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.

 

[HwtsRgr8]

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

hype and NCAA wrestling cred are not the same

Plenty of 3 timers that did not lose their last match

 

[BriantheLion]

hype and NCAA wrestling cred are not the same

Plenty of 3 timers that did not lose their last match

I’m not advocating for him, just saying that he became well known to anyone watching that Olympics… and stood out to an impressionable young wrestler, more than anyone I remember… I think by the time Cael came to the Olympics, whichever network carried it was already on its way to marginalizing wrestling, weightlifting, perhaps other traditional sports.

 

[mh-larch]

In the very early days of the NCAA Wrestling Tournament not all teams competed. I recall reading somewhere on this board that there were some seasons when the championsips were on the west coast Penn State did not send a team (even with individuals qualified). I don't know what year that started to change, but it takes some of the luster off the teams and individuals who won championships. I get that they wresteed who showed up, but it still should be taken into account with some of the older wrestlers on some of these lists. Gable would have wrestled at fully attended championships.

 

[SleepyLion]

We all know wrestling was not invented until 2011. Nothing before then made a difference.

 

[Joejitsu]

We all know wrestling was not invented until 2011. Nothing before then made a difference.

lol.. nobody mentioned Logan Steiber either
Or Greg Jones … Greg Jones was dominant

 

[creamery freak]

lol.. nobody mentioned Logan Steiber either
Or Greg Jones … Greg Jones was dominant

I often wonder with today's replay system, if J Oliver is awarded a takedown at the NCAA 133 lb final in 2012. I thought JO was robbed.

 

[Joejitsu]

I often wonder with today's replay system, if J Oliver is awarded a takedown at the NCAA 133 lb final in 2012. I thought JO was robbed.

Probably right- wonder how much JO wonders the same thing

 

[Nitlion1986]

Probably right- wonder how much JO wonders the same thing

I still wonder why he wasn't awarded the "2".

 

[Joejitsu]

if Mitch wins 3 / with one career loss / in the finals and on criteria
with his sky high bonus rate
probably a 2x Hodge winner

Does that move him top 5?
top 3?

 

[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?

Some of these guys though have under 30 matches in 3 years. this makes it difficult to put them up there...

1. Cael Sanderson 159-0, 4x, 3 time Hodge , Olympic gold
2. Yajiro Uetake 58-0, 3x champ , 2 x Olympic gold
3. Bill Koll 72-0, 3x champ, OW 2x
4. Dan Hodge 46 -0, 3x champ / 36 pins / never gave up a single takedown
5. Kyle Dake 137-4, 4x champs at 4 different weight classes. / Won a hodge
6. Dan Gable 117-1 2x champ / 3x finalist / Olympic gold / he dominated in his time / 100 match win streak / only Cael beats that (i think)
7. Yiannio Diakomihalis- 115-2, 4x NCAA champ
8. Carter Starocci 104-4, 5NCAA TITLES
9. Logan Steiber 119-3, 4 NCAA titles, Hodge

i know that guys like Peery, McCready, VanBebber and more were undefeated but with under 30 matches... hard for me to put them ahead of some of these guys with a couple of loses on their record/ but hard to argue with never lost! Still have to believe if we multiply their matches by 3 or 4 or 5 in some cases that someone wouldnt have found a chink in the armor!

 

[hooraybeer]

Streetcar is one hell of a wrestler, but being 21 at your 1st NCAA championships puts you way down the list. Lee Kemp. Jason Nolf, Bo, Snyder, Zain. How old Levi at his last NCAA?

 

[Joejitsu]

Streetcar is one hell of a wrestler, but being 21 at your 1st NCAA championships puts you way down the list. Lee Kemp. Jason Nolf, Bo, Snyder, Zain. How old Levi at his last NCAA?

IDK... there is arguments to be made on both sides of that. Some older guys seem to go backwards and we have seen several recent examples
1. Michael Kemerer
2. Tanner Sloan of SDST
3. Jacori Teemer
4. Kyle Parco
5. Jaydin Eirman
6. Real Woods
7. Kellen Russell

I can go on and on. I am not sure how beneficial that is? I would need more statistics. I feel like especially with the rise of these superstar freshmen... that the age thing only works for some and seems to show regression for some as well. Im not sure how much of advantage that is now?

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

IDK... there is arguments to be made on both sides of that. Some older guys seem to go backwards and we have seen several recent examples
1. Michael Kemerer
2. Tanner Sloan of SDST
3. Jacori Teemer
4. Kyle Parco
5. Jaydin Eirman
6. Real Woods
7. Kellen Russell

I can go on and on. I am not sure how beneficial that is? I would need more statistics. I feel like especially with the rise of these superstar freshmen... that the age thing only works for some and seems to show regression for some as well. Im not sure how much of advantage that is now?

Statistics you say?

5 in 5 - What Might That Look Like? | Wrestling.Guru

Last week the Division I Board of Directors directed the Division I Cabinet to advance a concept that would allow athletes five years of eligibility. Curren ...

wrestling.guru

 

[Joejitsu]

Statistics you say?

View attachment 1368575

5 in 5 - What Might That Look Like? | Wrestling.Guru

Last week the Division I Board of Directors directed the Division I Cabinet to advance a concept that would allow athletes five years of eligibility. Curren ...

wrestling.guru

SO STATISTICALY SPEAKING..... Age does not project success and the trajectory is showing a higher finish for younger athletes than ever before.

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

SO STATISTICALY SPEAKING..... Age does not project success and the trajectory is showing a higher finish for younger athletes than ever before.

Not sure how you got that from what I posted.

 

[Joejitsu]

Not sure how you got that from what I posted.

just reading the article... it is saying that we are seeing trends with the 5 for 5 should make it more difficult than ever to be a 4x er....
and yet we are seeing that according to the chart there have been 6 people granted 8 years of eligibility since 2014

1. Demetrius Romero (Utah valley) he was a 2x AA and his 8th year he qualified for NCAAs but did not place
2. Jaron Sith (UMD)... he also was a 2x AA before and his 8th season he received an at large bid to the NCAAs and did not place
3. Lou DePrez (Binghamton). was a 2x AA and his 8th season he qualified for NCAAs but did not place
4. Clay Lautt (UNC) was an AA in his 7th season but his 8th he qualified and did not place
5. Marcus Coleman (Iowa St) he looks like the exception to this group and had i think his highest placing in his 8th season
6. Jakod Campbell (Bucknell). he ws a NQ before and a NQ after not placing any year

so, out of the 6 people granted 8years of eligibility since 2014:
4 placing lower
1 even
1 improved

I know that is still a small sample and may need to look in depth at the 7year guys.. that may be where the rubber meets the road
but
1. if the article is right.... this 5 for 5 rule is going to make it harder bc you have to beat 5 classes now not 4
2. the extreme end (the 8year guys) show a serious negative trend
3. bc the trend seems to show that true freshman seem to be coming into college more ready to compete than ever

Not sure but... it is not looking like age seems to be a positive thing on the back end as much as it is on he front end

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

just reading the article... it is saying that we are seeing trends with the 5 for 5 should make it more difficult than ever to be a 4x er....
and yet we are seeing that according to the chart there have been 6 people granted 8 years of eligibility since 2014

1. Demetrius Romero (Utah valley) he was a 2x AA and his 8th year he qualified for NCAAs but did not place
2. Jaron Sith (UMD)... he also was a 2x AA before and his 8th season he received an at large bid to the NCAAs and did not place
3. Lou DePrez (Binghamton). was a 2x AA and his 8th season he qualified for NCAAs but did not place
4. Clay Lautt (UNC) was an AA in his 7th season but his 8th he qualified and did not place
5. Marcus Coleman (Iowa St) he looks like the exception to this group and had i think his highest placing in his 8th season
6. Jakod Campbell (Bucknell). he ws a NQ before and a NQ after not placing any year

so, out of the 6 people granted 8years of eligibility since 2014:
4 placing lower
1 even
1 improved

I know that is still a small sample and may need to look in depth at the 7year guys.. that may be where the rubber meets the road
but
1. if the article is right.... this 5 for 5 rule is going to make it harder bc you have to beat 5 classes now not 4
2. the extreme end (the 8year guys) show a serious negative trend
3. bc the trend seems to show that true freshman seem to be coming into college more ready to compete than ever

Not sure but... it is not looking like age seems to be a positive thing on the back end as much as it is on he front end

Seventh and eighth year guys are too rare to even discuss. Besides, the only realistic way to be around that long was if you had a history of injuries.

And with the new rules they are a thing of the past. When discussing age only 5th and 6th year guys are relevant statistically (and now by rule).

 

[Joejitsu]

Seventh and eighth year guys are too rare to even discuss. Besides, the only realistic way to be around that long was if you had a history of injuries.

And with the new rules they are a thing of the past. When discussing age only 5th and 6th year guys are relevant statistically (and now by rule).

i agree if we are talking relevance and but we were saying that age doesn't seem to help. And at least on the extreme measure of that scale that seems to hold true

The 8 years guys would have had to have been the oldest wrestlers wrestling at NCAAs and we are talking about 6 since 2014
4 of those 6 did not have their highest finish
1 equled his highest
1 had his highest

So 66% went backwards in the most extreme sample and like 85% did not fare better...
the next oldest bracket is the 7 year guys and I am betting the stats hold similar

and I cannot blame it all on the injuries for them fairing worse bc out of the 6 at least four of them finished higher the year before.
So i get what you are saying that this is not a true measurement

but as a cursory test at the most extreme sample.... the oldest of the old.
The statement would hold true

"AGE DID NOT HELP THEM"

plus 5 year guys may not count much bc the age gap (pending birthdates) is often a matter of months between them and some of the 4 year guys
the 6 year guys can still fall within a year or two to some 4 year guys... so not enough gap in a lot of cases to determine definitviely

However by your 7th and 8th you... you have created a gap. I just dont think it is typically to the wrestlers benefit
JMO and at least the highest age group seems to bear that out

 

[lionlover]

Nobody is saying Dan Gable either but he was 117-1 / had over 100 consecutive wins.... a streak of more than 25 straight pins.... and his olympic run was un heard of

Dan Hodge.... yes he was only 46-0 but he had 36 pins and did not surrender a single takedown

The Gable loss was a choke loss; same with Spencer Lee's loss.

https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/iowa-greats-coach-dan-gable-and-spencer-lee.1776162/

 

[Sportfan2017]

I will go with Cael, Dake, Haselrig and either Gable or Yianni or Starocci or Brooks. I keep waffling on the last 4.