Sesker's Slant: Talking National Duals, Riding Time, Skutt Catholic
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by Craig Sesker USA Wrestling
Referees jump in to try and pull Iowa’s Thomas Gilman (left) and Missouri’s Alan Waters apart during the National Duals finals on Sunday. Darren Miller photo.
Who says nice guys don’t finish first?
You won’t meet a nicer guy in wrestling, or many that are better representatives and ambassadors for the sport than Brian Smith.
He’s a pretty darn good coach as well.
Smith’s Missouri Tigers earned another milestone victory on Sunday by beating then-No. 1 Iowa 18-12 in the National Duals finals.
Making the win even more impressive is they did it front of nearly 7,000 fans in Iowa City where 95 percent of the fans were cheering for the Hawkeyes.
When Smith first arrived at Missouri, people laughed when he said his team could win the Big 12. In Smith’s early days, Missouri wrestlers were a fixture in those dreaded first-round, No. 4 vs. No. 5 matches at the five-team conference tournament.
That’s not the case anymore. Smith’s program rose to prominence when Ben Askren arrived in Columbia a decade ago. Askren won two NCAA titles, two Hodge Trophy awards and made the 2008 Olympic Team.
Missouri has remained very strong and the Tigers are now the No. 1 team in the land. Missouri has three top-ranked wrestlers in Alan Waters (125), Drake Houdashelt (149) and J’den Cox (197), plus Lavion Mayes (141) and John Eblen (174) are highly ranked.
Smith is one of the more underrated coaches in the country who doesn’t get the attention of a Cael Sanderson, Tom Brands, John Smith or J Robinson.
Smith has the type of team that can contend for an NCAA tournament title next month. And there will be considerably more Missouri fans in the stands at the NCAAs than there were in Iowa City.
The NCAAs are being held in St. Louis, just a short drive from Missouri’s Columbia campus, this year.
It’s definitely going to be a great NCAA tournament. I believe Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State, Cornell and Penn State all have a shot, plus Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Illinois, Edinboro and Virginia Tech could be factors as well.
Kevin Jackson’s Cyclones are wrestling really well right now and have three highly ranked guys in Kyven Gadson (197), Mike Moreno (165) and Earl Hall (133).
It may be a low-scoring national tournament where the points are spread more evenly with the winning team scoring in the 80-point range. I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds next month!
Riding time needs to go
You probably get tired of me talking about it, but riding time really needs to go.
It’s not only the worst rule in college wrestling, in my opinion, but it’s one of the worst rules in any style of wrestling.
That was evident in the Missouri-Iowa match at the National Duals. Too many guys were hanging onto legs and ankles to gain riding time, which makes for pretty boring and often times ugly wrestling.
I want college wrestling to go to what freestyle does where the wrestlers are returned to their feet if the top wrestler is not progressing toward a fall.
That would make the matches more entertaining and allow for more points to be put on the board.
Another issue I have is there is still too much edge-of-the-mat wrestling. Wrestlers hang out near the edge and then scoot out of bounds when they are in danger.
College wrestling has addressed this by letting the action continue if only one wrestler has one foot in bounds, but I think the only solution for this is a pushout rule where wrestlers are forced to stay closer to the center of the mat.
Incredible run for Omaha Skutt Catholic High School
If you follow wrestling closely, you’ve probably heard of the powerful Skutt Catholic High School program in Omaha, Neb. I wrote a book, Driven to Excellence, on the Skutt program in 2012.
The SkyHawks have been a strong program for years under Coach Brad Hildebrandt. Among Skutt’s alumni are three-time NCAA Division II national champion Todd Meneely and Junior World bronze medalist Thomas Gilman, who is Iowa’s starting 125-pounder.
Skutt captured its 17th Nebraska Class B state championship in the past 18 years this past weekend in Omaha.
And this may have been the most improbable and most unlikely title of the bunch.
Skutt had two top-ranked wrestlers, including a state champion, suspended for the 2015 state meet for disciplinary reasons.
The SkyHawks were in second place entering the finals and had two finalists. Skutt went just 1-1 in the finals, but still managed to earn the championship.
The 50-year-old Hildebrandt, an NCAA Division II runner-up wrestler for Nebraska-Omaha and native of Griswold, Iowa, has done a phenomenal job in building a dynasty at Skutt. Hildebrandt and past UNO national champion R.J. Nebe built the program from the ground up when a new school opened at Skutt in 1993.
Skutt won 13 straight state titles before finishing second in 2011. The SkyHawks have now won four straight state championships and counting.
Don’t wait to buy your tickets for Worlds, World Cup
Tickets remain on sale for two awesome events, the World Championships and the World Cup. Both will be held in the U.S. in the same year for the first time since 2003.
The World Cup will be held in Los Angeles on April 11-12 and the World Championships will be held in Las Vegas on Sept. 7-12.
The World Championships will be a sellout, so don’t wait to get your tickets. It’s an amazing event and an important event with it being the main qualifier for the 2016 Olympic Games.
I’ve been to nine World Championships and believe me it’s an event you don’t want to miss.
You can order tickets by going to wrestlingworldcup.com and vegasworlds2015.com, or by checking TheMat.com for more information.
Feel free to provide any feedback to me at csesker@usawrestling.org or to my Twitter account @csesker
Who says nice guys don’t finish first?
You won’t meet a nicer guy in wrestling, or many that are better representatives and ambassadors for the sport than Brian Smith.
He’s a pretty darn good coach as well.
Smith’s Missouri Tigers earned another milestone victory on Sunday by beating then-No. 1 Iowa 18-12 in the National Duals finals.
Making the win even more impressive is they did it front of nearly 7,000 fans in Iowa City where 95 percent of the fans were cheering for the Hawkeyes.
When Smith first arrived at Missouri, people laughed when he said his team could win the Big 12. In Smith’s early days, Missouri wrestlers were a fixture in those dreaded first-round, No. 4 vs. No. 5 matches at the five-team conference tournament.
That’s not the case anymore. Smith’s program rose to prominence when Ben Askren arrived in Columbia a decade ago. Askren won two NCAA titles, two Hodge Trophy awards and made the 2008 Olympic Team.
Missouri has remained very strong and the Tigers are now the No. 1 team in the land. Missouri has three top-ranked wrestlers in Alan Waters (125), Drake Houdashelt (149) and J’den Cox (197), plus Lavion Mayes (141) and John Eblen (174) are highly ranked.
Smith is one of the more underrated coaches in the country who doesn’t get the attention of a Cael Sanderson, Tom Brands, John Smith or J Robinson.
Smith has the type of team that can contend for an NCAA tournament title next month. And there will be considerably more Missouri fans in the stands at the NCAAs than there were in Iowa City.
The NCAAs are being held in St. Louis, just a short drive from Missouri’s Columbia campus, this year.
It’s definitely going to be a great NCAA tournament. I believe Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State, Cornell and Penn State all have a shot, plus Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Illinois, Edinboro and Virginia Tech could be factors as well.
Kevin Jackson’s Cyclones are wrestling really well right now and have three highly ranked guys in Kyven Gadson (197), Mike Moreno (165) and Earl Hall (133).
It may be a low-scoring national tournament where the points are spread more evenly with the winning team scoring in the 80-point range. I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds next month!
Riding time needs to go
You probably get tired of me talking about it, but riding time really needs to go.
It’s not only the worst rule in college wrestling, in my opinion, but it’s one of the worst rules in any style of wrestling.
That was evident in the Missouri-Iowa match at the National Duals. Too many guys were hanging onto legs and ankles to gain riding time, which makes for pretty boring and often times ugly wrestling.
I want college wrestling to go to what freestyle does where the wrestlers are returned to their feet if the top wrestler is not progressing toward a fall.
That would make the matches more entertaining and allow for more points to be put on the board.
Another issue I have is there is still too much edge-of-the-mat wrestling. Wrestlers hang out near the edge and then scoot out of bounds when they are in danger.
College wrestling has addressed this by letting the action continue if only one wrestler has one foot in bounds, but I think the only solution for this is a pushout rule where wrestlers are forced to stay closer to the center of the mat.
Incredible run for Omaha Skutt Catholic High School
If you follow wrestling closely, you’ve probably heard of the powerful Skutt Catholic High School program in Omaha, Neb. I wrote a book, Driven to Excellence, on the Skutt program in 2012.
The SkyHawks have been a strong program for years under Coach Brad Hildebrandt. Among Skutt’s alumni are three-time NCAA Division II national champion Todd Meneely and Junior World bronze medalist Thomas Gilman, who is Iowa’s starting 125-pounder.
Skutt captured its 17th Nebraska Class B state championship in the past 18 years this past weekend in Omaha.
And this may have been the most improbable and most unlikely title of the bunch.
Skutt had two top-ranked wrestlers, including a state champion, suspended for the 2015 state meet for disciplinary reasons.
The SkyHawks were in second place entering the finals and had two finalists. Skutt went just 1-1 in the finals, but still managed to earn the championship.
The 50-year-old Hildebrandt, an NCAA Division II runner-up wrestler for Nebraska-Omaha and native of Griswold, Iowa, has done a phenomenal job in building a dynasty at Skutt. Hildebrandt and past UNO national champion R.J. Nebe built the program from the ground up when a new school opened at Skutt in 1993.
Skutt won 13 straight state titles before finishing second in 2011. The SkyHawks have now won four straight state championships and counting.
Don’t wait to buy your tickets for Worlds, World Cup
Tickets remain on sale for two awesome events, the World Championships and the World Cup. Both will be held in the U.S. in the same year for the first time since 2003.
The World Cup will be held in Los Angeles on April 11-12 and the World Championships will be held in Las Vegas on Sept. 7-12.
The World Championships will be a sellout, so don’t wait to get your tickets. It’s an amazing event and an important event with it being the main qualifier for the 2016 Olympic Games.
I’ve been to nine World Championships and believe me it’s an event you don’t want to miss.
You can order tickets by going to wrestlingworldcup.com and vegasworlds2015.com, or by checking TheMat.com for more information.
Feel free to provide any feedback to me at csesker@usawrestling.org or to my Twitter account @csesker
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