the Real March Madness-NCAA Wrestling

[Gellar]

As a former college wrestler I fill out a bracket for the basketball tournament, but the real March Madness started today in St. Louis! Anyone else following the excitement of the three day tournament? Being from Iowa I want Iowa to win, but I must admit that Penn State has some of the most exciting wrestlers to watch right now!

 

[Idahoarcheryhunter]

I would like to see Iowa win, but penn state is stacked right now like you said, I see Iowa falling just a little short of penn state by the time it's said and done.

 

[AZ402]

Let's go Zahid!...Sundevils!

 

[Gellar]

Let's go Zahid!...Sundevils!

Valencia has a good shot at 74!

 

[406Family]

I wish this tournament got more attention. I love watching the finals every year.

 

[1_pointer]

Penn State is going to be hard to beat and that's without them having their 125 participating! Having an unseeded wrestler get a tech fall in the first round was big for their team points.

Home with a sick kid, who wrestles, yesterday so we watch nearly all the first round!

 

[elk_hunter]

Yep! Penn is pretty damn good......

 

[Jwill]

Hoping a couple Hokies make the podium.

 

[Gellar]

Penn State knows how to get the bonus points. That style of wrestling makes it exciting. Iowa had the best day they could have realistically hoped for yesterday. They have a few big matches thiis morning that they are capable of winning, like Clark Vs Micic, Sorenson vs M. Jordan, and Meyer vs B. Jordan. Head to head victories againts Ohio State and PSU will be huge going forward for the Hawks if they want a chance to get a trophy.

 

[jnagel32]

As a former college wrestler I fill out a bracket for the basketball tournament, but the real March Madness started today in St. Louis! Anyone else following the excitement of the three day tournament? Being from Iowa I want Iowa to win, but I must admit that Penn State has some of the most exciting wrestlers to watch right now!

Gellar, where and when did you wrestle in college (Iowa?)? I started at heavyweight for Lock Haven back in 04/05 and 05/06. Even though I wrestled for a different team, I have been a Penn State fan all my life. My father has had season tickets since I was 5 or 6 and I practiced at the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club growing up. I work in State College (where PSU is located) and I try to make it to most of the home matches each year. Penn State is going to have a tough time pulling it out this year since Suriano, the 125 lber had to pull out of the tournament. That's a shame since he was the #2 ranked kid in the nation and only lost to Gillman 3-2 in the dual meet. I think PSU would have ran away with the title if he would have been in the tourney, but it's hard when OSU has a kid at every weight class. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out!

 

[Gellar]

O gosh, I wasnt nearly good enough to be a div 1 wrestler. Late 90s Loras College.

Everyone in Iowa hates Sanderson now. 10 years ago that was different. They hate him because he does what Gable did best. He gets his wrestlers to believe they will beat anyone, anytime and than they do. If they are supposed to win than they break their opponent until they want to quit. I admire him for that.

 

[Keeptrying]

The Cinderella story from South Dakota lost by a point. My wife is an SDSU alumni, and comes from a wrestling family.

She follows it more than I do.

 

[Outdooraddict]

It was an exciting tourney! Penn... 5 for 5. I guess if you follow Rutherford (what a machine) you've got some momentum. All those kids new they were going to win. How about IMar?! I've seen him get away with that stuff for a while because he is so strong- finally got caught. Exciting.

 

[Jim/Wa]

I grew up in western PA and wrestled through high school. When I started school at Edinboro a few years later after a stint in the army, their program was just starting to build into something special but all those smaller PA schools like Lehigh, Clarion, and Lock Haven had outstanding programs for years. It's great to see PSU become the program they always could/should have been.

 

[jnagel32]

As a Penn State fan that was simply amazing. I thought they'd have a much tougher time winning the team title, but man did they put on a show throughout the tournament. Sanderson has the clout to pull in most of the top recruits, at least in PA, which former PSU coaches weren't able to do. The PA talent was spread throughout all of the smaller Division I schools, like Jim/WA mentioned. Now everyone wants to wrestle for Sanderson a PSU. This years team had so much talent it was unbelievable. I never thought they'd have 5 champs, but these guys were so much fun to watch throughout the season. Hard to believe we have most of them for another 2 years.

 

[1_pointer]

Penn State put an exclamation point on the season! Wow. That was fun to watch. Two freshman (one true) winning titles! A kid from the club my buddy belongs to graduated in May and is already in College Station. His practice partner is Retherford. I can only imagine how the practices in that room are like.

Sanderson has been at PSU for 8 years and has 6 national championships in the last 7 years there. Impressive! Can you imagine the $$/attention he'd be getting if that were for basketball or football?

 

[jnagel32]

I'm sure Sanderson is getting paid handsomely and his next contract will be even more lucrative, but I completely agree with you. He and Penn State for that matter, would be receiving much more attention and he'd be getting paid a lot better if this were the football or basketball team we were talking about. I believe wrestling is gaining popularity throughout the country though and I think that has a lot to do with how popular MMA has become. People love the UFC, as well as other "Leagues," but it has brought attention to wrestling since so many former wrestlers have transitioned to MMA and are successful. The fact that ESPN was willing to air wrestling on their channels for 3 days and especially on primetime speaks volumes about the popularity of the sport and how it's growing. That being said, I'm sure they would have rather had basketball on if they held the contract for it...

Penn State put an exclamation point on the season! Wow. That was fun to watch. Two freshman (one true) winning titles! A kid from the club my buddy belongs to graduated in May and is already in College Station. His practice partner is Retherford. I can only imagine how the practices in that room are like.

Sanderson has been at PSU for 8 years and has 6 national championships in the last 7 years there. Impressive! Can you imagine the $$/attention he'd be getting if that were for basketball or football?

 

[mplane72]

Some serious upsets in the semis and finals! I was shocked to see Imar go down but he didn't look that great all through out the tourney and that kid from PSU is real tough. I figured the Hawkeyes would only get one champ but my money was on Gilman. I was really glad to see Clark come through. If anyone deserved it he did.

 

[Gellar]

Some serious upsets in the semis and finals! I was shocked to see Imar go down but he didn't look that great all through out the tourney and that kid from PSU is real tough. I figured the Hawkeyes would only get one champ but my money was on Gilman. I was really glad to see Clark come through. If anyone deserved it he did.

The semi's and finals were fun to watch! After the Big Tens if you would have said Iowa will have 1 champion who will it be, 99% of people would have said Gilman, but after all that Clark endured with his shoulder and injuries this year, he is a warrior. I am not surprised that Imar was pinned, the two times he has been beaten have both been by pin, some of the positions he gets in with his underhooks trying to overpower someone catches up to him! But I think the biggest upset was Dean getting beat at 184.

 

[1_pointer]

I'm sure Sanderson is getting paid handsomely and his next contract will be even more lucrative, but I completely agree with you. He and Penn State for that matter, would be receiving much more attention and he'd be getting paid a lot better if this were the football or basketball team we were talking about. I believe wrestling is gaining popularity throughout the country though and I think that has a lot to do with how popular MMA has become. People love the UFC, as well as other "Leagues," but it has brought attention to wrestling since so many former wrestlers have transitioned to MMA and are successful. The fact that ESPN was willing to air wrestling on their channels for 3 days and especially on primetime speaks volumes about the popularity of the sport and how it's growing. That being said, I'm sure they would have rather had basketball on if they held the contract for it...

I agree. Randy Cotour said pretty much the same thing regarding the rising popularity of wrestling. With MMA, wrestlers now have an avenue for making a career/$$ at doing what they love.