Well, then again…most people are stupid. Cael rules, baby!!!!
The more time I spend here after the nebby win, the worse I feel.
- Thread starter BobPSU92
- Start date
I would certainly love for PSU to have a great basketball team…but not at the expense of the most dominant current sports dynasty in the world.
Only one team had a realistic chance to win the championship. But for some reason about 100 guys left with their face looking like it lost a fight with a cheese grater.
That’s the spirit. I don’t like that Kraft guy. But then again, I don’t like anyone who coaches or ADes.
Sure you can. With NIL "college" athletes have complete free agency to change every year to the highest bidder.
Quite the contrary, and wrestling fans in Iran and Russia, no less Iowa and Oklahoma, would disagree with your suggestion. The PSU wrestling program along with its associated Olympic Regional Training Center has, without exageration, now established World Recognition for its developmental excelence in wrestling. (See the results of this past 12 month period of age catagory World Championships) If more schools cared about wrestling it would just result in an expanded cognisance of PSU's current dominance and superiority in the sport.
Bob was posting about trying to feel good about the Nebby win and this thread turned into a bball wrestling pi$$ing match.
wow. Guess Bob and you are right.
People can be happy we beat Nebraska without trying to make it into more than it is
The fact anyone thinks firing CJF to hire Terry Smith makes any sense is downright laughable.
Be happy for Terry--hope he stays on the next coach's staff. All of that is great...and logical
Wanting him to be our next head coach is about Paterno not Smith
The fact anyone thinks firing CJF to hire Terry Smith makes any sense is downright laughable.
Be happy for Terry--hope he stays on the next coach's staff. All of that is great...and logical
Wanting him to be our next head coach is about Paterno not Smith
From what Terry Smith inherited, he's been nothing short of a miracle worker.
It's one thing to win when everything is going right, your cupboard of recruits is full you have a lap full of NIL money you have a full staff and university support etc. It's another thing to win when the ship is headed for the bottom. Most coaches in the situation Smith found himself in probably wouldn't have won even one game given the implosion that took place. Give me the guy that brought back morale to the locker room the desire to win retained players and pulled out victories against all odds. That's a head coach I would like to be associated with.
“Pulled out victories against all odds”
A factual way to phrase it would be “pulled out victories when the odds were in our favor”. We will (hopefully) end with 3 wins in games where we’re a TD+ favorite. That’s not against all odds. As people were freaking out that we might go 3-9, I was pointing out that 6-6 was the most likely result.
“Most coaches probably wouldn’t have even won one game”? Give me a break…we’re Penn State, we’re better than MSU, a Raiola-less Nebraska, and Rutgers. This shouldn’t be some incredible shock to see us winning these games.
I love what Terry is doing…but it’s ok to be honest with ourselves and see the context of it.
Yes...and losing those games shouldn't mean that we're expected to go winless the rest of the season.
Terry seems to have such a freeroll from the fanbase at this point. Lose a close one to Iowa or Indiana, and that's fine, we're competing (Franklin lost a ton of close ones in those types of games, and was rightfully fired). Beat two teams we should be expected to beat, and it's a miracle that we're able to win a game. I don't get it.
He's getting the team to play hard. Watching the effort and energy in the UCLA and NW game is night and day different than what we are seeing now. The players respond to him. They obviously like playing for him.
This is all the more impressive now in an era where players quit at the drop of a hat, sit out of games, etc. A team with national championship aspirations playing hard while sitting at 3-6 is refreshing to see. Hire Terry.
I'm a big wrestling fan, but wrestling is a "a small pond" when compared basketball. It is just a numbers game.
If there were as many athletes and schools participating in wrestling as there are basketball it would be much more difficult to dominate (and thus be less relevant) the way PSU has in the last 15 years, iowa did prior to them, and Okie St prior to that. Just because it would be more difficult to stockpile the tallent amongst the many more programs.
Much like Duke in basketball is not as relevant as PSU is in wrestling, because in basketball there is UNC, UK, UConn, UCLA, Indiana, Villanova, etc.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it???? Much like if a team has the most dominant current sports dynasty and no one knows or cares, does it really matter.
In the general sense, no one knows. Some people know who is the best soap hockey team in the country (yes, I just discovered that is a sport), but in reality no one knows.
So, basically and sport that is not NCAAF, NCAAMBB, NFL, MLB, NBA, or NHL is unkown.
The current PSU team's backups could field a top 10 and perhaps top 5 scoring team at the National Championships. There are currently 76 schools other than PSU participating in wrestling on a D1 level and these PSU backups currently have plenty of opportunity to attend and start for other schools but they simply chose to stay with the PSU program. Doubling the number of schools offering D1 wrestling would not change their thinking. The program is now capturing age-level world medals at a rate not seen before in our country. The gravitational pull the PSU program has evolved into is truely unique. I see no evidence that multiplying the number of D1 wrestlers by 5 or 10 would change the attitudes of the very best from seeking to be with the very best.
You are correct that doubling the number of schools would not change anything, but if there number of participants was the same as basketball, from ages 5 to 20+ it would be much more difficult to do what PSU is doing now. The other wrestlers (who are now great athletes that play other sports) would be great athletes that now wrestler. This would be 100s of thousands more people participating, some of which are the best athletes in the world. The roster only has 30 spots. Another team or two might be able to pick up 5 or 6 that would be able to win a few matches.
I get it that PSU won the last two titles scoring record points and a year ago the team could have split in 2 and took 1st and 2nd place. Not taking anything away from that. But the number of wrestlers in the world is a drop of water in the ocean compared to basketball. It is much easier to dominate a smaller sport than a large one.
How many basketball teams and players were there when the Wizard of Westwood rattled off 10 National Championships in 12 years. That's an appropriate analogy.
Well, you and I obviously live at different ends of the spectrum. You seem content to live in your happy place; I'm ok with you having your perspective.
That is probably the best analogy.
There were, by my count, 180 to 215 schools in what was called the NCAA University Division from 1963 to 1973. The championship tournament had 22-25 teams depending on the year.
There are now 365 MBB teams in NCAA D1. There are 300k HS wrestlers in the US and 537k HS basketball players (boys only)
Also at that time many teams did not take black players and some that did, had unspoken limits as to how many could be on the team.