Re: 2022-2023 Season
Legitimately my favorite day of the year. First day of both the NCAA wrestling and Basketball tournaments.
Today is an absolutely massive day for the fellas in their quest to become All Americans. You don't AA on day one, but you can put yourself in position to AA the following day. Making the quarterfinals is huge in terms of AAing. If you make it there, you have 2 chances to win a match to AA, if you don't make the quarterfinals, your back is against the wall and you have to win multiple matches to gain AA status all while facing your season end with a loss.
Today will be massive for Caliendo. Kharchala is great and a returning All American, but if Mikey can win that 2nd round match and make the quarterfinals, I think he'll AA. Losing to Kharchala forces him to likely beat the 4 or 5 seed to AA, which is much tougher than winning in the quarters.
Franek has a great path to the quarterfinals and just needs to take care of business.
Pentz has a tough first round match against a great Greco wrestler, who may well be the US representative at 97kg in the 2024 Olympics. Owen is so successful because he can get to his ties, and that's generally a lot tougher to do against greco guys, as that is 90% of what greco is. Winning that first match will be big, because I don't like his path on the consolation side with a 1st round loss. If he can beat Amos, I like him to make the round of 16. First round match is a true coin flip to me. Owen is always dangerous and if he beats Amos, let's see what he can do vs Nino.
March needs to win right away. He's probably a little more than a coin flip favorite in his opener, but it'll be crucial to get a win. I think their is a path to AA for March, but it'll take a first round win and some great wrestling and aggressiveness on the consolation side. As is, I think he's a round of 16 guy.
Midkiff has a great shot to win his first match, which would be awesome. He's beaten Oakley once before and I like him to do it again. After that, he's got multiple chances to win in the consolation bracket. I expect him to have Brayden Palmer, and that's winnable. After that, it's Biscoglia or Shaner, which is winnable too. He's playing with house money and I hope he goes out there and wins a couple matches.
DJ got screwed on his seed and it makes for a very tough path. If he loses to Munoz, and going strictly by seeds, he'd have Antrassian (I think he wins), Feldkamp (winnable), then Kane (very good, but does have inexplicable cold matches at times), and then would have Finesilver/Salazar to AA. Odds of him stringing a bunch of wins together are slim, but it isn't an undoable task. Hoping he goes out there, is aggressive from neutral, like he has been the whole 2nd half of the year, gets to his tilts, and racks up the points.
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Originally Posted by NDSU_grad
