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Wednesday, March 9 at 6 p.m. EST, the NCAA will air its selection of NCAA D-I qualifiers for the Championship Tournament that starts Thursday, March17 in Philadelphia. Amazing that there is now a 'show' for this, but considering everyone seems to have a show these days, like the Kardashians, it was bound to happen.

Lehigh waiting with fingers crossed on whether Hatchett at 165 will get a 'wild card' based upon his RPI. At the same time, fingers will be crossed later in the week on whether 174 Meys will be cleared to wrestle after having to forfeit his consolation final on Sunday due to a bad back, now clarified as an inflammed sciatica. Not good news as usually only rest will help that. We shall see..

Lehigh got two wrestlers seeded in the top two of their respective weight classes for the first time since 2004. Rey received the top seed at 285 lbs and Robert Hamlin aka "The Vermonster" received a #2 seed at 184 lbs. Hatchett received an at-large bid at 165 giving Lehigh 8 qualifiers. Still no word on whether Austin Meys, who received a #11 seed at 174 will be able to compete with his back condition.

Wyoming ended up with two seeds, LeBlanc a #5 at 184 and Onufer a #7 at 165. I think Onufer (who is 29-2, ranked as high as 3rd this year) got hosed on his seed.

Anyone attending the NCAA's in Philly? I'll be there entire tournament.

ngineer wrote:Anyone attending the NCAA's in Philly? I'll be there entire tournament.

I attended Session 5 earler today. I wasn't planning on going, but a ticket became available at the same time my schedule opened up.

I'll be watching the finals on TV tonight.

Looks like Penn St. will win the team title. I knew Penn St. would become a juggernaut under Sanderson, but I didn't think it would happen this fast.

Sanderson's guys are tough.. man, that guy turned them around in a hurry. The Sanderson pedigree is good.

Sanderson did not come into State College facing an empty cupboard. PSU was already a Top Ten program. His presence has certainly effected the recruiting landscape as some PA wrestlers who would have gone to the midwest, are now staying home. Taylor, though from Ohio, was going wherever Sanderson was. However, as seen with Jenkins, this will also result in some guys transfering elsewhere. You can only give so many scholarships a year, so it will be interesting to see how long the rise lasts. Similar to Okie State when Smith took over.
I was there for the whole tournament. Philly was the best venue I have attended over the past 7 years. Supposedly, tournament will return in 2015.
Lehigh had a great tournament. First Top Ten finish in 7 years (9th in 2004). Santoro has the program on the rise. From 36th, to 17th and now 8th, and very close to coming in 6th. We have all 8 qualifiers returning next year, with some redshirt frosh and top notch new frosh coming in, so I see us being in the Top Five and challenging next year.
Zach Rey, our 27th National Champion was huge in his punishing ride of Flores. That clearly showed the impact of our new assistant coach, Steve Mocco. Robert Hamlin aka "The Vermonster", had such a break out year, with two more to go. He became Vermonts first All-American wrestler in history.
Now, back to football!

Wyoming started slow in the tournament, but fought back and had themselves positioned to finish in the top 15, then LeBlanc, the 184 stud, missed weight Saturday morning and Wyoming forfeited all of his points in the tournament, thus they finish in the top 30. Horrible story for the Cowboys.. bad bad luck. Both LeBlanc and Onufer finished as All-Americans, first time UW has had two all-americans in the same season in quite a long time. LeBlanc is the first 3 time all-american, and is positioned to be a 4 timer next year. Next year UW should finish top 10-15 nationally.

IOWA FAIL.

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Dude, that guy is one of the most talented wrestlers in the country.. Robles is probably the best sports stories of the last year, maybe in the last 50.

On Robles - how much of an advantage/disadvantage does he have?

Watching his matches, you could see numerous times the opponent reaching for his non-existant leg.

Also, since he is missing the weight of the leg, it always him to wrestle "down" in weight classes.

Robles is an inspirational story. But, at the same time, he does have an advantage in certain respects as his opponents are trained to reach for legs/crotch that does not exist. So the opponent has to try and 'reprogram' his brain when opposing him. Robles has also built incredible upper body strength that someone of his weight class rarely has. Despite the 'tactical advantage' I don't know of anyone that would willingly trade places with him. You have to give the guy a lot of credit for taking a disability and making it work for him.

Good question, Jon. I mean.. how can you say that a guy with one fucking leg has an advantage? ONE LEG!! To me, that outweighs the advantages that he has with having a much larger upper body than anyone in his weight, plus like ngineer said, having you "reprogram" yourself to face a guy with one leg. I watched him wrestle a couple of matches against the guy from Iowa.. and he seemed to get how to beat Robles, but couldn't do it.. he just wasn't strong enough. I can definitely see where someone might have a beef because you're sometimes grasping at air, but at the same time, no one's going to trade places with him. He's legit, and someday will probably win a gold medal in the Paralympic Games.

Don't know if you'll see Robles in the Paraolympic Games or any others. He said after the tournament that "this was it" as was beginning to get ready for life after college. Sounds like he's on the verge of getting an agent and will be on the inspirational talking circuit and eventually involved in business. Staying in the type of shape one has to, to be a world class wrestler takes a lot of time.

was hoping he would get in as a wildcard....during the live announcement, the only time the stream locked up was...of course...while they were announcing 197.

Mocs got some tough draws...they are really going to have to be on their game to advance in the winners bracket.

jacobadam wrote:was hoping he would get in as a wildcard....during the live announcement, the only time the stream locked up was...of course...while they were announcing 197.

Mocs got some tough draws...they are really going to have to be on their game to advance in the winners bracket.

uh dude, this was over weeks ago......