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NCAA's Top 10 List!!!

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I’m excited for this year's NCAA Wrestling season. I’m out of my mind excited. I can’t think of a word that accurately describes the levels of excitement that I have for this. There are layers to this kind of excitement. I feel like the stages of grief that people go through must also apply to the stages of excitement for this year's season and tournament. I think I’m in the second stage of my excitement, which I’m calling “preparation”. This is when I really start to look at what all this means in totality. Sure, it’s in Detroit, which is closest to me. Sure, it’s Michigan’s 100th season with many of our favorite wrestlers returning for one last ride. Sure, a National Duals tournament is happening again. Sure, many of the wrestlers who would have graduated last season are returning, causing the most deep and talented pool of wrestlers and athletes we’ve ever had (this is not subjective, or an opinion. It’s fact). All of those things are great, but let’s go through this “preparation” stage together. FYI, the final stage of excitement in my scale is probably somewhere between “hysteria” and a “euphoric state”. Here we will review some of the more unique and cool things to look forward to in the 2021/2022 NCAA Division 1 Wrestling Season. These are in no particular order, except for #1. That is #1.

10) Tournaments are back!!! We missed a lot of the more historically memorable and enjoyable midseason tournaments as a result of the late start and protocols put into place. It’s kind of easy to take for granted the number of big tournaments we have in your traditional college season. From your MSU Open, to CKLV, to the immortal Midlands, to the Southern Scuffle. I have very vivid memories of watching specific and awesome matches from each of these. Remember when Joe Colon pinned Tony Ramos in the Midland finals? Remember when true freshman Jason Nolf wrestled senior James Green in the Southern Scuffle finals? How about when Joey Davis came to the MSU Open his Senior Year and won that? Or the time that Adam Coon beat Gwiz in overtime at CKLV? We get them all back, and then some! I can’t accurately express how excited I am yet, because I’m still preparing to understand it. Just know we’ll get more than just the conference tournaments and NCAAs this year, and that’s going to be tremendous.

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9) Penn State versus Iowa. Iowa won the NCAA Title last year, essentially getting the monkey off their back from it being a decade since their last. Not to mention having the previous season end so abruptly as a result of COVID. Even with winning the title, Penn State dominated the national finals with champions at 133, 141, 174, and 184. For those counting, that’s 40% of the college weights where they had the best wrestler in the country. By contrast, Iowa only had 10% of the best wrestlers in the country, with Spencer Lee being their lone champion. Let’s not sell them short, they had finalists at 141 and 174 also, but my point is Penn State looked better on the final day than Iowa did. That being said, this dual should be incredible with both squads completely reloading. This will be appointment TV for sure, and one where I fully expect to be watching either through Zoom or in person with friends.

8) “Unfinished business” is often the genesis for some awesome sequels to movies or books or something. It’s a very relatable feeling. Everyone has something in their life that they wish they had seen, or done, or a situation they want to relive, so unfinished business is just universally accepted and relatable. There’s an entire Seinfeld episode where George tries to manufacture a situation again so that he can have the perfect comeback! That’s essentially what we get here. A chance at redemption. That’s what makes this so great. So many of the Senior wrestlers returning have “unfinished business”, and I’m sure are preparing to leave everything out on the mat. Remember Anthony Valencia wrestling at NCAAs last year, getting hurt in the quarters in a match he was likely going to win (that’s how it looked to me before getting hurt), which would have guaranteed his first All American finish? That was brutal, but the “unfinished business” motivation helped him to come through on the backside and end up on that podium. Now he has “unfinished business” times two! It’s basically like a third installment of an awesome action movie starring Anthony Valencia. It isn’t just AV who has UB though. It’s Myles Amine, Stevan Micic, Matt Stencel, Mike Kemerer, the entire Nebraska lineup, and so many more get the chance that others like Mark Hall, Matt Kolodzik, and Pat Lugo didn’t get. One more chance to achieve their dreams.


7) Conference Regular Season battles and Championships are going to be awesome. I know we largely got this last season, and maybe that has something to do with how much I value it going into next season, but I’m super excited. We’ll see if the SoCon can be won by Campbell for the third year in a row. Their duals with App State and Chattanooga were super close last year, and Campbell won them with a young team, which theoretically should be better than last year having had a season (albeit shortened) of competition and training at the college level. The Big Ten will be as good as ever with the top two teams, plus several other ranked squads. The Pac-12 will likely be won by Arizona State again, but there’s several tough schools in there with our friends from CSUB, Little Rock, Stanford under Rob Koll, and we’ll even see the up and coming Cal Poly with transfer Evan Wick. EIWA will be back at full strength with the Ivy League’s returning to competition, and the rest of the tough squads returning as well. I’m sure Oklahoma State is angry that they had to share their Big 12 title last season with Oklahoma, and I trust Missouri will come in with every intention of winning the conference title as well. Don;t sleep on Missouri at all this year to win the Big 12. They are accustomed to getting conference trophies in early March. Then you have the MAC, where CMU surely wants to get back to winning conference championships. You’ve also got Northern Illinois returning a tough squad. Sure we got conference battles last year, but with a full season I believe we will be able to contextualize these battles a little bit better.


6) National Duals are finally back. I love that they have it scheduled for December also. I feel like a lot of the reason the National Duals ended as an event was a result of the last one with Missouri and Iowa where Alan Waters and Thomas Gilman got so nasty. I mean, it was good hard college wrestling, but it could have ended a lot worse than it did. Let’s say Gilman seriously hurt Waters at the end of that match right before NCAAs. He didn’t, but that idea is what I believe had a lot to do with why some coaches didn’t want to participate anymore. The risk versus reward factor seemed too high. Having it earlier in the season will allow for teams to battle for a title, get some good out of conference competition, and theoretically allow for the wrestlers to really commit to laying it on the line for their teams. I really like the format as well. Four pools of three, while avoiding conference opponents, and then the winners of the pools advancing to a four team bracket for semi’s and finals. Plus it’s held in Florida, where there are no rules, so it’ll be awesome. Penn State isn’t participating, but you’ll get Iowa, Arizona State, Michigan, NC State, Missouri, VT, Northern Iowa, CMU, Cornell, Lehigh, Oregon State, and Hofstra. It’s slightly more than 2 months away (December 20th and 21st), and for that I’m very grateful.

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5) Maryland will get to show what they can do against teams not in the Big Ten. We spoke about it near the end of last season, but what Maryland had to do last season was not fair to what that coaching staff has been doing with that program. Coach Clemsen inherited a tough situation in his first year. To have his first season end as a result of COVID, then to have the next season showcase their team against just the Big Ten, wasn’t very fair. Not that you’ll hear coach Clemsen complain about the “fairness”, but I am writing this so that’s what I’ll do. The Big Ten is a buzzsaw for even some of the best programs. I’m not arguing that Maryland was a top 25 program last year, but I don’t think competing against objectively better programs each week accurately showcased what they were either. They made it through, and will now have a chance to get more matches against other competition. Let’s face it, last season was tough for them. I truly trust Coach Clemsen, and his vision for the Terrapins. Also, I participated in their poker fundraiser thing, and it was awesome, and they have a great base of alumni. In addition, I have seen them picking up some good recruits and I believe their wrestlers this year will be a better representation for what the coaching staff is imparting to them. They know that they are climbing uphill for now, but they have the right people in the right positions, and I’m super pumped to see what they are going to do this season and moving forward.

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4) You knew it was coming, but here it is. Michigan Teams are all in great positions to have a good year. MSU has seniors Rayvon Foley (Ann Arbor Pioneer Graduate) and Cam Caffey (Perfect Hair) who will be leading a dangerous group of young and talented Spartans into this season. World Greco Team member Peyton Omania, along with standout Freshman Chase Saldate, also help bolster a great group. Then you’ll have my Chippewas (Fire Up). I’m so pumped for the final ride for Matt Stencel and Dresden Simon. Additionally though, you’ll likely get Brock Bergelin stepping in for Hildebrandt at 125, you’ll have Johnny Lovett coming back to see if he can become an All American after being one win away last season, and you’re basically returning the rest of the lineup. You’ll have some changes at 197, but you’ll likely get Aaron Bolo, who has proven to be an excellent wrestler and will pin lots of people, so that’s cool. Then Michigan’s 100th team!!! Amine and Micic are back, youth and talent throughout the lineup, tough Big Ten schedule, Patrick Brucki and his mustache added to the squad. It’s everything we could possibly want. Oh, and NCAA’s are in Detroit? Yes please. Really excited to see all of these programs and what they can do in the toughest year to date!

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3) Army Wrestling is our adopted program for the year and I’m super pumped. Every little bit more that I learn about them as I get closer to the season makes me even more excited. They have their own podcast for Army Wrestling, they’ve brought in some great coaches and recruits, and they have a strong team coming back, so I am very excited to have coach Ward coming up on the podcast to learn more. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of our other programs that we follow. Chattanooga has a strong team coming back and will host the Southern Scuffle again. CSUB has three returning NCAA qualifiers and a round of 12 guy in Chance Rich, CMU we spoke about above, Northern Colorado has several AA quality guys in their lineup, and Princeton has some potential AA’s and real championship contenders in their lineup as well. It’s going to be fun watching these programs get back to full seasons in what we’ve already established is going to be the best season ever.


2) This partially stems off of the last point, but I’m excited to see some of these new coaches in their first full seasons coaching. Luke Smith became the official head coach of CSUB after what he was able to do with a super short season for them. Also you’ve got all of the craziness that went on with Stanford, Rob Koll coming over from Cornell, and coming back from being dropped to being ranked 13th in the preseason rankings. Scotti Sentes had a great coaching debut in his first year with Campbell by winning the SoCon. Watching them in a full season with more out of conference competition will be cool to see. With another year of training and development from that staff (which is a super deep staff with Daryl Thomas and Wynn Michalak) they could be the most improved team that’s also returning as a conference champ. Then you’ve got Chris Pendleton at Oregon State. His team showed a different fight and toughness in just the shortened season than I had seen out of anyone from OSU not named Ronny Rios. Navy snagging Kolat from Campbell was a big hire, and everyone (myself included) thought that Kolat’s mentality and that of a Navy wrestler would be a great fit. Ryan LeBlanc is another dude who had a good first year at The Citadel. They were surprisingly tough last year, and gave some teams in the SoCon better duals than many people thought they would, and had a conference champ at Heavyweight. These coaches are going to be jumping into their first full seasons as Head Coaches in the toughest year of all time, and I’m eager to see how their teams handle it.

1) The NCAA Tournament is going to be BONKERS!!! I’m just done trying to temper this at all, or accept any argument that there was a more difficult tournament to win or AA in than this year's tournament. There is no argument that will change my mind. I know that the 2006 149 NCAA Bracket is generally regarded as one of the toughest of all time, but I kind of expect this to be like that this year, but at all 10 weights. I say that with just a hint of hyperbole, but not much. You’ve got roughly 90% of the best wrestlers in the country returning (haven’t done the math, so it’s a REALLY rough estimate), plus any of the freshman who are getting into the lineup, Ivy Leaguers, and other people who are returning just because they can (shoutout Stevan Micic). We could have 5x Conference Champions, we could continue the potential for a 5x NCAA Champ (or also weird, would be a 4x NCAA Champ who had a fifth year where they didn’t win), and it caps off everything in the D!!! It’ll be held in Little Caesars Arena, which is a great venue, close to downtown (which is actually pretty awesome as far as cities to watch things go). Additionally, I look forward to showing people around the area, possibly doing some karaoke with friends, beating people at N64 Mario Kart (I’m bringing it, so anyone who wants to try to dethrone the king, feel free to step up). It’s just so many of the greatest things going on at the same time. For that very obvious reason, this is the thing I’m most looking forward to in the 2021-2022 season.


Having finished this article, I believe I’ve moved on from the “preparation” phase of these stages. I don’t know what the next phase looks like in all honesty. This is all new to me. All I know is that no matter what the next stages look like, they are all going to be building to this great and powerful thing. This amazing tournament, with the best wrestlers in the country, in my home state, with friends I haven’t seen in too long. As we get closer to the crescendo of this great season, we’ll continue to have Detroit correspondents on to share with you where to go, what to do, and how to best enjoy yourself in Detroit in March. It’ll be the best season to date. Don’t believe me? Just watch.