away from 12 straight).
December 31st, 2013 at 12:57 AM ^
Yeah at the Iowa/PSU meet earlier this year on BTN, they mentioned the last 6 national championships were won by those two teams 3 to Iowa and 3 to PSU, that's impressive.
December 30th, 2013 at 11:22 PM ^
December 30th, 2013 at 11:33 PM ^
A few years back the NCAA championships were at the Palace, and Iowa was incredibly well represented. They had a HUGE section that was just packed with black and gold, and they drowned out just about everyone else for most of the tournament. You could be anywhere in the building and know when an Iowa kid scored a takedown.
December 30th, 2013 at 10:12 PM ^
December 30th, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^
December 30th, 2013 at 11:27 PM ^
December 31st, 2013 at 12:59 AM ^
Massa is a stud too.
December 30th, 2013 at 11:49 PM ^
Well, he was in high school anyway. IIRC he lost one match his entire career, at 215 as a freshman to a 2 time d1 champ in triple OT, Nick McDermott. He scrimaged out here in Richmond once or twice and just tore our kids up, which was something they aren't used to.
December 31st, 2013 at 12:34 AM ^
Coon is an absolute beast....
I was at the Stanford dual meet (which was a great dissapointment overall), but he looked outstanding and continues to tear through the competition...
When all is said and done, he may end up being the best Michigan athlete this year.
December 31st, 2013 at 8:17 AM ^