THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

  We highlighted the wrestlers who are ILLINI or who have direct connections. Of course, we want all of them to come to ILLINOIS. What a powerful group of wrestlers! There was no Braeden Scoles and no reason given. INDIVIDUAL RESULTS   From the #11 seed slot, Wyatt Medlin fought his way through the entire bracket and made the best of three Finals for the World Team. He ended up losing the third of the three matches 4-6 in a very tumultuous and controversial match. Still, he became a US Open Silver Medalist and World Team alternate.  Here's a short video showing highlights from Medlin's first match in the tournament with credit to Alice Cooper and FloWrestling: After the first day, Kannon Webster remains on the Championship side of the bracket in the Quarters. He has scored 32 points in three matches to his opponents' 0. It'd be more but there's a mercy rule.  Kannon's in the quarters against Tony Conetta of App State. Match #4305. Will is deep in the consolatio

  THE COVERAGE Before getting into individual results, a few words about the broadcast on Peacock, a little post mortem on the coverage. The short version is that the $5.99 plus tax was totally worth it, but I will not have a Peacock sub by next week.  In my opinion,  Peacock  did an excellent job, much better than Flo. That's especially true regarding everything besides the finals. Those are usually less than impressive when viewed through a Flo lens. It was quick and easy to switch mats. The only glitches for me occurred after about :20 into a new match, the system reset. I did have a couple of short outages on day one.  The cameras were top notch, and they brought you right into the action. Cameras now have zoom lenses! There were also actual camera operators who turned the cameras to continuously face the action. I was not aware that that was possible.  I will certainly cancel Peacock after about a week. It offers almost nothing besides a  Real Housewives  for every major metro

 

  WHO :  ZANE RICHARDS, DANNY BRAUNAGEL & ZAC BRAUNAGEL WHAT :  OLYMPIC TEAM TRIALS COMPETITION WHERE :  Bryce Jordan Center, Penn State University WHY :  SELECT AMERICAN TEAM FOR PARIS OLYMPICS TV/STREAMING :  PEACOCK & USA NETWORK (only finals both days) WHEN :  Friday April 19 and Saturday April 20 (Eastern times below) PEACOCK / USA NETWORK Note that USA Network will only show the finals on Friday and Saturday evening. We signed up for Peacock for $5.99 per month (cancel anytime supposedly) so that we can watch all of the matches. You can sign up at this link . They do have movies and tv shows. Appealing to us, they have just uploaded Oppenheimer, and we haven't seen that yet, but they also have The Dog Who Saved Halloween , so maybe some stinkers too.  MONEYBALL!   In this post, we dive into the characteristics of the first-round opponents of the IRTC wrestlers. This is our  Moneyball  look at their opponents. What stances and ties do they favor? What kind of shots/th

Back in 1980, the  Chicago Sun Times  published a review by Roger Ebert about a movie that "never finds a consistent comic note of its own," that also "never develops a plot," and that never allows the "central characters" to get "involved in the same action."  He was writing about  Caddyshack . By way of explanation of the comic strip below for the younglings, here's a very short  :23  video of one of the greatest movies ever made: How does this relate to wrestling? Well, because Jombo™ has become involved. Also, it is my firm belief that the least likely person in the history of mankind to have ever liked amateur wrestling is Roger Ebert. And yet, in 1985, Ebert gave  Vision Quest  3½ stars. I think that's pretty interesting.  This is less a comic strip and more a working hypothesis:

The ILLINI bolstered the upper weights with a clutch commitment from Mount Carmel great Colin Kelly. A two-time IHSA champion, three-time finalist and Big Boarder, he had originally committed to Wisconsin. But he came home. To celebrate the great news, we prepared a video: This young fella reminds us of ILLINI Legends like Pete Friedl and Brian Glynn. Those two combined for 5 AA finishes, a pair of NCAA Bronze Medals, and two spots on the top ten list for ILLINI career victories. If Colin can match or even exceed that, he'll have had a Hall of Fame college career. Congratulations to Colin, his family, friends and workout partners, the Caravan, the Tinley Park Bulldogs, his coaches and the ILLINI coaching staff. Well done!  The video also celebrates the latest ILLINI recruits. Credit to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for "Home." Also, video credit to the NCAA, ESPN, and FloWrestling (I guess, but their video sucks). Photo credits to Jackie Colon, the University of I