Nice analogy ..lol..he sure was pissed and probably said a lot more in the locker room then he said on camera ....
Wrestling LIVE GAME THREAD: Rutgers vs. Purdue
- Thread starter Richie O
- Start date
When? Why not redshirt? Seems like a huge wasted year, if he doesn't AA somehow. We're in big trouble of we can't land Van Ness, Bouzakis and other elite recruits.
They both probably let their emotions get the best of them in the moment, which is understandable. It was exciting and the crowd was really into it. JoJo wants to prove himself and pulling that out, especially getting out from bottom would have been a huge monkey of off his back and would have done wonders for his confidence. That was the "go big or go home" choice and unfortunately it didn't work out. Now that they've had a chance to reflect they realized it wasn't the smartest choice.
With that being said, thankfully expectations were low this season so these are the types of matches that absolutely need to become learning experiences and inflection points. Everyone is pretty forgiving at this point given the youth in the lineup but it won't be the same way in a year or two when expectations are going to be at all time highs. Time to live, learn, and move on.
Enough with the “it was a bad choice.” As much as we wanted to win this duel, in the grand scheme this match really doesn’t mean much... it’s about getting a blue chip recruit to rise up and prepare him to be a leader and an AA. Goody challenged him which I’m fine with. If he can’t get out vs an unranked opponent at a home meet vs Purdue what happens in March? Now I’m not tryin to be hard on Jo Jo, but that is the reality.
As Scott said a week or so ago every match going forward is going to be a 5/5 or 6/4 split so we will see where that lands. So far Cornell and Purdue ended up on the down side. We have Michigan, Illinois, Rider, Northwestern and Princeton left. Only Northwestern will we probably be favored.
Everyone seems to forget that we expected a down year with all the highs and lows you’re going to get with youth...
I get it. I do think he would have benefited from a redshirt myself. I am just never ready to give up on a true freshman trying to find his way. Maybe he learns this year and redshirts next.
Not everyone comes in ready, despite their background.
I'm a PSU fan but really like Janzer. He's going to be a tough out at Nattys. One of those guys your top dogs dont want to face early..
Beat Rider and I can handle losses to anyone else on the schedule. Rider is the one pill I will have a ton of problems swallowing if we lose.
No one forgot this. People can still post their opinions and critiques while still understanding this.
Goodale messed one up today with JoJo. He should know as the head coach that JoJo needed to wrestle standing up, but he put him in a situation least likely for him to succeed... Just like he messed it up with Peter and not redshirting JoJo. Correnti is a big disappointment - I was so high on him. Didn't expect us to win tonight, but with Pagano getting very lucky with his opponent getting hurt, I thought we'd win, and this one hurts.
It actually does matter. For the people who can't make the NCAA tournament, this is a great venue to build up attendance and keep attendance. You know how the Jersey crowd is. It's either All or Nothing. Also we start losing attendance, that's means we lose boosters, and sponsors. Then that trickles down to administrative staff, that will lay into Goody
Jojo has to be good in all positions......period..end of sentence. What's going to happen when he meets someone who's great on his feet? I'll use Austin DeSanto as an example. Once the Brand's Brothers worked on his bottom game, he became another level wrestler.
Yeah that Rider group really just irks me. I've met Jason Nase a couple of times and every time he was a total d*ck.
JoJo was first to say he was going down and Goodale agreed with it so it wasn't a challenge. When you know a kid is majorly struggling on bottom, he's not gonna magically change in a dual, let alone a B1G dual. The old school mentality of putting your kid on bottom 99% of the time is outdated (at all levels) when kids are so good on their feet and top now. Put yourself and your wrestlers in the best position to win and that would've been neutral there. Purdue and Cornell duals weren't meaningless. Needed those wins to keep the momentum and positive press rolling, not to mention rankings, seeding and recruiting.
You've to learn to get away period.Hes been working on it in the room and yesterday proved to Aragona he's gotta work on it more.He wanted to go down which shows he believes in the work he's doing.It didn't workout this time but avoiding the position won't help next time either.
JoJo got taken down pretty quickly in SV1. I get it would have been after two less minutes of wrestling but why should we expect period 3 would be any different.
Choosing bottom likely guarantees OT at worst, and best is an escape and a likely win. Neutral gives the opponent just as good of a chance at a win.
Bottom was the right call at the time.
Momentum/confidence is real and Aragona had it all in his favor going into the 3rd. Before SV he was the better wrestler in neutral as proved by his takedown in the first. Being on bottom is exhausting so by the time he got to SV he was obviously a little gassed and now his opponent had all of the momentum. I'm sure JoJo was also a bit dejected that he wasn't able to escape in the 3rd. It was the exact same situation in the Correnti match as he was lucky to even make it to SV. Once it got to SV everyone knew what was going to happen. The Purdue guys worked hard for all 7+ mins, regained their confidence, and carried it over to SV... It's not a fluke. They wanted to be wrestling in SV and our guys didn't. The results spoke for themselves.
Last edited:
Yes, JoJo has to be good in all positions, but this is the last match of the day, and for all the marbles. Goodale had to put JoJo in the best position to win, and he didn't.
It's tough though, b/c if JoJo started in the neutral position for the 3rd period and lost somehow, I would have completely lost it! Only with hindsight being 20/20, I can say Goodale made a mistake. But the probability says that JoJo would win in neutral. Now, going forward, no one will disagree with JoJo going neutral in tight matches.
You raise valid points Leonard, but I would argue that just because people automatically choose bottom, the necessary time practiced and bottom strategy is not stressed enough at the lower levels and many of these kids are such studs that they spend very little time down there. I've been involved with Rec and club level wrestling for enough years where there seems to be more of an emphasis on neutral and scoring. Thankfully my son works with a guy who spends time working on different bottom scenarios including leg defense and backward pressure that I feel we are training these kids to handle the position. (Of course the US could always go to freestyle and dump folkstye then its all null and void!).
I honestly see both sides of the argument, but I don't agree that this was a boneheaded "bad" decision. It was obviously the wrong decision as he couldn't get out, but what if he went neutral and lost the take-down? As was well stated, if he gets ridden out at least we go OT.
Ashnault is a perfect example of a kid who struggled on bottom early in his career but was able to improve. I just don't think you can rise to elite status if you can't get out from bottom. He chose to wrestle this year so in my mind he needs to get this improved.
Again, I absolutely see the other argument on both sides I just don't think it's a no brainier either way. We move on.
There is a difference between a down year (which we expected) and attitude regression which is what I feel like coach alluded to with his comments about free flow wrestling in practice etc.
I lay JoJo at coaches feet, but some of the other stuff isn’t on coach.
either you’re Jersey tough, or you’re not. Some of these guys aren’t wrestling like kids who’ve had to compete their whole lives. It’s NJ. We are all on top of each other. We compete for parking spaces. The best seat at the movies. Grades. You name it. We’ve been competing for everything big and small here for generations and some of these guys aren’t bringing their Jersey with them to the wrestling mat. I think that’s what’s most frustrating.
I lay JoJo at coaches feet, but some of the other stuff isn’t on coach.
either you’re Jersey tough, or you’re not. Some of these guys aren’t wrestling like kids who’ve had to compete their whole lives. It’s NJ. We are all on top of each other. We compete for parking spaces. The best seat at the movies. Grades. You name it. We’ve been competing for everything big and small here for generations and some of these guys aren’t bringing their Jersey with them to the wrestling mat. I think that’s what’s most frustrating.
Not sure I agree 100% with that. Correnti's personality (as well as Grello) hasn't changed much since day one so not sure there is any regression there. You are who you are. Sammy Alvarez and Janzer sure as hell don't look timid out there. Both those kids look they they are ready for a fight and they are two of our youngest guys. I don't see any timidness from Angelo either... he just puts himself in crazy positions but he seems like a fighter. As Creedo said, a lot of this boils down to Jo Jo being crowned the golden boy and I think people expected too much. Also, when you lose guys like Suriano and Ashnault who are the definition of relentless... it shows.
maybe the word choice was wrong? Process regression maybe? Coach has mentioned bad decisions, not finishing, lazy technique, etc. after losses. never heard him say it was habits M-F (again what I thought he was alluding to in his comments).
2 less minutes of being grinded into the mat would've given him a better opportunity to score on his feet. Now, that's only if he can be more offensive and aggressive on his feet as he seems timid or hesitant to shoot since the injury.
I agree that there's more emphasis on top and neutral. A big part of it is because on bottom, you can teach all the techniques and strategies but you can't teach th grit part, which is really a mindset, and I think bottom is more mindset than other positions (but that's just my opinion). If the kid isn't going to fight to get out then his technique won't matter and he'll get pounded, like we've seen. Ashnault is not an apple's to apple's comparison as he didn't struggle this badly to get out against lesser opponents. I just prefer to put my wrestlers in the best position to score but definitely understand the flip side of needing to also go down to prove to yourself you can get out because eventually you'll need to.
I get what you’re saying but JoJo is from Pennsylvania. I’m not one to over analyze things. The kid is a freshman getting beat by older kids and other freshman who are more ready. He needs to get better and I’m sure he will. I don’t think there’s that much more to it.
Yes and No. Agree 100% that getting out from bottom requires a special mindset and core strength (probably more so than top or neutral) but in some ways so is getting out of a tough tie up and committing to your shot. You can spend hours going over proper circling methods and setups but if a guy is hesitant to commit to a shot, you get 2 minutes of dancing or get caught in a bad shot.
IMOP there are still too many youth coaches that keep it simple on bottom and stress your basic standup, sit out and hip heist but don't really go deep into proper technique of blocking a leg and how to score on leg riders. Really learning how to win bottom scrambles and emphasis things like getting into a good tri-pod and pushing your opponent back or developing good hips to score on step overs are never taught to the same level as scoring on your feet. The mentality is usually that my kid will get the quick escape (won't be held down) and then we work on offense. I just feel that many coaches teach the basics because most don't think in terms of actual "scoring" from bottom.
I'm with you on Rider staff and Rider in general but Nase is no longer on their staff. He's an assistant now at Howell HS where his son competes.
When I wrestled at Rutgers, the culture for Rider wrestling was a little bit more serious, but still had that white trash element. The team regressed after the Adam derengowski era.The campus got worse and so did the academics. The type of wrestlers they were bringing in where kind of lowbrow. Not saying that they didn't have great results but they weren't the classiest bunch. They were like the Vanilla Ice of NCAA Wrestling
Ouch!! I love Rutgers Wrestling and will root for my Alma Mater all day long.There have been several wrestlers I know over years from Rider who have done quite well for themselves period.So academics is what you make of it after you graduate.
