So destroy what is working because three slipped through the cracks? I like you a lot Willie but you seem agenda driven on this issue. I say that because for the life of me I can't see the validity of your point and I've tried to see it for three days now. Please explain your point and the crisis that requires such a change? It comes across as throwing the baby out with the bath water.
It depends in what you consider "wrestle". If Carter was too hurt to compete and he had to "wrestle" to get a spot at nationals so he took the mat and laid on his back at the first whistle, that would suffice. Or he could just quit because of injury after the first whistle, which is what he did.
This is such a weird take — I don’t even follow HS wrestling, at all. Not PA, not any state.
Ha! I for sure did not anticipate Carter getting the 9 seed. Oh well, not the last time I'll be wrong!
So do duels!
I got John Wick in SV
2 reasons:
If we can argue with Ironbird for 59 pages, I think we can argue with Willie for 9.
Now that's funny. This may be POY nomination worthy.
I didn't see the documentary so I have to ask. Did Austin show the kids his default match against RBY as an example?
If this isn't about Carter Starocci, why did Manning bring it up now?? It is absolutely about Carter Starocci.
I'd agree with everything you have in here.
Willie is really having two discussions at once in this thread. One is specifically about Manning's tweet and dredging up the nonsense about Suriano in order to whine about the injustice of Starocci's defaults potentially costing his wrestler a spot at NCAAs. The other is more generally about the allocation system and whether or not there should be at-large bids or whether all spots should be allocated. The former is definitely about Starocci, the latter is much more general than that.
What it will "fix" is someone like Starocci, who is a shoo-in for an at-large spot even if he chooses to default all his conference matches, getting a bid without wrestling in a conference tournament. How much of an "issue" you consider this is very much at the heart of whether this change will be a positive or not. The change would force guys like Starocci/Suriano/Nolf to show that they are at least healthy enough to wrestle their way into an allocated spot (which Nolf did but the other two didn't) at the conference tournament before MFF'ing out of the rest of their matches in order to get a place at nationals.
Manning may care about his wrestler getting into Nationals, but let's not forget that Manning is highly likely to have a bonus tied to the number of qualifiers sent to nationals. His comment, with its loudness and doucheness, was probably more about money.
but conference placement is just one of 6-7 criteria that earns you a spot at nationals. Why is actual conference tournament participation more important than conference record or RPI or coaches ranking or quality of wins or or what you actually did in the tournament? The reality is that nothing is broken and the system worked. A #34 didn't do enough to become #33, and the #1 did enough to become #9. What we are talking about here is the handing out of participation trophies. If you just show up, you get rewarded over the guy who didn't, even if you didn't deserve that reward in the first place by your effort the other 135 days of the regular season.
Yeah, agreed. The thing that I disagree on with Willie is not that his rationale is wrong, it's the fervor with which he argues that his viewpoint is the only right one.
Well, Willie would say the system is flawed and needs to be changed so that conference placement is the only criteria that earns you a spot at nationals since all of the spots would be allocated, not at-large. Otherwise, I personally don't have a strong opinion on which way is best. There are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches.
If you place high enough at your conference tourney, then it's the only criterion.
But when too large, the C-section birth is better.
True but the whole back and forth is about those who do not meet that criteria. Then you go to the next set of criteria, and my point is do we exclude those who wrestled for four months but missed the tourney even though they qualified based on the overall criteria? The answer is clearly no. We want our best to represent the sport in the limelight. Can you imagine the black eye the sport would rightfully receive if Carter was excluded from participating even though he was a 3 timer going for 4? It would make me seriously question whether TPTB really had the best interests of the sport in mind.
The system isn't flawed. The fact that this happens every 3-5 years or so means it's working as intended. If it was happening multiple times every year, then maybe I'd agree.
