You might remember me. I used to do NCAA tournament previews for this board. Started three years ago. And I always come back around afterwards with a self-assessment/soul cleansing. 2016?…pretty decent, I thought. “B+”, maybe. 2017?…eh, fair. Give it a “C.” But to those paying close attention, ominous signs of things to come were apparent. 2018? Well, rather than choose some random letter below “F” to grade my performance…I’ll share my wife’s succinct evaluation: “I need to write the preview next year. You pretty much suck at this.”
Ominous signs? How about this: Prior to the start of the Nickal-Dean 184 pound final in 2017, I said to Ms. BHF (and this is a direct quote): “One thing we know for sure…this isn’t going to be any 4-3 match.” Now, there are a ton of potential results in a wrestling match. For instance: 5-1. 6-3. TF 17-2. Fall, 0:17. MD 9-1. Injury default. Fall, 4:51. “I quit!” I could go on…but I think you get the idea. In this vast universe of possible outcomes, I had gone out of my way…unsolicited…and against ginormous odds…to exclude only the one that actually happened. As inept predictions go, I had set the bar incredibly high. Then, this year…I cleared it. Easily.
As our good friend jammenz helpfully pointed out, I had not projected any All-Americans for the University of Minnesota. I responded that I had two Gopher wrestlers, including 125-pounder Ethan Lizak (returning NCAA runnerup and #8 seed) going out in R12. I actually (accurately) had Lizak falling to #9 Bresser in the main draw and meeting up with #6 Piccininni (OKST) in R12. Only instead of losing to Picc, Lizak turned him over (and over) for a 16-0 spanking, then followed up by pinning defending champ Cruz (LEH), and taking Tomasello (tOSU) to OT in the 3rd place match, earning All-American honors. So, to get a little “mathy” on you, since I had set the Gopher A-A baseline at zero, my degree of wrongness was so far beyond infinity (denominator = zero) as to be undefined. Worse even than that….jammenz was right. I was wrong. Can a man sink any lower?
Other random lowlights:
TEAM: Of course, the big one….had tOSU with 150 and the championship, but Lee-Tomasello, Meredith-McKenna, and Kyle (“What? You didn’t believe me the first time?”) Conel (KENT) brought that number crashing back to earth. Wasn’t far off on Penn State’s number (138.5 vs. 141.5 actual), correctly had 8 of the 9 entrants as A-As (a little low on Lee (7/5) and a little high on Rasheed (6/7) and Nevills (4/7)) and four of the five finalists’ results (missing on Joseph). Had IOWA (6/3)/MIZZ (3/6) flipped, was pretty good on MICH (4/T4) and NCST (5/T4), but missed badly on OKST, pegging them at #7. I’m not sure the Cowboys even made it to Cleveland. I thought IOWA had a nice tournament; every time I looked around, they were pinning somebody. MIZZ? I can’t say how big a factor, if any, the lack of Big Ten quality competition was…but if I were the MIZZ coach, I’d be on the phone to Chattanooga this morning signing up for next year’s Southern Scuffle. Of course, if I were the MIZZ coach, they’d never have won a match in the first place, and might have disbanded the program by now, though, potentially, they’d be better at racquetball.
FUTILITY: I spent hours watching video, researching results, reading message boards. scouring police records, peeking in windows…and correctly predicted 60 of the 80 All-Americans. Conversely, going strictly by the seedings, exactly 60 of the top 80 seeds became All-Americans. So despite hitting on a few (#11 seeds Kolodzik (PRIN) at 149, Kocer (SDSU) at 174, and Hughes (HOF) at 285, and five others seeded 9 or 10), all of the time spent researching, analyzing, flipping coins, typing….yielded a return on investment (numerator = zero) of precisely…to the dollar…jack squat.
BILLY BALDWIN: Man…if I can’t get this one right…. While I believe I have exhibited appropriate appreciation for Billy’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for the sport of wrestling, I have also been critical, noting that the only thing Billy Baldwin seems to like more than wrestling is…Billy Baldwin. Hate to say it, but I didn’t mind him much this year. For the most part, he seemed to keep a better cork on the “me, me, me” stuff, and it was actually fun watching him cheer on one of the Binghamton wrestlers. Also a decent interview with the kid from Ohio U. who came back from the dead. On the other hand…off topic here…my trivia team had a question a few weeks ago: Which of Alec Baldwin’s brothers (Daniel, Billy, or Stephen) is the oldest? We didn’t know, so the team based their answer on my input: “Look, I don’t know the answer, but I see Billy Baldwin on the NCAA wrestling tournament every year, and the guy looks like he’s 100.” Correct answer: Daniel. Oh…and occasionally, it’s good for me to be reminded that there are worse things than being bald.
125-As Cowbell Man astutely pointed out, my pick of Suriano at #6 was spectacularly bad. In my defense, this pick was off-base on a medical basis only, evidence that at least there was versatility to my ineptitude. I thought Cruz would be better. Found myself thinking that if Suriano wants to maximize his chance of winning a national championship, he might want to start eating more, and find a weight class that doesn’t include Spencer Lee.
133-Called DeSanto (DREX) “the squirrel up the pantleg” of 133. Yeah. Uhhh….I was on the right track, at least.
141-As part of my training/penance, Ms. BHF had me write “I said ‘Yo mama is a slinky'” on the blackboard 100 times. (We don’t have a blackboard. I think she’s gonna be pissed when she sees that wall.) While Suriano is chowing down, he might want to skip dessert before he hits “Yanni.”
149-It’s something when Zain Retherford is maybe your team’s fourth biggest story at the national tournament. Folks do seem to turtle up at 149, don’t they? Ms. BHF sat closer to the TV during Bo’s match than Bannister (MD) ever got to Zain…well, until right before the end. Kind of sorry Sorenson didn’t make it to Saturday night. Seemed like that would have been the right way to say good bye. Great respect for both those guys. These guys are all great in their own way; I don’t know that we’ll ever see another just like Zain.
157-Amazing. Wonder what weight class Micah Jordan is going to look for next year? He’s really good, but going through Zain or Nolf to get anywhere is just a tough way to do business.
165-So we saw all three of Martinez’s career losses intimately. Never thought I’d have seen one like that. The first two were lightning strikes, albeit both in competitive matches. Cenzo seemed to have this one under control all the way. By the end of that match, Martinez knew Cenzo wasn’t buying anything he was selling. I saw where Isaiah was gracious in defeat afterward, not always an easy thing for a great champion, which he is. Credit to him for that. Cenzo? Man….very, very impressive.
174-Amine had a chance to make it happen Friday…but no one was beating Zahid on Saturday night. Great season by Hall, and I’m sure everyone noticed that he was the first one to greet and congratulate Bo when Bo came off the mat. Nice.
184-This one might go to page 1 of the scrapbook. Q/Gambrall was a semi. The first Cenzo/Martinez match was stunning, as well as being noteworthy for the quality of the opponent…but the team championship was won either way. Nickal/Martin IX was for the whole shebang, and everyone knew it…(or at least knew it rested on this or Coon)…and the skill, the confidence, the composure…the downright nerve it took to pull that off….wow! Of course he was excited about the magnitude of the result for himself and the team, but the move itself….”I’ve been doing this since I was six years old. I knew he was going on his back.” Nothing to it. He’s winning national championships (“That’s what we do at Penn State!”), and the only thing I can think of that I’ve been doing since before I was six is now manageable only as a result of the invention of adult diapers. Not only that…now jammenz is smarter than me. Depressing.
197-Yeah, I missed on Kyle Conel, too. Sorry. Apologies also to my cat. (I scared the cat with my reaction to his...Conel's, not the cat's...pin of Moore.)
285-Seemed a little anticlimactic, but in a way it was nice to be able to either root for Snyder (tOSU) outright, or at the least, be OK with his winning. From a prediction standpoint, 285 was a brief glimmer of sunshine: Top three in order (including a #6 seed at #3), 7 of 8 A-As, including a #11 seed, Hughes (HOF). Ring-a-ding-ding.
Finally, I’d like to end on a high note and brag about getting one right!
QUINT KESSENICH: If the worst interviewer in the world (Hint: initials “Q.K.”) were to ask me “How do you best describe Quint Kessenich?” (because that is exactly how he’d ask me, if he asked me), I would respond hypothetically, thusly:
“If my best friend were to invite me to a party, and I were to show up, and Quint Kessenich were at the party…with a microphone…first of all, I would avoid him (Quint, not the friend…well, maybe Quint and the friend) at all costs. My immediate inclination would be to move past “ending the friendship” to “torching this idiot’s house.” I’d calculate how long it might take me to buy some five-gallon cans, go to a convenience store and fill them with gasoline (adding time if we happened to be in New Jersey to have someone do it for me), make sure I had some matches, a lighter, a blow torch…well, you get it…an ignition source. I’d probably have to get a disguise…I don’t want to go to jail for this, after all. Not sure where I’d find that on a Saturday night, because that’s when most parties are thrown, and disguise stores aren’t usually open on Saturday nights. Some kind of a long wick or fuse or something…I don’t want to get burned either….hmm…this is getting a little complicated, I’d think. Hey…wait a minute. I’m too lazy to go to this much trouble. And after all, this is my best friend we’re talking about. Not that I wouldn’t torch his house if he deserved it, but what’s more likely here: 1. My best friend invited Quint Kessenich to a party; or 2. Quint Kessenich invited himself to a party…uninvited and unwanted…with a damn microphone that he intends to stick in the face of anyone who walks by, whether they want him to or not? (Which they wouldn’t. Unless they’re Tom Ryan. And my friend wouldn’t invite him to a party, either.) A light went on. Of course! I would decide to trust my best friend’s judgment. He would not invite Quint Kessenich to a party. Quint Kessenich would show up at a party….uninvited and unwanted… like a turd in the punch bowl. That’s it! “A human turd in the punch bowl.” That’s how I would best describe Quint Kessenich. But not before some serious thought.
Circling back to the beginning on my way out…I apologize for being so wrong…and so long. I think Ms. BHF had the best idea: “I need to write the preview next year. You pretty much suck at this.”
So I'm here to take my shots. Fire away.
Finally nice going, team and coaches! Hope the rest of you enjoyed the tournament as much as I did.
Oh…and Ms. BHF has written books. For real. I think you’ll like her.
SR/BHF
Ominous signs? How about this: Prior to the start of the Nickal-Dean 184 pound final in 2017, I said to Ms. BHF (and this is a direct quote): “One thing we know for sure…this isn’t going to be any 4-3 match.” Now, there are a ton of potential results in a wrestling match. For instance: 5-1. 6-3. TF 17-2. Fall, 0:17. MD 9-1. Injury default. Fall, 4:51. “I quit!” I could go on…but I think you get the idea. In this vast universe of possible outcomes, I had gone out of my way…unsolicited…and against ginormous odds…to exclude only the one that actually happened. As inept predictions go, I had set the bar incredibly high. Then, this year…I cleared it. Easily.
As our good friend jammenz helpfully pointed out, I had not projected any All-Americans for the University of Minnesota. I responded that I had two Gopher wrestlers, including 125-pounder Ethan Lizak (returning NCAA runnerup and #8 seed) going out in R12. I actually (accurately) had Lizak falling to #9 Bresser in the main draw and meeting up with #6 Piccininni (OKST) in R12. Only instead of losing to Picc, Lizak turned him over (and over) for a 16-0 spanking, then followed up by pinning defending champ Cruz (LEH), and taking Tomasello (tOSU) to OT in the 3rd place match, earning All-American honors. So, to get a little “mathy” on you, since I had set the Gopher A-A baseline at zero, my degree of wrongness was so far beyond infinity (denominator = zero) as to be undefined. Worse even than that….jammenz was right. I was wrong. Can a man sink any lower?
Other random lowlights:
TEAM: Of course, the big one….had tOSU with 150 and the championship, but Lee-Tomasello, Meredith-McKenna, and Kyle (“What? You didn’t believe me the first time?”) Conel (KENT) brought that number crashing back to earth. Wasn’t far off on Penn State’s number (138.5 vs. 141.5 actual), correctly had 8 of the 9 entrants as A-As (a little low on Lee (7/5) and a little high on Rasheed (6/7) and Nevills (4/7)) and four of the five finalists’ results (missing on Joseph). Had IOWA (6/3)/MIZZ (3/6) flipped, was pretty good on MICH (4/T4) and NCST (5/T4), but missed badly on OKST, pegging them at #7. I’m not sure the Cowboys even made it to Cleveland. I thought IOWA had a nice tournament; every time I looked around, they were pinning somebody. MIZZ? I can’t say how big a factor, if any, the lack of Big Ten quality competition was…but if I were the MIZZ coach, I’d be on the phone to Chattanooga this morning signing up for next year’s Southern Scuffle. Of course, if I were the MIZZ coach, they’d never have won a match in the first place, and might have disbanded the program by now, though, potentially, they’d be better at racquetball.
FUTILITY: I spent hours watching video, researching results, reading message boards. scouring police records, peeking in windows…and correctly predicted 60 of the 80 All-Americans. Conversely, going strictly by the seedings, exactly 60 of the top 80 seeds became All-Americans. So despite hitting on a few (#11 seeds Kolodzik (PRIN) at 149, Kocer (SDSU) at 174, and Hughes (HOF) at 285, and five others seeded 9 or 10), all of the time spent researching, analyzing, flipping coins, typing….yielded a return on investment (numerator = zero) of precisely…to the dollar…jack squat.
BILLY BALDWIN: Man…if I can’t get this one right…. While I believe I have exhibited appropriate appreciation for Billy’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for the sport of wrestling, I have also been critical, noting that the only thing Billy Baldwin seems to like more than wrestling is…Billy Baldwin. Hate to say it, but I didn’t mind him much this year. For the most part, he seemed to keep a better cork on the “me, me, me” stuff, and it was actually fun watching him cheer on one of the Binghamton wrestlers. Also a decent interview with the kid from Ohio U. who came back from the dead. On the other hand…off topic here…my trivia team had a question a few weeks ago: Which of Alec Baldwin’s brothers (Daniel, Billy, or Stephen) is the oldest? We didn’t know, so the team based their answer on my input: “Look, I don’t know the answer, but I see Billy Baldwin on the NCAA wrestling tournament every year, and the guy looks like he’s 100.” Correct answer: Daniel. Oh…and occasionally, it’s good for me to be reminded that there are worse things than being bald.
125-As Cowbell Man astutely pointed out, my pick of Suriano at #6 was spectacularly bad. In my defense, this pick was off-base on a medical basis only, evidence that at least there was versatility to my ineptitude. I thought Cruz would be better. Found myself thinking that if Suriano wants to maximize his chance of winning a national championship, he might want to start eating more, and find a weight class that doesn’t include Spencer Lee.
133-Called DeSanto (DREX) “the squirrel up the pantleg” of 133. Yeah. Uhhh….I was on the right track, at least.
141-As part of my training/penance, Ms. BHF had me write “I said ‘Yo mama is a slinky'” on the blackboard 100 times. (We don’t have a blackboard. I think she’s gonna be pissed when she sees that wall.) While Suriano is chowing down, he might want to skip dessert before he hits “Yanni.”
149-It’s something when Zain Retherford is maybe your team’s fourth biggest story at the national tournament. Folks do seem to turtle up at 149, don’t they? Ms. BHF sat closer to the TV during Bo’s match than Bannister (MD) ever got to Zain…well, until right before the end. Kind of sorry Sorenson didn’t make it to Saturday night. Seemed like that would have been the right way to say good bye. Great respect for both those guys. These guys are all great in their own way; I don’t know that we’ll ever see another just like Zain.
157-Amazing. Wonder what weight class Micah Jordan is going to look for next year? He’s really good, but going through Zain or Nolf to get anywhere is just a tough way to do business.
165-So we saw all three of Martinez’s career losses intimately. Never thought I’d have seen one like that. The first two were lightning strikes, albeit both in competitive matches. Cenzo seemed to have this one under control all the way. By the end of that match, Martinez knew Cenzo wasn’t buying anything he was selling. I saw where Isaiah was gracious in defeat afterward, not always an easy thing for a great champion, which he is. Credit to him for that. Cenzo? Man….very, very impressive.
174-Amine had a chance to make it happen Friday…but no one was beating Zahid on Saturday night. Great season by Hall, and I’m sure everyone noticed that he was the first one to greet and congratulate Bo when Bo came off the mat. Nice.
184-This one might go to page 1 of the scrapbook. Q/Gambrall was a semi. The first Cenzo/Martinez match was stunning, as well as being noteworthy for the quality of the opponent…but the team championship was won either way. Nickal/Martin IX was for the whole shebang, and everyone knew it…(or at least knew it rested on this or Coon)…and the skill, the confidence, the composure…the downright nerve it took to pull that off….wow! Of course he was excited about the magnitude of the result for himself and the team, but the move itself….”I’ve been doing this since I was six years old. I knew he was going on his back.” Nothing to it. He’s winning national championships (“That’s what we do at Penn State!”), and the only thing I can think of that I’ve been doing since before I was six is now manageable only as a result of the invention of adult diapers. Not only that…now jammenz is smarter than me. Depressing.
197-Yeah, I missed on Kyle Conel, too. Sorry. Apologies also to my cat. (I scared the cat with my reaction to his...Conel's, not the cat's...pin of Moore.)
285-Seemed a little anticlimactic, but in a way it was nice to be able to either root for Snyder (tOSU) outright, or at the least, be OK with his winning. From a prediction standpoint, 285 was a brief glimmer of sunshine: Top three in order (including a #6 seed at #3), 7 of 8 A-As, including a #11 seed, Hughes (HOF). Ring-a-ding-ding.
Finally, I’d like to end on a high note and brag about getting one right!
QUINT KESSENICH: If the worst interviewer in the world (Hint: initials “Q.K.”) were to ask me “How do you best describe Quint Kessenich?” (because that is exactly how he’d ask me, if he asked me), I would respond hypothetically, thusly:
“If my best friend were to invite me to a party, and I were to show up, and Quint Kessenich were at the party…with a microphone…first of all, I would avoid him (Quint, not the friend…well, maybe Quint and the friend) at all costs. My immediate inclination would be to move past “ending the friendship” to “torching this idiot’s house.” I’d calculate how long it might take me to buy some five-gallon cans, go to a convenience store and fill them with gasoline (adding time if we happened to be in New Jersey to have someone do it for me), make sure I had some matches, a lighter, a blow torch…well, you get it…an ignition source. I’d probably have to get a disguise…I don’t want to go to jail for this, after all. Not sure where I’d find that on a Saturday night, because that’s when most parties are thrown, and disguise stores aren’t usually open on Saturday nights. Some kind of a long wick or fuse or something…I don’t want to get burned either….hmm…this is getting a little complicated, I’d think. Hey…wait a minute. I’m too lazy to go to this much trouble. And after all, this is my best friend we’re talking about. Not that I wouldn’t torch his house if he deserved it, but what’s more likely here: 1. My best friend invited Quint Kessenich to a party; or 2. Quint Kessenich invited himself to a party…uninvited and unwanted…with a damn microphone that he intends to stick in the face of anyone who walks by, whether they want him to or not? (Which they wouldn’t. Unless they’re Tom Ryan. And my friend wouldn’t invite him to a party, either.) A light went on. Of course! I would decide to trust my best friend’s judgment. He would not invite Quint Kessenich to a party. Quint Kessenich would show up at a party….uninvited and unwanted… like a turd in the punch bowl. That’s it! “A human turd in the punch bowl.” That’s how I would best describe Quint Kessenich. But not before some serious thought.
Circling back to the beginning on my way out…I apologize for being so wrong…and so long. I think Ms. BHF had the best idea: “I need to write the preview next year. You pretty much suck at this.”
So I'm here to take my shots. Fire away.
Finally nice going, team and coaches! Hope the rest of you enjoyed the tournament as much as I did.
Oh…and Ms. BHF has written books. For real. I think you’ll like her.
SR/BHF
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