THE ILLINI WRESTLING BLOG AND FORUM

CARDANI FINAL It is good that Willie has stopped calling him Cardini, which sounds like an alcoholic beverage. Now, if they could just spell Zac's name correctly! Justin in on a VERY QUICK shot that goes from a single to a double, a lift, and then the score!  This is why I think Justin will be an AA. He can get to legs. All he needed to do was to convert. He's starting to convert.  Long ride. Builds up 1:31 in riding time with multiple high-amplitude mat returns. Ryan Miller from Penn (and Blair Academy before that) finally escapes near the end of the first period.  During that long ride, Izzy and Willie talk about the bottom half of the ILLINI lineup, saying great things. Izzy knows Dylan Duncan, of course, and he wondered when he would "get up off the couch." Haha! They liked the lineup that runs from Cardani to Byrd to Duncan/Carr.  A lot of "firepower" there.  In the second period, Cardani is down. He's built up 1:31 in riding time. The Penn kid is l

Look at pictures: That makes every wrestler from 141 to 197 having an injury or having to sit out to recover. Unreal! We Rachal with a forfeit to start the day off right! Christian Kanzler with multiple blast double legs against Princeton. The Princeton coach was calling for stalling late in the match. Strategic mistake! That was the impetus for one of the blast doubles. Princeton hates Rutgers so much their coaches will yell at Rutgers wrestlers on other mats while they are supposed to be coaching their wrestler on their mat. Haha! Let the hate flow through you! The thing is, they're both from Jersey, and they both deserve everyone else's hate.  Danny Braunagel with the win and a gift of bonus to his team.  Zac Braunagel also advances with a tough win.  "Cardani is a flipping son of a gun." -- Izzy. He also said that "Cardani was an ILLINOIS guy, and he's an ILLINOIS guy, I like the guy in Orange." Haha! Cory Clark gave me Covid over the broadcast of th

There are some responsibilities that I take very seriously, and the most important duty I have--my highest purpose--is to make fun of Iowa. I feel that I have let everybody down lately and want to make it up to you with a new meme and an old one. The new one first: I think you'll agree that this meme subtly describes the relationship of all parties involved, especially after the Midlands fiasco. In part, this is due to Northwestern, but it also involves the factors satirized in this old meme:

It's Picture Day! This was not good news. Joe was still limping as he fought through the match. Looks like a swollen knee tonight.  Taking an angle on the Brawlnagels equaled gold for Hamiti and Truax. Truax got the benefit of a bad call on a takedown, and Brawny got screwed by the timekeeper, who stole time from him. That was escape time that Zac could've used. This person was more of a timeTAKER, not a timekeeper. To add insult to injury, they spelled his name wrong.  Lucas Byrd with a nasty fall in the quarters.  Justin Cardani with a quick and beautiful shot and finish! He rode that takedown to victory. He'll need to bring more tomorrow, but he'll have less of a problem making weight than his opponent.  Luke Luffman handled Penn's Ben Goldin. Remember how I said that Luuuuke had the highest amplitude mat returns in the NCAA during the first session? Well, Cory Clark was doing the commentary for this mat, and he specifically remarked about the Luffman mat returns

We Rachal had Chris Rivera of the Campbell Camels orbiting him. It was a magnificent supplay. This exposed the Camels' scouting report on Rachal as lacking any depth whatsoever. DO NOT GRECO A RACHAL! Roberts versus Reicin was brother versus brother. Jake banged his head and needed a concussion protocol. Roberts rolled after that. Princeton hates Rutgers like I hate Iowa. From the Tournaflex dashboard "notes":  02:09PM Dj Shannon out at 174   02:08PM Anthony Pedro out at 174   02:06PM Pat Phillips out at 133   01:44PM N Nepomnyashchiy out at 184   01:43PM Trey Sizemore out at 174  Five wrestlers out of the tournament with injuries, and three of them are ILLINI. Not optimum.  Lucas Byrd is smiling out there. That's good to see. I didn't see any Cardani matches.  I think the Covid hurt a lot of ILLINI wrestlers. A lot of belly wrestling today.  BTN announcers love the mat returns. The highest mat returns in the NCAA belong to Luke Luffman. Prove me wrong.  The video

  WHAT:   ILLINOISMatmen Open Tournament WHEN:   Wednesday, December 29, beginning at 9:00 (Central) WHERE:   NOW Arena, 5333 Prairie Stone Pkwy, Hoffman Estates, ILLINOIS WHO:   See List Below TV/STREAMING:   Rokfin through the ILLINOISMatmen channel to provide the stream HISTORY The ILLINI have a long tradition of success at Midlands. The Orange and Blue finished in third place in 2019 without Mikey Carr in the lineup by putting half of the team in third-place matches. Before that, in 2014, the ILLINI finished second. Here is our  Preview  of that 2019 Midlands on ILLINOISMatmen.com. I will post more about ILLINI history at this prestigious tournament in the days leading up to the first whistle.  As you recall, Covid stole the Midlands from us last season. Covid tried to steal this year's edition, but ILLINOISMatmen stepped up to provide a platform. Note that some of the teams have changed, and the starting time is now 9:00 am Central and not 9:30 am Central.  Will this tourname

"It's late in the Third Period, and your opponent is a kid from Iowa named Thanos. Avengers! Assemble!"  WHAT:   Midlands Tournament WHEN:  Wednesday, December 29, beginning at 9:30 (Central) WHERE:   NOW Arena, 5333 Prairie Stone Pkwy, Hoffman Estates, ILLINOIS WHO:   See List Below TV/STREAMING:   BTN+ will have coverage; Trackwrestling will have brackets HISTORY The ILLINI have a long tradition of success at Midlands. The Orange and Blue finished in third place in 2019 without Mikey Carr in the lineup by putting half of the team in third-place matches. Before that, in 2014, the ILLINI finished second. Here is our Preview of that 2019 Midlands on ILLINOISMatmen.com. I will post more about ILLINI history at this prestigious tournament in the days leading up to the first whistle.  As you recall, Covid stole the Midlands from us last season. But, this Midlands will make a different kind of history this year. There will be a Women's tournament. With the loss of boxi

REASON #1: KAMAL BEY Dude, Kamal Bey! Uh, Kamal Bey!  That's right, Kamal Bey! Reason #2: If I Can Do It ... Brothers and Sisters, you don't know how long it takes for me to earn enough jack for a donation to the IRTC panhandling under an overpass in Myrtle Beach. But it's worth it! You get studs at the training center like Richards, Bey, Cathcart, Farmer, Rice, Nowry and others. You get ILLINOIS kids training in Russia. You get a wrestling genius like Bryan Medlin working to make ILLINOIS the next Dagestan or North Ossetia. Bruh, c'mon! 

MEANWHILE ... Here's a Meanwhile Special Report on the recent bench-clearing brawls in Iowa and Oklahoma: Pee Wee Hockey laughs at you. 

Jordan Blanton. Jordan Blanton's wrestling style. Jordan Blanton's life.  One word epitomizes all of that. Do you know which word it is? Stay tuned to find out in the coming days as we start a new series at IWB&F called "ILLINI Legends." We begin with the Jordan Blanton story.  In the video, you will also see all of Blanton's takedowns of Ed Ruth. Those beasts went at it! There's ILLINOIS schoolboy Super Match talk. On top of all of that, hear what he thinks of the movie Vision Quest . The interview is already in the can and just needs that post-production touch.  And Coming Soon: The IWB&F Midlands Preview. Lots of folks have seen our previews in the past. There is literally nothing better on the internet that has all of its clothes on. The last Midlands Preview that we posted was way back in 2019, and it had over 8,000 views. 

I am going to spend most of my words in this post to discuss the SIUE dual. That's because Jay provided us with an excellent first-hand breakdown of the UTC dual here .  Here is the grainy, jumpy video of the ILLINI/SIUE dual. [NOTE: Since I first posted this, it appears that SIUE has taken down the video of the Triangular. I can't find it on youtube, either]. I do appreciate that the Cougars put this on the internet; otherwise, we'd have nothing.  It seemed that Jake Reicin and Trey Sizemore wrestled extra matches, but I don't see where they're listed on any of the school's websites or at wrestlestat.com. I'm guessing that there's a short clip of Reicin. It's hard to tell, though. I'm pretty sure that the video does show the end of a match where Sizemore's hand is raised.  Here's the box score for the SIUE dual: No. 23 Illinois at SIU-Edwardsville 125: Cardani (ILL) win by forfeit 133: Byrd (ILL) win by forfeit 141: Ervin (SIUE) over W.