rjs4470

From what I've heard they have no plans on cutting the program. It's going to be tough to recruit high level guys due to the 4 year post season ban. As far as conference, the MAC or Southern could be a good fit as an affiliate member. Hopefully they last through my sons last 3 years. They put a ton of money (they purchased an old church a couple of miles from campus) into a wrestling facility, that currently serves no other purpose. I can’t see them cutting the program.

In many states, duals make up a very large part, if not most of the season. Where I’m from, teams wrestle in maybe 2 or 3 individual tournaments (not including post season) with the rest of the season made up of 2 or 3 team dual meets. Forfeits are a real drag, both for teams and spectators when duals are most of your season, which is why there’s a push to reduce classes.

Pretty sure you’re right, that’s 2013. I have the 2014 Team Ky pic somewhere.

The oldest kids in this group would now be Going into their junior year of college, correct? Of course TKC is going into his junior year of high school....that kid has been wrestling at a high level for forever. Found some old pics of my son from his first year of wrestling. Still can’t believe he is now a sophomore in college wrestling as a 250 lb heavyweight.

I think the reference was to State Duals, not the individual tourney.

I hope they treated you well in my home state of Delaware. I had no idea they held that tourney until now.

It's a big thing to represent KY. I wouldn't think it should matter which team you're on. Whether Blue or White, it's a great opportunity, and a chance to face quality competition.

Costs are certainly a concern, and while I was coaching middle school, unfortunately we passed the USA cost to the wrestler. I know not all schools can do that, and even we had a few on "scholarship". Kenton County doesn't bus, so obviously we don't have those costs, but fees are the main reason we started hosting tourney's, and our tourney's basically covered our fees for the entire year. I'm completely with you on the High School coach issue. If a coach is KHSAA certified, they should be able to coach their middle school kids.

How close do hotels need to be? Yes, none are in walking distance, but there are plenty of hotels within a 10-15 minute drive. And there are more than enough restaurants, especially when you consider downtown Cincinnati. There are issues with holding the event at BB&T...lack of amenities is not one of them.

I simply don’t get why they haven’t moved away from bout sheets and to live, matside scoring on track. In addition to being faster, people can follow matches and scoring live on the dashboard online.

Not having wrestled, doesn’t make one clueless.

I'm almost certain BB&T can fit 8 mats. The problem with BB&T is tying it up for 3 days (1 evening of set up, 2 days of wrestling) during basketball season. Just at first glance, at least this season, they don't have a stretch of Thurs-Saturday completely free of men's/women's basketball the entire month of February. I'm guessing the same will be true next year. Plus, it's still going be a 3-4 hour drive for a portion of the state. While I don't love Alltech for wrestling, I still don't understand why so many hate it. And while Ky's state tourney isn't the best (or even close) in terms of venue and atmosphere, it certainly isn't the worst either. There are still states that hold their tourney in a high school gym. And if you listen to other sports throughout the state, you hear just as much, if not more griping about the State Championship/tourneys. I agree, that many times wrestling gets the short end of the stick in KY, it's also not nearly as bad as many wrestling fans like to make it out to be, and the whining/"no one cares about wrestling in this state" position so many in the sport take, doesn't do anything to make the situation better, and makes people further tune out the sport.

Flawed logic, since middle school football is for the most part, done by the end of October, and football players at most, miss maybe a week or two of practice. I know, I coached both sports at the middle school level. Starting the season later isn't going to bring more football players in. It may push baseball players out though, especially those that play up for their high schools, or those involved in travel ball. And while I can appreciate that starting the season later syncs up better with Ohio's season (at least here in NKY), in reality, that only affects the first 3 weeks of the season as it currently stands in KY, and if you want to seek out competition in Ohio, you still can with the season as it currently stands. And what it definitely will do is create competition for practice space for the school based teams, as spring sports will need the indoor facilities in the spring because of iffy weather conditions driving outdoor sports indoors. Again, this affects school based teams more than club based teams. It just feels like many of the decisions that have been made are benefiting the club based teams, and could push school teams that are already fighting an uphill battle, out of the sport.

It’s a bad move that I suspect will have a negative impact on numbers, at least on the school teams. There’s simply no good reason to extend the middle school season that much past the high school season.

I believe Ranger usually does this in his State Tournament summary.

How do you evenly and fairly put together a 16 man bracket with 5 regions? Some region placers have to get left out, or you only take the top 3, and have a bye. The math simply doesn’t work. And expanding to a 32 man bracket by taking the top 6 makes it tough to do the tourney in one day. Not to mention some regions don’t even have 6 guys in some weight classes.

These rankings are only 5 days old.

Based on what I saw today they would qualify all 14 guys in Region 6

Yes. Scott and Walton still have to wrestle, which will hopefully happen next week. Scott defeated Harrison, and Harrison then beat Walton. If Scott beats Walton, then Scott and Harrison qualify. If Walton beats Scott, then things get a little tricky.

Scott was also missing starters at 120, 195 and 285.

Most of those options don’t allow someone who loses early an opportunity to finish 3rd either. Even the NCAA has rules about number of matches you can wrestle in a day (it’s 6) and every NCAA tourney I’ve been to has guys miss out on placement matches. A line has to be drawn somewhere. And quite honestly, in an everyday, average HS tourney that has top guys sitting out in almost every weight class (which is almost every weekend), who cares if you finish 3rd or 4th, or even win? These tourneys are all lead ups to the big events, region and state, one of which is a blind draw (so that 4th vs 3rd means nothing). Bottom line, regardless of seeding, if you want to place high, you can’t lose early. That’s why most high level tourneys, where you likely can run into a hammer early, are two day events. Sure it’s nice to take home placement medals. But in the grand scheme of things, 3rd vs 4th at an everyday tourney just isn’t that big of deal, or worth changing a rule that’s in place due to safety.

I still don't think a ton of our guys are even bothering to try to wrestle in college, despite there being a ton of opportunity. For example, D2 Bellarmine had exactly one Kentucky kid in their freshman recruiting class. I know Lindsey had a nice KY recruiting class, and Kentucky Wesleyan got a few top kids from instate, but besides that, I'm not sure there's enough instate interest to even help push the big D1 schools to add a program. We can't even get a lot of KY kids to fill the 6 or 7 smaller college programs we already have. And the few top kids that went out of state (Cornett, Mason Smith, Moore, Fausz, Meyers), likely would have gone out of state anyway.

Jared Kelsey from Scott

Wrestling in NKY and the state is going to look a little different next year with the class of 2018 moving on to the next level. Thanks for opening up "The Barn" all these years! We will be there on the 30th to say goodbye!

That's awesome!!