The Mount(s) Rushmore of NCAA Wrestling

[Wrestleknownothing]

i mean he was unbeatable in his time.... got to be top 3 or 4 HBU

HBU?

As for unbeatable, yes. But he is only fifth on the list of most wins without a loss.

159 - Sanderson
70 - Simons
58 - Uetake
46 - Hodge
36 - Koll
29 - Rex Peery
25 - McCready
23 - Arndt
22 - van Bebber
19 - Caldwell

Do not take this as a knock on Koll, because it absolutely is not.

Who would you displace among the eight I mentioned? McCready, Peery, Gable, Hodge, Simons, Smith, Sanderson, Dake?

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

I honestly never thought four titles at four weights was some Superman pinnacle. It was just Dake’s path. No different than any other path imho. Weight is meaningless, and no, I do not subscribe to the theory that Dake had it tougher. He knew he had DT’s number so the risk was minimal.

My sense from my days on Intermat is that PSU fans find it less impressive than non-PSU fans.

 

[Joejitsu]

DT, Ed Ruth, Zain, Nolf, Bo, Carter, and Aaron Brooks can all lay claims to being on MT RUSHMORE
1. Zain
2. Aaron
3. Carter
4. Nolf
5. Bo
6. DT
7. Easy Ed

in that order for me.... 2 through 5 though we could swap anywhere, just depend what you value....
Mitch is about to claim a top spot there also !

 

[Joejitsu]

HBU?

As for unbeatable, yes. But he is only fifth on the list of most wins without a loss.

159 - Sanderson
70 - Simons
58 - Uetake
46 - Hodge
36 - Koll
29 - Rex Peery
25 - McCready
23 - Arndt
22 - van Bebber
19 - Caldwell

Do not take this as a knock on Koll, because it absolutely is not.

Who would you displace among the eight I mentioned? McCready, Peery, Gable, Hodge, Simons, Smith, Sanderson, Dake?

Legit... IDK if i could displace any....
I would have Hodge bc he was soooo dominant but with only 46 matches..... I can make an argument against.
Dan Gable really has to be a top 8 guy right?

What about Wade Schalles 153-5-1 but he won 4 NCAA titles (albiet 2 were D2 and 2 were D1)
But he pinned nearly 705 of his opponents. This was domination at its finest

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

Legit... IDK if i could displace any....
I would have Hodge bc he was soooo dominant but with only 46 matches..... I can make an argument against.
Dan Gable really has to be a top 8 guy right?

What about Wade Schalles 153-5-1 but he won 4 NCAA titles (albiet 2 were D2 and 2 were D1)
But he pinned nearly 705 of his opponents. This was domination at its finest

I am thinking I need to do a Bill Simmons-esque tiers.

 

[a_mshaffer]

DT, Ed Ruth, Zain, Nolf, Bo, Carter, and Aaron Brooks can all lay claims to being on MT RUSHMORE
1. Zain
2. Aaron
3. Carter
4. Nolf
5. Bo
6. DT
7. Easy Ed

in that order for me.... 2 through 5 though we could swap anywhere, just depend what you value....
Mitch is about to claim a top spot there also !

keep the chisel out as MM finishes up...

 

[BriantheLion]

ahhhh, COVID. Didn't think to check for that.

It raises the metaphysical question, is it possible to qualify for something that does not exist?

In this case, yes… the qualification IIRC play out… the season AND the conference championships definitely happened, and IIRC they had seeded, so presumably had the 33/weight class, the tournament, and then awarded AA status to the top eight seeds.

 

[mcpat]

That looks like a ton of work done and a great read. Thank you.

I have only one comment and that is the one liner about “real debate” of whether 159-0 is better than 4 championships at 4 different weights. One is absurd (159-0) and the other did something every champion wrestler has done their entire career: win at increasingly higher weights. You know what’s more impressive than Dake’s weight gain? Pat Smith didn’t grow at all!!

This not to minimize Dake’s career and everything else mentioned in the article. Dude was and still is a monster with a brutal defense. If he had won 4 but over 3 weight classes, would that make his greatness less?? It would not.

Weight changes are fun but really unrelated data.

I wasn’t that impressed with 4 at 4 different weights at the time, but I’m become much more impressed with it since he when went up 26 pounds at 35 years of age and beat the reigning world champion. It’s getting insane at this point. He won his first title at 141 lbs and now made the world team beating the world champ at 189.

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

I am thinking I need to do a Bill Simmons-esque tiers.

I just checked. There have been 8,686 different men wrestle in the NCAA tournament. Tiers could take some time.

 

[mcpat]

I just checked. There have been 8,686 different men wrestle in the NCAA tournament. Tiers could take some time.

Ask chatGPT to do it

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

Ask chatGPT to do it

I know you're trying to wind me up, but maybe it would do better. I just realized I forgot the guys who never won a match. The new total is 13,298.

A whopping 35% of wrestlers who made the tournament never won a match. Well, that solves one tier.

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

And if you want your son to be an undefeated NCAA tournament wrestler name him George.

Of the 88 - yes 88 - undefeated wrestlers in NCAA tournament history six are named George. The next closest is John, so maybe go with that as a middle name to boost his odds.

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

As for GPT - dammit this is pretty close:

So, if you're asking "How many different people have wrestled in the NCAA men's wrestling tournament?" the best estimate is about 13,000 unique athletes, with a plausible range of 12,000–15,000.

And for the record, Google's Gemini crapped the bed again:

"Given that 80 wrestlers go winless every single year, over the course of decades, thousands of athletes have finished their tournament runs without a hand raised. While many of those 80 are repeat qualifiers who may have won matches in previous or subsequent years, a massive portion of them are one-time qualifiers who finished their college careers with a 0-2 lifetime NCAA tournament record."

And Claude was equally crappy:

"you could ballpark somewhere in the thousands to low tens of thousands over the tournament's ~95-year history — but that would be a loose extrapolation, not a sourced figure."

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

On second thought, nix the John.

More John's (186) are winless than any other name. Tell Grandpa John sorry, but you cannot name your son after him after all.

 

[mcpat]

@Wrestleknownothing i have to know what you do for a living

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

@Wrestleknownothing i have to know what you do for a living

Based on the volume of posts I make between 8 and 5 on weekdays, the evidence would suggest not much.

 

[OldMatCoach]

Freshmen were not eligible in Hodge's day and schools simply did not wrestle as many matches and they were almost all duals. I am 75 (younger than Danny RIP) and it was like that back in the day. Never taken down, over 80 percent pin rate, cover of SI ... it ain't called the Hodge Trophy for nothing! He has got to be on there.

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

Freshmen were not eligible in Hodge's day and schools simply did not wrestle as many matches and they were almost all duals. I am 75 (younger than Danny RIP) and it was like that back in the day. Never taken down, over 80 percent pin rate, cover of SI ... it ain't called the Hodge Trophy for nothing! He has got to be on there.

And he is. I had him ahead of Gable, but the creator of the Hodge, and his close friend, convinced me otherwise.

 

[HwtsRgr8]

NCAA wrestling is the only criteria that matters, right? Coaching accolades mean squat, International records mean squat.

I've said for years, Gable doesn't coach and he is just another 2xer

Look at all the 3xers that have been forgotten by history

Tough decisions

 

[BriantheLion]

NCAA wrestling is the only criteria that matters, right? Coaching accolades mean squat, International records mean squat.

I've said for years, Gable doesn't coach and he is just another 2xer

Look at all the 3xers that have been forgotten by history

Tough decisions

Dan Gable got A LOT of hype from ABC… and in fact won…in the ‘72 Olympics… when I was going into high school… that’s how I knew about him, and would be plen fo me to remember him.

I wasn’t following when he was coaching.

Nowadays TV cameras keep showing him in the crowd at duals and tournaments, and he’s hamming it up in commercials.