I'll add much more to this when I have time over the weekend, but a few notes, starting with schedule that i gleaned from this FloWrestling article that had all schedules out listed:
• UVA is the only ACC that has released their schedule so far, NC State travels up there for a Friday night match Jan. 24. ACCs will be in Pittsburgh (March 7) and NCAAs in Minneapolis (March 19-21).
• All Big Ten teams except Illinois, Indiana and Maryland have released their schedules and I didn't see any duals with NCSU (though they could conceivably hit in a dual tourney).
• One of the marquee matches will be at Cornell Nov. 23. Cornell finished seventh at NCAAs last year and has not finished outside of the nation's top 10 since 2006-07 (12th) or the top 20 since 2000-01. However, all signs point to two-time champ Yianni D. (141) taking an Olympic redshirt.
• Binghamton — where both head coach Pat Popolizio had his first head job and NCAA champ Nick Gwiazdowski started their career — hosts NCSU Nov. 23, which isn't surprising. The Pack has a strong NY presence, especially that area, on their roster and is recruits hard there.
• Hofstra hosts NC State Jan. 18, and Princeton comes to Raleigh Jan. 11.
• App State hosts the Wolfpack Dec. 13.
• I imagine they'll also compete at the Journeymen Classic Nov. 10 in Troy, N.Y. and that they'll host the Wolfpack Duals and Wolfpack Open on one of the season's first weekends (Nov. 17-18 last year) — they have traditionally done all of these events. App Sate's schedule had the Wolfpack Open down for Nov. 17.
Preseason Rankings
Insert your stock preseason rankings disclaimer here — they don't matter, yada, yada. … However you view them, I'm just glad to see some coming out because it means the season is close.
W.I.N. Magazine is the first outlet I've seen come out with them. They're probably not the best outlet for such things, in my humble opinion, but it's a starting point.
The shocker here is not that they have NC State and Virginia Tech tied for 17th nationally in their Tournament Power Index (which takes their top 20 individual rankings and plugs them into a scoring rubric similar to NCAAs) … it's that they have a different ACC team leading the way for the conference at No. 11 — Pitt. Others from the league ranked were No. 20 UNC and No. 23 UVA.
Now, it's also worth noting that their Tournament Power Index is way, way, way different than what would happen at an ACC Tournament or in the regular season, but I digress.
Wolfpackers in WIN's top 20 for each weight:
141 — R-Jr. Tariq Wilson, No. 11
157 — R-Jr. Hayden Hidlay, No. 1
165 — R-Jr. Thomas Bullard, No. 14
197 — R-Jr. Nick Reenan, No. 11
Personally, I think that Wilson and Reenan are way too low. I think both are darkhorse national title contenders. 141 really cleared out due to graduation and Olympic redshirts, etc., and Wilson looks huge (see tweet below). Reenan is coming back from the torn ACL and hasn't All-Americaned yet, but if he can regain his form from the last summer, when he reached Final X, he is one of the best in the nation at that weight.
Flo is breaking down the "tiers" of each weight on their podcasts, and I'll go through and grab some of those comments over the weekend, just figured I'd whet the appetites a bit.
• Finally, alum Nick Gwiazdowski is at the world championships and will be in action Sept. 20-21. The 125-kilogramer has won two straight bronze medals at Worlds and is looking to climb the podium even higher. He looked better than ever at Final X and was pushed unlike he had been before the previous two world championships he competed in so we'll see how that translates.
Gwiazdowski enters as the 4 seed, per this preview from USA Wrestling: https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/September/11/MFS-World-125-kg-preview
Because of how the world championships brackets work, some would argue the 4 seed is better than the 2 or 3 … but at the same time that means No. 1 — Georgia's Geno Petriashvili, the two-time defending world champion — is on his half of the bracket, and they'd likely meet in the semifinals.
• UVA is the only ACC that has released their schedule so far, NC State travels up there for a Friday night match Jan. 24. ACCs will be in Pittsburgh (March 7) and NCAAs in Minneapolis (March 19-21).
• All Big Ten teams except Illinois, Indiana and Maryland have released their schedules and I didn't see any duals with NCSU (though they could conceivably hit in a dual tourney).
• One of the marquee matches will be at Cornell Nov. 23. Cornell finished seventh at NCAAs last year and has not finished outside of the nation's top 10 since 2006-07 (12th) or the top 20 since 2000-01. However, all signs point to two-time champ Yianni D. (141) taking an Olympic redshirt.
• Binghamton — where both head coach Pat Popolizio had his first head job and NCAA champ Nick Gwiazdowski started their career — hosts NCSU Nov. 23, which isn't surprising. The Pack has a strong NY presence, especially that area, on their roster and is recruits hard there.
• Hofstra hosts NC State Jan. 18, and Princeton comes to Raleigh Jan. 11.
• App State hosts the Wolfpack Dec. 13.
• I imagine they'll also compete at the Journeymen Classic Nov. 10 in Troy, N.Y. and that they'll host the Wolfpack Duals and Wolfpack Open on one of the season's first weekends (Nov. 17-18 last year) — they have traditionally done all of these events. App Sate's schedule had the Wolfpack Open down for Nov. 17.
Preseason Rankings
Insert your stock preseason rankings disclaimer here — they don't matter, yada, yada. … However you view them, I'm just glad to see some coming out because it means the season is close.
W.I.N. Magazine is the first outlet I've seen come out with them. They're probably not the best outlet for such things, in my humble opinion, but it's a starting point.
The shocker here is not that they have NC State and Virginia Tech tied for 17th nationally in their Tournament Power Index (which takes their top 20 individual rankings and plugs them into a scoring rubric similar to NCAAs) … it's that they have a different ACC team leading the way for the conference at No. 11 — Pitt. Others from the league ranked were No. 20 UNC and No. 23 UVA.
Now, it's also worth noting that their Tournament Power Index is way, way, way different than what would happen at an ACC Tournament or in the regular season, but I digress.
Wolfpackers in WIN's top 20 for each weight:
141 — R-Jr. Tariq Wilson, No. 11
157 — R-Jr. Hayden Hidlay, No. 1
165 — R-Jr. Thomas Bullard, No. 14
197 — R-Jr. Nick Reenan, No. 11
Personally, I think that Wilson and Reenan are way too low. I think both are darkhorse national title contenders. 141 really cleared out due to graduation and Olympic redshirts, etc., and Wilson looks huge (see tweet below). Reenan is coming back from the torn ACL and hasn't All-Americaned yet, but if he can regain his form from the last summer, when he reached Final X, he is one of the best in the nation at that weight.
Flo is breaking down the "tiers" of each weight on their podcasts, and I'll go through and grab some of those comments over the weekend, just figured I'd whet the appetites a bit.
• Finally, alum Nick Gwiazdowski is at the world championships and will be in action Sept. 20-21. The 125-kilogramer has won two straight bronze medals at Worlds and is looking to climb the podium even higher. He looked better than ever at Final X and was pushed unlike he had been before the previous two world championships he competed in so we'll see how that translates.
Gwiazdowski enters as the 4 seed, per this preview from USA Wrestling: https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/September/11/MFS-World-125-kg-preview
Because of how the world championships brackets work, some would argue the 4 seed is better than the 2 or 3 … but at the same time that means No. 1 — Georgia's Geno Petriashvili, the two-time defending world champion — is on his half of the bracket, and they'd likely meet in the semifinals.
