I agree with you, but PSU had a perfect tourney....and you underestimate our opponent. tOSU is a much better team on paper this year
PSU did have a nearly perfect tournament last year, but let's not act like this kind of tournament was actually really far off from their expected performance.
141 - Gulibon - R12 - I think if you polled PSU fans after the regular season, they'd all pretty much agree this was a reasonable outcome.
149 - Zain - 1st - yup
157 - Nolf - 1st - yup
165 - Joseph - 1st - This is PSU's biggest upset, is Joseph going from the 3-seed to 1st place. Even still, what is his actual floor? 4th? I can't really see a scenario he drops further than that unless injured. So we're talking about a difference of what...5 or 6 points?
174 - Hall - 1st - I don't think Mark Hall beating Bo Jordan and Zahid Valencia is a surprise to anyone who saw him grow from season's beginning to end.
184 - Nickal - 1st - I don't think Nickal beating Dean is a significant upset, it's a close one.
197 - McCutcheon - R12 - I think this is close to expectation.
285 - Nevills - 5th - He was the 5-seed and ended 5th. I don't see this as over-performance.
So while PSU did perform nearly perfectly, there is room to grow. Nevills can end 3rd this year, Mouse can AA, Lee may be able to AA and we may get team points from 133 this year (not expecting much from 125 tbh, but I hope Schnupp surprises me).
Then we go into the 5 champions, I think easily Joseph is the "most vulnerable" but he's also a RS sophomore and I don't see him ending much worse than 3rd/4th. Hall is a monster, and I'm confident he can beat Bo Jordan again. Nickal has weird matches with Myles Martin, but there's no reason to think Bo can't beat him (he's 4-2 lifetime) and Zahid is great too. I'm not sure he can end much worse than 2nd. Anyone other than Zain and Nolf winning would shock me.
While I agree that Ohio State is a stronger test than Oklahoma State last year, PSU could possibly have 6 guys in the top 3 next year, with at least 2 champions and probably more. That's just such a hard place to overtake someone and Lee may be the real deal too. We'll see, I think PSU is a favorite but if a result or two goes OSU's way it could flip the race.