Spooky Nook 11/14

Talk about the champions, or the Top 25 nationally-ranked team!
jdalu75
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by jdalu75 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:23 am

Great post, MH!

Just as a slight addendum, this is something that I've posted before, and it shows up in Mat Wrap (on the way, I promise!) -- the bar keeps getting raised because more big colleges are interested in wrestling:

In the decade of the 1960s, the "small" programs that cracked the Top 10 at NCAAs were Lock Haven (4x), Northern Illinois, Cornell, Lehigh (6x), SIU-Carbondale (2x), Syracuse (2x), Ohio, Navy (3x), Army (2x), Air Force, East Stroudsburg, Portland State (3x), and Temple; maybe Colorado State and Colorado, Wyoming, Cal Poly (2x), and Pittsburgh (4x) if you count them as small.

Fast forward fifty years, and these are the "small" Top 10 programs of the 2010s: Cornell (10x), Lehigh (2x), Boise State, American. That's it: three EIWA teams and one that's discontinued its program. That's unless Virginia Tech, Rutgers, and NC State can be considered small (er, no). The big guys showed up at the party and decided to stay and hog the cake and punch.


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Oracle
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by Oracle » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:25 am

There were a few good bouts, but only a few. The team looked flat and not enthused. I did not see any hustle or sense of urgency. When in the lead, most preferred to protect their lead and not keep scoring points. Not sure if the talent level has dropped down a notch or two or if they just had a collective bad day. But it was ugly. There is no doubt the staff didn't like what they saw.

UPenn is going to have a nice team this year. So is Army. Pasuik didn't look so hot yesterday. Logan finally beats him, so nice job there. Jordan Wood beat a highly ranked guy in Stencil and should push him up the rankings himself.
Spladle1989
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by Spladle1989 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:30 am

I agree with much of what you said, very fair post. I do not attack wrestlers individually in anyway other than to say they had a bad day and I personally think that's fair. Probably the toughest I was on anyone was Hines, and all I said was I have higher expectations for him than what he showed based on who he wrestled, I would say that is a fair assessment and one he and the coaches would agree with. What I see on this board is a weird mix of too high expectations and too low expectations (based on excuses) without many floating in the sweet spot of reality.

I do not expect us to be a consistent "top ten" program on a regular basis anymore given the current recruiting landscape, I do however expect us to be much more competitive than we were against Lockhaven, Gannon, Army, Harvard, Penn, LIU and so on.....we aren't talking Big 10 or ACC here......and many of the excuses put up on this board for performance, well they stretch the imagination and I will call posters out for writing them.
mookie
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by mookie » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:32 am

Expectations set you up for disappointment; however it is human nature for fans to have them.

The same is true for Lehigh's coaching staff. Coach commented after Spooky Nook that effort is always the number one thing he's looking for and they have to do better with that across the board.

I see almost an entire roster of kids trying extremely hard so it's not a lack of effort.
LUEngineer
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by LUEngineer » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:33 am

I agree with spladle on his assessment of this tournament & perhaps worse. I do not accept that we cannot garner 2-3 top quality recruits each year competing against the BiG utilizing given our wrestling heritage. We need to reduce the partial scholarship thinking & target our best prospects with rifle shots vs a shotgun.
gimpeltf
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by gimpeltf » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:43 am

Not sure what a lot of you actually wanted.
We had 3 overall A pool champs and Josh forfeiting out.
CMU, Army had 2. Penn, Harv, PSU had 1.
We brought 21. How many should we have had?
Last edited by gimpeltf on Mon Nov 15, 2021 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
gimpeltf
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by gimpeltf » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:47 am

Am hearing that the NIL stuff is going as bad as we might have thought. I hear some kids are being offered 6 figures!
A girl I know from NJ that went out west is showing ads on her instagram every day.
Agreed that schools and the NCAA did profit off the kids but the reasons the NCAA originally disallowed things like this was to prevent bidding wars.
whiz wit
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by whiz wit » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:51 am

gimpeltf wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:43 am Not sure what a lot of you actually wanted.
We had 3 overall A pool champs and Josh forfeiting out.
CMU, Army had 2. Penn, Harv, PSU had 1.
We brought 23. How many should we have had?
Yeah, and without the 3 A pool champs the team record was 18-30 against overall mediocre competition.
drd5748
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by drd5748 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:38 am

Nobody yesterday made excuses - not I. Nor anyone else. Claiming we did is extrapolation from the past.

I have at least 6 results where we lost leads of 3-7 pts in the last period or 2:15. Stunning and it'll go into LUWrestlingNews, which (thx to JDA) will show all scoring by both wrestlers. I can duck the 1st sentence but I won't.

After watching 700+ duals and a slew of less meaningful Nov/Dec tourneys I don't recall "six" such disappointments. But it's impossible to say it's never happened before - especially 6 out of 22. Ain't gonna overreact but have to report it as fact. I felt the fact 2/3rd of the way thru Sun, before even landing here.

Shit happens in sports that makes you shake your head. Jax over Buffalo???
Miami over Ravens? Panthers 34-10 Cards? Seriously? Those are pros, last I heard.
Why do we act like college sports should make more sense
drd5748
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Re: Spooky Nook 11/14

Post by drd5748 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 12:36 pm

A correction: from my scoresheets I find 5 such bouts. That's out of 22 wrestlers and approx 65-70 bouts.

My memory of my greatest Nov shock: the 2 of 10 bouts at home vs. Okla St, when both Weiler & Jake were horrible - after Chris dominated 1st period then died; Jake essentially died. No explanation emerged - per LU rule, but Wood also tired badly while winning and covered his boys by admitting later (quite believably) "we had the flu."

P.S: This was 1 of our 2 WINS ever over Okla St - both coached by Pat.
An amazing fact that helps me to wear rose-tinted glasses more often than not
I'll never apologize for my propensity to make silk out of a sow's ear, lipstick or not. I sleep better at and receive far more year-round thx than I get criticisms. The ratio isn't even close, maybe 100-to-1 (outside here)

P.P.S to the countless LUWN readers who include kind words with your checks since 2002: a warm thank you. Means more than you might think
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