Every Tuesday we go takedowns with recent topics of interest on the Michigan wrestling scene. This week's TMT was written by Michigan Grappler owner and founder Tony Greathouse. He wrestled collegiately at Michigan State, prepped at Mason High School, and is now the Head Wrestling Coach at Brighton High School.
Before getting started, let me apologize for the tardiness of this TMT coming out two days late. We had a huge storm hit Brighton Monday night, resulting in lost power not only in my house but also my office at work. Therefore, I have been limited to mobile devices for two straight days and had to whip this thing together Thursday morning.
Also - if you have questions or there are things that you would like to see discussed, email me at associatedwrestlingpress@gmail.com or hit us up on twitter @michgrappler.
JUNIOR DUALS CHAOS!
The Junior Duals were pretty freaking awesome! I knew we had a strong Michigan squad going in, but with the absence of some heavy hitters like Cooks, Garcia, Marcicki, and Arthur, I thought we may struggle to compete with some of the power house states. However, we showed the depth that we have as a state - winning the Greco title and falling just shy of winning it in Freestyle after a controversial tie breaker criteria cost Michigan a spot in the finals.
From an event operations stand point, there are two things I took from this year's event:
1) USAW needs to get a new seeding criteria system - This event shed light on the issue, but it is an ongoing issue. For all USAW Cadet and Junior level national events - Cadet Duals, Junior Duals, and Fargo - they use a points system to "seed" or "separate" teams/wrestlers. This point system is flawed (and has been flawed for a while in my opinion) because it only awards points to wrestlers who have placed at USAW national events and USAW regional events.
There are many states, like Michigan, that do not have strong representation at the Regional events and even some of the National events. Guys like Alec Panteleo, Ryan Prescott, and Jake McKiernan earned us 0 seed points, however, the truth of the matter is they are all studs who are top tier kids in their weight class. For example - Panteleo scored 0 seed points for Team Michigan, however, Panteleo defeated 3 or 4 guys who earned seed points for their respective teams, including an 8-1 win over Brandon Krone of Minnesota in Greco. Krone earned points for his team not because he has AAd in Fargo or anything like that, but because he travelled to Kansas in late May for the Southern Plains Regional and won 3 matches to take 1st place.
Now I am not taking anything away from USAW for holding Regional events, and I understand they need some sort of a unbiased system to seed teams for Duals and individuals for Fargo. However, the Regional Events are so up and down depending on which one you look at and which weight class you look at, that they should eliminated from the equation. Also, last I checked the Kids Nationals were used as criteria for Cadets, which is insane. First off, the Kids Nationals are held in Utah, so Midwestern States like Michigan are at a geographical disadvantage to start out with, and 2nd of all the depth of the schoolboy charts at Kids Nationals are nothing like Fargo, so current Cadet wrestlers earning Fargo-like seeding points for being a returning Schoolboy Kids National placewinner is ridiculus. They need to just use Fargo, Fila Cadets, and Fila Juniors for seed points, get rid of all the fluff. This will make it so only true hammers are scoring seed points, and will hopefully avoid what happened this year with Michigan being the #8 seed and winning the whole thing!
2) Tie Breaker Criteria needs to change! - This has been hammered all over social media by Michigan wrestling fans pretty good, so I am not going to beat it up too much, however it needs to be addressed. The current tie breaker criteria is unbelievable, I have never heard anything like it.
When you have three teams in a round robin tie in their pool (like Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota were in the Gold freestyle pool), then you add up the total amount of points scored in the duals against the teams that are tied. Michigan had 71 points, followed by Minnesota with 66, and then Illinois with 58. So, logically one would assume that Michigan wrestles for 1st, Minnesota for 3rd, and Illinois for 5th, right? WRONG!
The USAW tie breaker rule says that Illinois is eliminated from the equation for having the lowest number of points, so they go for 5th. Then....Michigan and Minnesota go down to head-to-head, in which case Minnesota beat Michigan so Minnesota goes for 3rd and Michigan goes for 5th. Huh? Yea, that was my reaction too. So we used the tiebreaker to determine who went for 5th, then it went back to head to head. What about the head to head win that Illinois had over Minnesota? That goes out the window now? Basically, Michigan was penalized for crushing Illinois so bad, if we make that dual closer, it gives Illinois more points and gives us a shot at being in the finals.
Bottom line- Michigan should have beaten Minnesota and won the pool outright, it would have made everything much more simple. But either way, the tiebreaker rule seems wrong.
DISNEY DUALS ON TRACKWRESTLING!?!
That is right, for the first time ever the Disney Duals featured their results on TrackWrestling and it was so nice to actually be able to follow that huge, shredder filled event. Michigan Blue did well, finishing in the top 12 overall, but all in all I was so happy to be able to check round by round and see who was winning each pool, what big matchups were going down, etc. All that is left to make this event top notch is to get a little live video coverage going. THANK YOU AAU for getting this done those wrestlers can get proper exposure.
A full Disney Recap will be coming soon, Steve has it in the works.
BOLYARD HIRED AT EMU
Last week Eastern Michigan made the announcement that David Bolyard would take over at the helm of the Eagle wrestling program. I am happy for Coach Bolyard, he is a class act and will do good things in Ypsi, but also I am very impressed at the cast of characters who put their name in to apply for the job. I heard a few different reports and I heard about a dozen super qualified guys from all over the country who applied for this job. I don't know this for a fact, but I am willing to bet 7 years ago when Derek Delporto was hired at EMU there was not nearly the kind of candidates interested in coaching the Eagles. This is evidence of the tremendous growth that the EMU program has had under Delporto, Bolyard, and company. Hopefully, Bolyard, Smith, and company can keep the ship moving in that same direction!
Why no preview of the Michigan team going to Vegas this weekend for The Ultimates? -Austin
I got this question from a couple different sources. I apologize for the lack of a preview, but I am not sure what to preview because this event is so new and we do not really know what to expect!
Here is what I know - there is folkstyle and freestyle duals going on, and then an individual tournament where the winners are somehow tied into a UFC event. I also know that former Okie State stars Chris Pendelton and Daniel Cormier are wrestling in a featured match at some point during the event. Also, all this action is going on during the craziness that is UFC Fight Week in Vegas, so I am sure it will be a pretty sweet event to be a part of.
Stay tuned to MI Grappler as we will keep you guys posted with results and take a look at the Michigan squad that is making the trip below, should be pretty competetive:
106 - Brendan Abrigo (Manchester)
113 - Lucas Hall (Lowell)
120 - Alex Hrisopoulos (Oxford)
126 - Zeth Dean (Lowell)
132 - Kyle Noonan (Stoney Creek)
138 - Austin Thompson (Marysville)
145 - JD Waters (Hudson)
152 - Kyle Johnson (Hudson)
160 - Josh Wendling (New Lothrop)
170 - Devon Pingel (North Branch)
182 - Max Dean (Lowell)
195 - Jake McKiernan (Richmond)
220 - Josh Colegrove (Lowell)
285 - Zach Wood (Oxford)
285 - Ryan Prescott (Whitemore Prescott)
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If you have questions about the 24 Day Challenge or anything else about nutrition, shoot me an e-mail at associatedwrestlingpress@gmail.com
There are a ton of things coming up. Obviously the Ultimates event is going down in Vegas this weekend, so check back for results of that.
Also, the Grand River Rumble Duals and Invdividual Tournament are taking place July 17-18 in Battle Creek. Go to www.grandriverrumble.com for more information.
Also, Fargo is coming up later this month starting July 18th which will be a week of madness, so stay tuned for that.
From a coverage standpoint, Steve is hammering out national rankings like a madman so keep checking out what he is doing on the national level at www.associatedwrestlingpress.com. Also, while up in St Ignace for the Boudro Wrestling Camp, I was able to get some pretty sweet interviews and footage with Gabe Dean, which will hopefully be produced into a mini-documentary style movie that will be coming out in early August, so stay tuned for that as well!
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