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The real March Madness is here!
Before the newsletter here’s what you need for the ACC tournament:
When: March 9, 2025
Where: Cameron Indoor Stadium-Duke University
Setup: Two Mats
All Eastern Standard Time:
10:00 am: First Round Matches-Two Mats- Odd# Bouts on Mat 1, Even on 2
1:00 pm: Consi ¼ Finals
2:00 pm: Semifinals
4:30 pm: Consolation Semifinals
6:00 pm: Consolation Finals followed by True 5th Place Matches
8:00 pm: Finals- 1 Mat With TV Breaks
All Matches Up To Finals Will Be On ACCNX
Finals Will Be On ACC Network
Total NCAA Allocations for the ACC: 38
In relation to performances at the conference tournament, I have seen it all. I started my coaching career as an assistant at Lehigh in glorious fashion, as the team went on a run of winning the EIWA’s every year I was an assistant coach there.
My head coaching career at Princeton started quite differently. In my first conference tournament at the helm the team went 0-20 in the first two rounds. By the third round I was in the stands eating a hot dog with the rest of the fans.
It was a pretty depressing moment. To go from winning the tournament 5 years in a row, to not winning an individual match was quite a traumatic experience. Adding insult to injury, the referee’s gave out the “sportsmanship” award, which we won. I’m sure they felt bad for our team and wanted to let us know they cared about us, but how could we not win the sportsmanship award when we were only on the mat for 20 matches?
To this day I despise the sportsmanship award, and hope they don’t give one at the ACC.
Which brings me to the ACC’s. We recently had our pre-tournament meeting with the organizers of the ACC wrestling tournament and I couldn’t be more excited to be in this conference. Five of the seven teams are currently ranked in the top 20 and nearly 70% (47 of the 68) of the wrestlers in the field are ranked in the coaches poll. The quality of wrestling should be incredibly high!
Here is a quick chalk talk on each weight:
133- #3 Seed Tyler Knox
Allocations 3
There are three standouts here with #7 Knox, #10 Oakley (UNC) and #11 McGonagle (VT). Although Knox is ranked the highest in the group, he dropped close decisions to Oakley and McGonagle in the duals. Tyler faces Chappell (Pitt) in round 1. Chappell 8-14 did not wrestle in the dual so the two wrestlers have not competed against each other this season. If all goes well in round 1, Knox will most likely face McGonagle in the Semis.
Tyler’s losses to Oakley and McGonagle in the duals were instructive, and I’m confident that Tyler can turn those losses into wins.
141-#3 Seed Jason Miranda
Rd 1 Briar Priest (Pitt)
Allocations 4
Jason Wrestled Briar in the dual and it was a wild one which Jason won 11-8 in OT. Certainly a tough first round match, but the whole team was flat in the dual, so it wasn’t Jason’s best performance. Jason is a different wrestler now and I feel he made a pretty big jump in the past few weeks, so we are feeling good about his spot in the bracket. If the first round goes well, he will most likely have Cedeno in the semi’s, who he lost to 3-2 in the dual. Jason has a tough, but definitely achievable, path to the finals.
149- #3 Seed Jaden Abas
Rd 1 Finn Solomon (Pitt) #28 Coaches Rank
Allocations 4
The first round is going to look a bit like a Stanford vs Pitt dual, as Jaden will be the third Stanford wrestler in a row to face Pitt. Finn Solomon is ranked 28 in the coaches poll and is a tough opponent. Abas did not wrestle in our dual, but Solomon won by tech against Parco. He lost his last three in the ACC, all by close scores. The deal with Jaden is he just needs to focus on getting to his offense for seven minutes. If he does this he could win the ACC’s and the next tournament as well.
157- #5 Seed Grigor Cholakyan
Rd 1 Sonny Santiago (UNC) #29 Coaches Rank
Allocations 3
Grigor is BACK and looking good. Interestingly enough, in relation to his injury, from a physical standpoint he is much better now than he was before he had to sit out from our most recent matches. He and his opponent, Sonny Santiago, have had similar seasons and find themselves near each other in the coaches rank. This should be a great first round match, and I am really excited for this one. Grigor is dangerous and our hope is that he just lets it fly this Sunday.
165- #1 Seed Hunter Garvin
Rd 1 Bye
Allocations 5
Our only #1 seed is Hunter Garvin and he gets a bye into the Semis. There he will face the winner of Keslar (Pitt) and Church (VT). Hunter majored both wrestlers in our dual meet. The good news with Hunter is he is much better in tournaments than he is in dual meets, and he tends to shine in the postseason.
174- #2 Seed Lorenzo Norman
Rd 1 Gaetano Console
Allocations 4
Lorenzo is fine! One question that has come up more than any other since the UNC dual is: is Lorenzo ok? The answer is that he is better than ever! If you could see him in the room the last two weeks you would understand where I am coming from. If Lorenzo competes to his capabilities he will have an amazing postseason. He will most likely face Luca Augastine (Pitt) in the semi’s who he beat 8-6. If he does his job there we are hoping for a re-match with Ogunsanya (UNC) in the finals.
184- #5 Seed Tye Monteiro
Rd 1 TJ Stewart (VT) #27 Coaches Rank
Allocations 3
Like Grigor Tye is also back. He has had a great two weeks of training. Tye will get a rematch against TJ Stewart (VT) in round 1. In the dual vs Va Tech, Tye got thrown early in the match and couldn’t dig out of that hole. This weight only has three allocations, so Tye is going to have to place top three to steal a spot to the NCAA’s. Before his injury at Midlands, Tye was making incredible progress, both mentally and with his wrestling, so if he can get there for this tournament, he coils be the “spoiler” of the weight.
197-#2 Seed Nick Stemmet
Rd 1 Kwasi Bonsu (Duke)
Allocations 3
“Leave him be.” Coach Strobel would always say this when athletes were performing at a high level. Nick is the best we have seen him, so he just needs to keep that rolling. So I will just leave him be.
285-#5 Seed Peter Ming
Rd 1 #4 Dayton Pitzer (Pitt)
Allocations 5
In the first meeting with his first round opponent Pete found himself in a deep hole on the scoreboard. In typical Pete fashion he battled back and had his opponent “on the ropes”, but ran out of time. This is another great first round match and if Pete can pull his opponent where he is strongest, he will set himself up for a big semi-final match with Trumble of SC State.
We have entered the “peaking” phase of the training plan and the energy and attitude of the team has been great. I absolutely love this time of year. The bulk of work is done and adjustments have been made; we now just need to go and compete. We have a great team and every Stanford wrestler that steps on the line this weekend has the tools necessary to win the tournament (I truly believe this), so they just need to be free and compete to the best of their ability.
