Well, I'm in a foul mood after watching that steaming pile of a tournament. But here are my thoughts with as few curse words as possible.
125: Looking forward to DeLuca.
141: There should be a Lemon Law for NIL guys that underperform as badly as Bailey. He's like a car you drive off the lot and 10 miles down the road the transmission falls out. As for Peterson, he's competent, but not slick, strong, or tough enough to ever compete at NCAAs.
149-157: Not impressed with Voinovich brothers. See Peterson, above. Williams needed the matches and wrestled decent--2 top-20-ish wins, but didn't dominate. He gets a "Pass."
174: Arnold blew it. Can't settle for coin-flip matches with mid-AAs. That was an R12 match. Didn't he just say how much he blew it at NCCAs? He just went out and wrestled the same way. Stop talking if you don't mean it. On the positive side, he showed he is in good shape at 174, didn't tire. He just has to step on the gas--don't stop at R12, like too many other Iowa guys in recent history. Set your sights at being the 174 CHAMP next year. If he wrestled with that mindset he would've won handily.
197: Mixed reviews on Ludington. Generally wrestled well, shows potential on his feet. BUT he's got to improve A LOT if he's going to be the man at 197 for the next 4 years. This is not the '80s where you've got 2-3 years to ease into AA range. This is the 2020s, where guys are contenders right out of high school. Right now Ludington is looking like a #30-ranked guy. He's gotta believe he can be an NCAA champ NOW and wrestle with that mindset. Or he's gonna spend 4 years in the lineup and end up a 1X AA. We can't afford that. We need him to be a finalist next year, not an R12. In any case, he needed matches and he got them.
Overall, lots of mediocre wrestling in a mostly-empty arena. National Duals were great. Lots of terrific wrestling and top-notch early-season competition. Keep that on the schedule, and kill the Soldier Salute, which no longer serves a purpose. But don't host a party and then not show up. That just burns bridges, which seems to be our forte.
I'm gonna go wrestle with my kid and try to erase Soldier Salute from my memory.