Tag: J Jaggers

Logan Stieber voted best Buckeye wrestler ever

The Ohio State Wrestling Twitter account hosted a tournament for best Buckeye ever this past weekend. Let’s take a look at the results.

The Ohio State Wrestling Twitter Championships concluded Sunday night, with a very expected result. Logan Stieber–one of only four four-time NCAA champions in history–defeated Kyle Snyder (who won three NCAA titles plus one runner-up) to win the coveted title.

The tournament itself was lots of fun, as after a few days of voting plenty of the competitors in the tournament got in the action. Whether it was some fun smack talk or just simple matchup analysis, former Buckeyes like Stieber, Snyder, Nathan Thomasello, J Jaggers, and plenty of others shared their thoughts. It was great fun and some much-needed distraction for Buckeye wrestling fans, and a great way for everyone to learn about the athletes in an awesome sport.

If you’re not already a fan of wrestling, just scroll through the @wrestlingbucks Twitter feed for the last few days. You’ll learn about a great and fun sport, and you’ll get to meet plenty of awesome past and present Buckeyes.

Two time-national champion Jaggers (Ohio State’s current assistant coach) defeated also two-time NCAA champion Tommy Rowlands in the third-place match. Kevin Randleman, Tomasello, Myles Martin, and Bo Jordan rounded out the top eight. There were a ton of fun matches along the way, including a somewhat obvious trend that recent Buckeyes overperformed, which makes sense with the voting being on Twitter. Look back through and share in the fun–and maybe we’ll get one of these again in a previously-scheduled offseason.

OSU Wrestling Twitter is hosting a best Buckeye wrestler ever tournament

There are no NCAA Championships in Wrestling this year, but we can still enjoy a pretend tournament for the best Buckeye ever.

There are no NCAA Championships in Wrestling (or any other Winter and Spring sport) this year, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still enjoy a pretend tournament.

The official Twitter account of Ohio State Wrestling (@wrestlingbucks) made a 33-person bracket–just like the NCAA Championships have–and has opened up the voting for who is the best Ohio State wrestler ever. In each match the account lists a 280-character-or-less description of the wrestler’s accolades, so you can learn about some Buckeye history while you vote.

The tournament has just completed its second round, and there have been some pretty good upsets so far. Recent wrestlers seem to overperform, which makes sense–since the voting is on Twitter, more Twitter users have likely seen recent wrestlers, while we are limited to just highlights or stat sheets for those who competed in previous decades. An excellent example of this is Joey McKenna’s first-round upset over Rex Holman. McKenna is a fan favorite, even though on paper Holman has a far superior resume.

Logan Stieber–one of the only four wrestlers in NCAA history to win four National Championships–is a prohibitive favorite to take home the title, and he definitely deserves it. Of course, the bracket has a tremendous mix of all-time greats like Kevin Randleman and Tommy Rowlands, along with recent fan favorites (and great wrestlers in their own rights) like Kollin Moore, Luke Pletcher, Myles Martin, and Micah Jordan, to name a few. And, of course, there are guys like Kyle Snyder and Nathan Tomasello–who are both recent wrestlers and all-time Buckeye greats.

The best part is that the account is treating this like a real tournament. It’s not single elimination–there are full wrestlebacks. This bracket also shows some recency bias, like Luke Pletcher’s stunning first-round upset of Dave Reinbolt.

Follow this bracket and tournament all week. We might be stuck at home, but we can have plenty of fun voting on wrestlers from our computers or phones. So make sure to check out the Twitter account, follow the tournament, and vote!