Coaches upped the major tournaments last year...
... precisely to address this point. Competing in the highest level tournaments like Vegas and Scuffle are absolutely way more grueling than duels and really prep a team for the ACC and NCAA tournaments. But this was a weird year for everyone with COVID exposure as a huge deterrent that could have crushed a team at any moment. It was impossible to prep normally for the tournament this year.
And as far as this year's finish (yet to be determined) goes, it is about as good as I would have hoped for at the beginning of the season, but less than many (myself included) hoped for based on the rankings going in. Lets not overlook the impact of having less than 50% of Mekhi. He would have racked up double digit points if he could have wrestled uninjured. So bummed for him.
But this team is good and has the capacity to be great over the next two years: pretty much the schedule I expected for them when this season began. I expect young guys like Latona, Andonian and Catka will wrestle to full expectations this time next year.
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In response to this post by WPAHokie)
Posted: 03/20/2021 at 10:33AM