Pennsylvania had it’s most disappointing tournament in years, with just six All Americans from it’s 41 qualifiers, both the lowest numbers in years. I took a look at the recruiting rankings for the classes that were eligible to wrestle at the NCAA tournament this year and came up with some overarching patterns. In short, I think this is a blip, but it is something to monitor going forward, particularly with the very highly rated classes that are currently in high school.
The Forever In College COVID Kids Are Few
One of the striking graphics of the NCAA tournament was the number of All Americans who were in the high school class of 2019. These are wrestlers in their sixth year of college, so they could be as old as 25 wrestling 19 year old freshmen. This would be wrestlers who took a redshirt year other than 2021 (most of them in 2020), then had a free year in 2021, then could start their four year eligibility clock when in their third year of college. The most notable of these is a Pennsylvania kid, Carter Starocci, who won his fifth NCAA title, a record that will likely never be matched and certainly not broken. But beyond Starocci, the only 2019 kids I could find that were top recruits were Jared McGill (NCAA qualifier, but never a factor) and Edmond Ruth, who lost in the All American round. This is also a class of busts – Ryan Anderson was an academic non-qualifier and never got it together to have a career, Julian Chlebove was a massive disappointment at the NCAA level, and the rest of the top ten were never really factors in college.
The 2020 and 2021 Graduating Classes Were Massive Disappointments
The class of 2020 is a lot of “oh yeah, I remember that guy, whatever happened to him?” Gerrit Nijenhuis was the top guy in his class, and while he qualified for the tournament multiple times, he never jumped levels to being an AA threat. Thayne Lawrence, Gaige Garcia, Colby Whitehill, Sam Hillegan, Kenny Hermann, Cole Handlovic were all national caliber recruits who were never consistent starters. Ed Scott was an All American in the past, but injuries have slowed his career. The 2021 class is even more of a minefield. Lenny Pinto lost in the All American round for the second straight year, he’s the top recruit from PA in that group. Nobody else in the top ten is close to a threat, and I think you could put the “bust” label on seven of the top 11 recruits in the class. Even Paniro Johnson, who was the four seed this year, lost a lot of his eligibility to the huge gambling scandal at Iowa State. It’s a rough group in hindsight.
Lots of Stars in Redshirt
The biggest story of PA kids in college might be who wasn’t in Philly this weekend. Ryan Crookham would have been the favorite at 133 after finishing 3rd as a redshirt freshman (with two wins over the NCAA champ), but an elbow injury cost him his season. Ty Watters (West Virginia) was an All American as a true freshman but also had to take a medical year this season. Bret Unger (Cornell), Jackson Arrington (NC State), and Sonny Sasso (Virginia Tech) are all guys who could make the All American leap but took developmental redshirt years for lineup reasons. You also had returning NCAA finalist Rocco Welsh (Ohio State) take the year off while fifth year senior Carson Kharchla finished his eligibility, he’ll be a title contender next season. And most of the top true freshmen from PA sat out the year, with just #2 Conner Harer (Rutgers) and #10 Dillon Bechtold (Bucknell) wrestling – Bechtold was an NCAA qualifier and Harer didn’t quite make it through the meat grinder that is the Big Ten.
Ivy League Disappointment?
Looking at these rankings, one thing I notice is the amount of high level PA kids who went to Ivy League schools and did not have the careers their recruiting rankings would indicate. One thing that I don’t think kids realize about the Ivy League schools is that they do not give athletic scholarships, but in turn, they have tons of aid money that they very generously provide to wrestlers and in turn bring in massive recruiting classes, where they just have kids duke it out once they get to the room. It’s kind of like an unlimited scholarship model (which I know coaches complain about) but also lets really talented kids kind of get stuck where they’re not going to wrestle, but they’re not going to leave because they’re at Cornell, Princeton, Harvard or Columbia. Lehigh to an extent also gets away with this despite giving true scholarships, but they split money and find aid money about as well as their Ivy League counterparts.
Going Forward
For next season, I think the 2022 group needs to be well represented on the podium. So far, Crookham, Levi Haines, Mac Stout, and Jacob Van Dee have AA’d. Nick Feldman not being part of that group is a disappointment so far and I think Ohio State is depending on him getting on the podium next year. Jackson Arrington should be ready to make that leap too, and somebody like Jude Swisher was an unexpected blood round finisher this year, can he improve on that? Then the 2023 gropu could have breakouts – Welsh and Watters are NCAA finalist talents who redshirted, Tyler Kasak has taken third twice and is a bona fide star. Who else is going to do that? Mac Church had big recruiting hype, but he’s also gained 25 pounds in college and isn’t as dynamic at 165 as he was at 141. Vinny Kilkeary hasn’t made the Ohio State lineup yet, nor has Sonny Sasso at Virginia Tech. Dylan Evans was a qualifier, but went 0-2. This group is going to be what improves Pennsylvania’s performance. I don’t think the 2024 class has a ton of stars – I like Rune Lawrence, but am skepitcal of West Virginia’s development. Harer had a promising freshman year, Pierson Manville has had some freestyle success in redshirt. The guy I have my eye on is Tucker Hogan at Lock Haven, who I thought was really well prepped for college as a high school kid and I’d like to see how he blossoms. Then the senior class is on paper loaded – do guys like Maddox Shaw, Aaron Seidel, Asher Cunningham, Collin Gaj, Tahir Parkins, etc. wrestle right away and how quickly are they in an AA conversation?
Adding onto this - a big reason Pennsylvania's numbers were down is the worst NCAA year from District 11 in over 50 years. I tracked the numbers, the two NCAA qualifiers from D11 schools was the lowest number we sent to the NCAA tournament since 1967, when Jim Purdy (Wilson/East Stroudsburg/my elementary school gym teacher) and John Rushatz (Dieruff/Lehigh) were the only D11 alumni in the field. Obviously Ryan Crookham taking an injury redshirt kept a D11 alumni who was a likely finalist out of the tournament, but that still would be the worst qualifier total since 2008, when we sent three and had a ten year All American streak broken (and 1997's NCAA performance prompted Ted Meixell's famous "Has D11 Lost It?" column, which by 1999 when we had four All Americans, the answer was an obvious "no").
Obviously D11 has been hurt by some of those high level trends cited above - Kenny Hermann, Cole Handlovic, Jagger Condomitti, Brandan Chletsos, Sonny Sasso, Holden Garcia, Dagen Condomitti, (non-starters despite national pedigree), Brett Ungar, Ryan Crookham, Ayden Smith (redshirts), and Sean Kinney (national caliber but playing another sport) takes a lot of guys I would have assumed would be qualifiers coming out of HS just not in the mix this year. The 2008 group had similar issues, with Mike Rogers, Jeff Ecklof, Tim Darling, Josh Oliver, Jay Morrison, Bryan Reiss (academics/discipline/development), Josh Haines, Joey Ecklof, Nick Guida, Jon Oplinger, Alex Krom, Joe Caramanica (injury) all national caliber kids coming out of D11 that weren't going to the tournament. Krom bounced back from a separated shoulder to All American the next year, which started the current 16 year streak (non-COVID) D11 is currently experiencing - Tyler Kasak taking 3rd this year tied with 1969 to 1984 for the longest AA streak from D11.
But it seems like it comes in waves where you get these high profile groups (Rogers, Haines, Darling, the Ecklofs were all national top 20 recruits and the rest of that certainly top 100 national kids in the same way Hermann, Handlovic, Condomitti, all were)) who just don't hit versus big groups that ALL seem to hit (the Bryan Snyder, Jon Trenge, Rob Rohn, Jamarr Billman, Travis Doto, Joey Killar, Mario Stuart, Brad Dillon, Matt Feast, Chris Vitale generation in college in the late 90s/early 00s that is just a boatload of All Americans). It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple years.
Raw Data for D11 by Year at the NCAA Division I Tournament
1967: 2 Qualifiers, 1 R12
1968: 3 Qualifiers
1969: 3 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans
1970: 6 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 3 All Americans, 2 Finalist, 1 Champ
1971: 3 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans, 2 Finalists, 2 Champs
1972: 4 Qualifiers, 1 R12, All American, 1 Finalist
1973: 5 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 2 All Americans, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
1974; 4 Qualifiers, 3 All Americans, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
1975; 6 Qualifiers, 1 All American, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
1976: 6 Qualifiers, 2 R12, 1 All American
1977: 5 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
1978: 6 Qualifiers, 1 All American
1979: 9 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 3 All Americans, 1 Finalist
1980: 7 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 5 All Americans, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
(tied-most AA's)
1981: 7 Qualifiers, 3 All Americans
1982: 5 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
1983: 4 Qualifeirs, 1 R12, 1 All American
1984: 6 Qualifiers, 1 All American
1985: 6 Qualifiers, 1 R12
1986: 7 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 3 All Americans, 1 Finalist
1987: 8 Qualifiers, 4 All Americans, 1 Finalist
1988: 11 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 4 All Americans, 3 Finalist, 3 Champs
(tied most finalists/most champs)
1989: 10 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 5 All Americans, 2 Finalists, 2 Champs
(tied-most AA's)
1990: 6 Qualifiers, 2 R12, 1 All American, 1 Finalist
1991: 6 Qualifiers, 1 All American
1992: 7 Qualifiers, 1 All American
1993: 11 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
1994: 9 Qualifiers, 2 R12
1995: 7 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
1996; 12 Qualifiers, 3 R12
1997: 4 Qualifiers
1998: 5 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans
1999: 7 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 4 All Americans
2000: 7 Qualifiers, 5 All Americans
2001: 8 Qualifiers, 4 All Americans, 1 Finalist
2002: 12 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 4 All Americans, 3 Finalists, 1 Champ
(tied most finalists)
2003: 10 Qualifiers, 3 All Americans, 1 Finalist
2004: 13 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 5 All Americans (
most qualifiers/tied-most AA's)
2005: 7 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans
2006: 9 Qualifiers, 1 All American
2007: 7 Qualifiers, 1 All American
2008: 3 Qualifiers
2009: 4 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
2010: 9 Qualifiers, 2 R12, 1 All American
2011: 5 Qualifiers, 1 All American, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
2012: 7 Qualifiers, 2 R12, 1 All American, 1 Finalist
2013: 7 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans, 1 Finalist, 1 Champ
2014: 12 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 3 All Americans, 2 Finalists
2015: 8 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 2 All Americans, 1 Finalist
2016: 6 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
2017: 6 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans, 2 Finalists, 1 Champ
2018: 7 Qualifiers, 3 All Americans
2019: 7 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans
2020: 7 Qualifiers, COVID (two top 8 seeds)
2021: 6 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans, 1 Finalist
2022: 6 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans
2023: 4 Qualifiers, 2 All Americans, 2 Finalists
2024: 6 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 2 All Americans
2025: 2 Qualifiers, 1 R12, 1 All American
Qualifier = made the tournament
R12 = Lost in the round to earn All American status (last four out)
All American = top 8 finisher at NCAAs
Finalist = Top 2 finisher
Champ = Won it
