Wanted to pass along some more quotes from coaches Cael Sanderson and Casey Cunningham before I hop on my flight home. I'll get right to it:
Cael Sanderson
On Wilps interlocking hands: "I was pretty confident that there was a locked hands. But you still don't know what they're going to call. So I was just trying to get Matt ready and sometimes you don't know. We were pretty confident that they were locked hands because they were right in front of us."
About watching the replay: "I was trying peek to also. They don't let us watch. That's one of the tricky things because of the angle. But yea, it was absolutely locked hands. You don't want to really win like that, but it goes both ways. If you lock your hands that's a technical violation. That's a point."
On Brown's veteran savvy to know to drop to knee to get the call: "I think he knows it. He had short time there. He was down with 10 seconds left, right? Then he had that stalling call, which is, again, that's just a textbook. That's a rule. Five counts is a stalling call, either way. But Brown did a good job of hustling and taking it away. Brown has been out there. I wasn't going to review the escape because I didn't think it was an escape, but it seemed like (Brown) wanted me to so. it didn't really make a difference because the guy got away always."
On not normally calling for a review in Matt Brown matches, because he's got superhuman endurance (my words): "I didn't want to (review). I thought he had the edge conditioning-wise in that match."
General thoughts on Brown: "Matt's had an amazing career. He's just one of those guys who does everything that he's supposed to. Everything we ask him to do, he does it. He's a guy who's gotten the most of out his ability. Three-time All-American, two-time NCAA finalist - that's very impressive. And he had a chance to be a four-time All-American, but he was sitting behind a pretty good guy, obviously, in Ed Ruth. He's just a great competitor and I'm real happy for him that he finished it out as a national champion."
Any stories? "Not off the top of my head. I mean, he is who he is. You see him. He's a 4.0 student and he's going to be very successful in life and he figured out how be successful in wrestling just through work and being smart. He's a funny kid. He's thinking all the time before the match, What if this happens? I'll see him over there asking every technical question known to man to Casey and I'm just like, Go wrestle, man. You've been wrestling since you were a little kid. You know what to do in every position. You've been there. He's just a guy who thinks things through thoroughly and again and again after that. So, there's some positives in there but that also makes things tough because if you're out there on the mat thinking, you get out of position."
Overall team impressions: "That's a tough question because we always want to win and we always have to believe that we can win. But you also have to have (inaudible) to score points and I think our guys did a nice job. All of our guys wrestled, you know, pretty well. I think all of our guys wrestled above their seed, except McIntosh. But when you're a two seed and take third. A guy who can get beat and come back and get third, that's what it's all about. He showed a lot of character and just toughness. I think our guys wrestled well. I think even our guys who didn't place. McCutcheon was winning 2-0 going into the second period in the quarterfinals of the nationals and just stopped wrestling. That's an experience opportunity for him. Zack Beitz did a great job but just lost to two good guys. When you come in undseeded, you're going to wrestle the top kids. You lost in overtime to the five seed and then unfortunately - I'm not a guy who sits back and hopes kids get upsets because you know that just drops them down the bracket where they're not supposed to be, coming back. So then that makes it tough for a guy like Zack, who has to beat the Michigan kid. Had a good match wrestled well, just came up a little short. He's made a lot of progress. A lot of our guys made a lot of progress. Gulibon was 1-2 last year here. Didn't really look like he was real confident. This year he was right there in the mix. So I think overall our team did well. When you have the expectation that you're trying to win, but as far as individuals are concerned I think we did pretty well. ...
"And also Lawson, Jimmy Lawson taking sixth. when you see his matches, there are four or five guys there who arena a different level. The guys who he can beat, he beat them. He did a nice job, taking sixth in the country. I'm really happy for Jimmy and for him. Gave up football to come wrestle and to be an All-American that's a big deal for him. We're excited. The attitude we have in the room right now is important. Having a guy like NIco and Zain, just guy who are so tough and so consistent. THey're wrestling every second and eveyr match, just with that example they have. Nolf is the same way. So many young kids who are right there. Shakur, and Anthony Cassar. We're excited about he future. I think a lot of teams are excited about the future. That's why this tournament is just going to keep getting better."
On Brown's leadership: Brown working with young guys: "He's just been in training mode. I know Shakur's helped him a lot. They wrestled a lot. Bo Nickal's been very good for Matt Brown because Nickal's a guy that can score from any position. You see Brown, he's just a straight-forward guy. He has a hard time with the guys with the tricks. He can get tricked and dumped. They've helped him and he's helped them. When you wrestle Matt Brown We're going to obviously try to keep Brown around and have him train and work toward the Olympics. You want your guys around him. He's not a guy you have to worry about getting in trouble. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't stay out late. He doesn't play Clash of Clans."
CASEY CUNNINGHAM[/B]
On Brown's championship: "Matt's been an awesome kid. If there's one kid in our program that's done everything we've asked him to do it's been Matt from the start."
"From Day 1, he came to Iowa State with us. He said he learned more in a week in practice than he learned in most of his career (in high school). Just a kid that just thrived on learning. This last summer he said he wanted to figure out how to get better on top. I want to figure out how to get that riding time point. Well, you see this year some of those matches came down to riding time."
"He's gotten a lot out of himself. One of the hardest workers we've ever had. 4.0 student. The only thing we're worried about is he drinks too much chocolate milk once in a while. That's the truth. Tonight to celebrate, he'll probably go have a chicken wing and some chocolate milk."
"He's just been a pleasure to work with. So happy for him. He wanted this so bad. I know one of his goals was - he's the first returning missionary to win a national title and he's said that from Day 1 he wanted to do it and he did that."
"Did it go the way we hoped it would? No. I think I said before, I don't know that I like that five-second rule count on the legs I don't know what a guy's supposed to do on top if you grab the legs and a guy starts kicking. Just let him go? But that's the rule. So that's how it went. You can't lock your hands. That's a rule. So that's how it went."
On Brown's veteran savvy: "I think he's about 35 years old so he's been around for a while. (laughs) No, he's been doing this a long time. You think about the guys he wrestled with every day. He spent four years with Ed Ruth and he wrestles with David Taylor all the time, Cael, I get an opportunity to wrestle with him."
"The young guys in our room right now are pushing him, gosh. So he's got to figure some things out and he figures those things out in the room because he's got to scrap every day just to keep battling and that's a fun place to be for him because he's had the guys push him to this point."
When Brown first got to Iowa State: "I knew that he was going to outwork everybody. I knew that he wanted to learn. He took notes every day. He asked questions. He'd come back the next day and say, 'I thought about this, what about this?' Just a kid that thrived on learning."
Didn't know if he would come to PSU after coaches left Iowa State for PSU while he was on his religious mission: "We knew two years of not wrestling, he'd be thinking about wrestling. We knew that he got up in the morning and did pushups and situps and thought about wrestling. So he came back with a mind ready to learn and grow again."
Worried about him not coming back in shape? "No. We didn't think about that because when he was at Iowa State we just knew he was going to do what he had to do for his church but we knew he was the type of kid to get up an hour early to get his work done. So I thought he'd come back in shape and be ready to go. And he was. He was Ed Ruth's closest match. Ed was the starter so he didn't get a chance but he was Ed's closest match that year so maybe he could've been a guy that took second in the country but he decided to come to Penn State when he knew he probably wasn't going to be the guy that first year and he chose to do that anyway so that says a lot about him too."
Cael Sanderson
On Wilps interlocking hands: "I was pretty confident that there was a locked hands. But you still don't know what they're going to call. So I was just trying to get Matt ready and sometimes you don't know. We were pretty confident that they were locked hands because they were right in front of us."
About watching the replay: "I was trying peek to also. They don't let us watch. That's one of the tricky things because of the angle. But yea, it was absolutely locked hands. You don't want to really win like that, but it goes both ways. If you lock your hands that's a technical violation. That's a point."
On Brown's veteran savvy to know to drop to knee to get the call: "I think he knows it. He had short time there. He was down with 10 seconds left, right? Then he had that stalling call, which is, again, that's just a textbook. That's a rule. Five counts is a stalling call, either way. But Brown did a good job of hustling and taking it away. Brown has been out there. I wasn't going to review the escape because I didn't think it was an escape, but it seemed like (Brown) wanted me to so. it didn't really make a difference because the guy got away always."
On not normally calling for a review in Matt Brown matches, because he's got superhuman endurance (my words): "I didn't want to (review). I thought he had the edge conditioning-wise in that match."
General thoughts on Brown: "Matt's had an amazing career. He's just one of those guys who does everything that he's supposed to. Everything we ask him to do, he does it. He's a guy who's gotten the most of out his ability. Three-time All-American, two-time NCAA finalist - that's very impressive. And he had a chance to be a four-time All-American, but he was sitting behind a pretty good guy, obviously, in Ed Ruth. He's just a great competitor and I'm real happy for him that he finished it out as a national champion."
Any stories? "Not off the top of my head. I mean, he is who he is. You see him. He's a 4.0 student and he's going to be very successful in life and he figured out how be successful in wrestling just through work and being smart. He's a funny kid. He's thinking all the time before the match, What if this happens? I'll see him over there asking every technical question known to man to Casey and I'm just like, Go wrestle, man. You've been wrestling since you were a little kid. You know what to do in every position. You've been there. He's just a guy who thinks things through thoroughly and again and again after that. So, there's some positives in there but that also makes things tough because if you're out there on the mat thinking, you get out of position."
Overall team impressions: "That's a tough question because we always want to win and we always have to believe that we can win. But you also have to have (inaudible) to score points and I think our guys did a nice job. All of our guys wrestled, you know, pretty well. I think all of our guys wrestled above their seed, except McIntosh. But when you're a two seed and take third. A guy who can get beat and come back and get third, that's what it's all about. He showed a lot of character and just toughness. I think our guys wrestled well. I think even our guys who didn't place. McCutcheon was winning 2-0 going into the second period in the quarterfinals of the nationals and just stopped wrestling. That's an experience opportunity for him. Zack Beitz did a great job but just lost to two good guys. When you come in undseeded, you're going to wrestle the top kids. You lost in overtime to the five seed and then unfortunately - I'm not a guy who sits back and hopes kids get upsets because you know that just drops them down the bracket where they're not supposed to be, coming back. So then that makes it tough for a guy like Zack, who has to beat the Michigan kid. Had a good match wrestled well, just came up a little short. He's made a lot of progress. A lot of our guys made a lot of progress. Gulibon was 1-2 last year here. Didn't really look like he was real confident. This year he was right there in the mix. So I think overall our team did well. When you have the expectation that you're trying to win, but as far as individuals are concerned I think we did pretty well. ...
"And also Lawson, Jimmy Lawson taking sixth. when you see his matches, there are four or five guys there who arena a different level. The guys who he can beat, he beat them. He did a nice job, taking sixth in the country. I'm really happy for Jimmy and for him. Gave up football to come wrestle and to be an All-American that's a big deal for him. We're excited. The attitude we have in the room right now is important. Having a guy like NIco and Zain, just guy who are so tough and so consistent. THey're wrestling every second and eveyr match, just with that example they have. Nolf is the same way. So many young kids who are right there. Shakur, and Anthony Cassar. We're excited about he future. I think a lot of teams are excited about the future. That's why this tournament is just going to keep getting better."
On Brown's leadership: Brown working with young guys: "He's just been in training mode. I know Shakur's helped him a lot. They wrestled a lot. Bo Nickal's been very good for Matt Brown because Nickal's a guy that can score from any position. You see Brown, he's just a straight-forward guy. He has a hard time with the guys with the tricks. He can get tricked and dumped. They've helped him and he's helped them. When you wrestle Matt Brown We're going to obviously try to keep Brown around and have him train and work toward the Olympics. You want your guys around him. He's not a guy you have to worry about getting in trouble. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't stay out late. He doesn't play Clash of Clans."
CASEY CUNNINGHAM[/B]
On Brown's championship: "Matt's been an awesome kid. If there's one kid in our program that's done everything we've asked him to do it's been Matt from the start."
"From Day 1, he came to Iowa State with us. He said he learned more in a week in practice than he learned in most of his career (in high school). Just a kid that just thrived on learning. This last summer he said he wanted to figure out how to get better on top. I want to figure out how to get that riding time point. Well, you see this year some of those matches came down to riding time."
"He's gotten a lot out of himself. One of the hardest workers we've ever had. 4.0 student. The only thing we're worried about is he drinks too much chocolate milk once in a while. That's the truth. Tonight to celebrate, he'll probably go have a chicken wing and some chocolate milk."
"He's just been a pleasure to work with. So happy for him. He wanted this so bad. I know one of his goals was - he's the first returning missionary to win a national title and he's said that from Day 1 he wanted to do it and he did that."
"Did it go the way we hoped it would? No. I think I said before, I don't know that I like that five-second rule count on the legs I don't know what a guy's supposed to do on top if you grab the legs and a guy starts kicking. Just let him go? But that's the rule. So that's how it went. You can't lock your hands. That's a rule. So that's how it went."
On Brown's veteran savvy: "I think he's about 35 years old so he's been around for a while. (laughs) No, he's been doing this a long time. You think about the guys he wrestled with every day. He spent four years with Ed Ruth and he wrestles with David Taylor all the time, Cael, I get an opportunity to wrestle with him."
"The young guys in our room right now are pushing him, gosh. So he's got to figure some things out and he figures those things out in the room because he's got to scrap every day just to keep battling and that's a fun place to be for him because he's had the guys push him to this point."
When Brown first got to Iowa State: "I knew that he was going to outwork everybody. I knew that he wanted to learn. He took notes every day. He asked questions. He'd come back the next day and say, 'I thought about this, what about this?' Just a kid that thrived on learning."
Didn't know if he would come to PSU after coaches left Iowa State for PSU while he was on his religious mission: "We knew two years of not wrestling, he'd be thinking about wrestling. We knew that he got up in the morning and did pushups and situps and thought about wrestling. So he came back with a mind ready to learn and grow again."
Worried about him not coming back in shape? "No. We didn't think about that because when he was at Iowa State we just knew he was going to do what he had to do for his church but we knew he was the type of kid to get up an hour early to get his work done. So I thought he'd come back in shape and be ready to go. And he was. He was Ed Ruth's closest match. Ed was the starter so he didn't get a chance but he was Ed's closest match that year so maybe he could've been a guy that took second in the country but he decided to come to Penn State when he knew he probably wasn't going to be the guy that first year and he chose to do that anyway so that says a lot about him too."
