The impact of the 3-point takedown on college wrestling: Part 1 - Mat Stats 34

MatStats takes on the new rule change for Takedowns in collegiate wrestling.  We do our normal statistical analysis of how the new rule has affected our sport.  The gang shoots deep into the Men’s NCAA D1 & D2 Championships to see what results we can find.  It is such an important topic that we are doing a two-part series.
 
Slideshow to accompany this episode is here: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/slideshowep34.pdf
 
Sticker Mule wants to make sure your team, program, company or project is set to go with quality graphics and promotional materials. With custom sizes and styles, let Sticker Mule take care of your brand today. Check out this wrestling-friendly business today at https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers
 
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better. 

Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association
 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a batting average,
a win percentage, correlations, andstandard deviation. But numbers aren't just for
nerds. In life, decisions needdata. In wrestling decisions, projections and
hypotheticals also need data. Here onMatt Stats, we take historical data,

(00:28):
theories, and statistics and apply itto the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerdballs, Glenn Gormley, Kevin Hazard,
and Jason Bryant once again, welcomeback wrestling fans to another episode of the
Matt Stats Show. Along with GlennGormley and Kevin Hazzard, I'm Jason Bryant,

(00:48):
and as our splash screen said there, we're not going to wait five
minutes to talk about the dirt behindthe numbers. Here the moneyball of wrestling.
Today, we're going to be talkingabout the three point takedown. Done,
Done, done. I thought aboutthat more. I would have cued
some more dramatic music. But beforewe talk about dramatic three point takedowns and
the increase in scoring, we havean increase in age on our show today.

(01:11):
As Kevin Hazard, this is nowapparently your fifty seventh consecutive eighteenth birthday.
Congratulations sir, thank you, sir. Happy mart take Kevin. Yeah,
saw that on your book of Facesthis morning, and it was like,
I'm not seventy five, I'm eighteenwith fifty seven years experience. That's
kind of the way. That's myfirst thought every morning, and just I'm

(01:34):
eighteen, or sometimes I use twentyeight. It's my forty seventh anniversary.
Twenty eight's a good age. Ithink. Twenty nine, I think,
is where I always cite that Ibecame an adult because those of you that
knew me in my twenties are like, are you ever going to graduate?
Yeah? That was a bit ofa struggle, you know, you know,
hey getting out, But you know, I kind of circle the date

(01:56):
is like the you know, thebcead of the life and the maturity of
yours truly is okay, met thefuture wife, Okay, now, okay,
growing up. So twenty nine iskind of like my baseline of adulthood.
So that's kind of like, okay, anyway, life about the life
up. Although I'm now adopting prettymuch full time the Kevin Hazzard hairline,

(02:20):
so why fight it? It's Imean, I'm I'm extremely vain about the
thinning here, and I'm not Iwasn't going to do it gracefully. I
said, no, No, therewas a Father's Day deal on one of
those whatever the influencers are selling withthe multi headed shaver. So I got
a pretty pretty good deal in that. It's like, I give it a

(02:40):
shot. It's been about a monthlast show. I'm pretty sure I had
it on here. But yeah,the moneyball thing, We're not going to
be counting the hairs on my headmuch longer. So I just said,
you know, you know, KevinHazard is the champion of this stuff,
I might as well do this.So but but Brian, your son's got
plenty of hair, So we're goingto do it being. We're gonna do

(03:00):
some DNA testing there later. Butone thing we want to talk about before
we get to it is numbers.We're going to talk about coyleeg dress today.
I'm coming off my twenty sixth year, twenty fifth tournament, twenty sixth
year in farg North Dakota, andit's like Yike's Junior Nationals and I want
to go back in time for youguys. What do you guys remember about
like the birth of juniors, becausethe first one was in nineteen seventy one.

(03:23):
It was just freestyle, added Grecoin seventy two. The Cadets,
which we now call sixteen U wasadded in nineteen eighty five. You know,
hey, Hazard won that thing acouple years later in eighty nine,
I think it was, and Virginiahad its first junior Greco champion since eighty
six with a kid from Northern Virginiawho wanted it two fifteen. So Kevin

(03:44):
will start with you, since youwere probably down at Warwick High School in
Newport News in that general time frameof the rise of freestyle, I had
just gotten out of college and Iwas kind of irritated that it was.
It was like ten years too latefor me. I would have loved to
have been able to compete in that, and you know with Northern Virginia,

(04:05):
if I'd have had a shot atcompeting with the Beach and competing with Pennsylvania
when I was in high school,I just thought it just, you know,
expanded everybody's horizons all of a sudden. Now you're competing nationally. Where
it had been really a regional sport, now it was a national sport.
That was the first thing that Ireally picked up on. And then you

(04:29):
know, being able to go outthere and take a team out there was
just great. Glenn, what aboutyou, What do you remember when the
us WF launched the Junior Nationals backin my first My first good memories of
it actually was helping out the Virginiateam when I was one of the guys
helping out coaching in the eighties.That was my first memories of big time

(04:53):
memories of it. But I agreewith Kevin, it became a national sport.
It was really fun. Yeah,this year it was supernational because you
know, for the last I guesstwenty years, Puerto Rico has sent athletes.
Well. Of course Franklin Gomez,who was an NCAA champion at Michigan
State when he was at the agegroup levels, he was representing Puerto Rico

(05:13):
going to high school of Brandon HighSchool in Florida, and so they've had
some medals out there. Pedro Sotowas another guy that was in some of
those monster weight classes with like freshCorn Search and schlater that area era.
But then this year we were representedby all fifty states for the first time
and also the territory of Guam andfollowing and Mississippi was represented for the first

(05:38):
time. So Arkansas had had broughta team officially in two thousand and nine,
and I had actually gone back anddid a video recap of talking about
the amount of girls that Arkansas brought, brought thirty two girls, and then
they go back and look at thethe sixteen seventeen, eighteen nineteen kids they
brought in two thousand andnine, talkedto Pat Smith about it, and then
I started tracking. It's like,all right, let's track the Mississippi kid.

(05:59):
Let's try track the Guam kid.And of course the Department of Defense
Dependence Dodds, I believe is whatthey're titled have come out for a number
of years. We've had Jake Clarkbrought Team Okinawa when he was in the
Marine Corps and then that became ArmedForces. We've had a judo guy named
John Jane was living in London,was an American and he wrestled in there,

(06:20):
I want to say probably ten twelveyears ago, actually wrestled Division III
for a bit at the University ofChicago. And then the Guam kids.
So we start tracking this dad.His dad US Military and then come to
find out the kid that wrestled forMississippi his dad owned a house in Mississippi
and to get Mississippi's freestyling Greco programoff the ground, this kid who wrestles
in Florida. They're like, okay, I'll get a release from Florida.

(06:42):
We'll be I'll be Team Mississippi.There was another kid that was supposed to
go, but a family issue cameup, so it was just a team
of one from Mississippi and a teamof one from Guam. As I flesh
out this story, I'm like,how am I going to connect these two?
Okay, there's nothing Guam and Mississippihave in common until so I the
the Mississippi kid wrestles and the juniorsand then the sixteen you starts in the

(07:05):
second session for freestyle. So Igo down, I follow, I get
the text alert from flow from floorarena and I see the Guam kid warming
up. But who do I seein his corner The Mississippi coaches, And
I'm like, wait a minute,what's going on here? Come to find
out the Guam kid his parents arebeing transferred to stateside Panama City, where

(07:28):
the Mississippi kid Bear Bryant Seagull gofigure. Weird name for a kid that's
representing Mississippi. Of course this isgonna you know, Rocky Top is gonna
love this one. But so wegot the Florida kid reppering Mississippi and the
Guam kid. They're going to behigh school teammates next year. Guys at
a school in Panama City. Sohow was I going to connect these two
stories. I didn't need to connectthem. They connected themselves. Guam and

(07:50):
Mississippi forever connected by the sport ofwrestling. One of the one of the
more interesting things and statistical things thatjump out there. Of course, Vermont
and had some kids from Texas actuallyrepresent them. That was to kickstart their
programming. A lot of the Vermontkids that have wrestled in Fargo over the
years of either represented Massachusetts, they'verepresented Connecticut, they've represented New York.

(08:13):
So Vermont going to get their stateassociation up and running on the freestyle side
too, had a couple kids fromTexas represent their state. So we're waiting
for those real, the actual Vermonstersto come out there and represent Vermont for
the future and next year we hopethat's going to happen, So interesting backstory
there. But yeah, so thatwas kind of the a cliff notes version
of my twenty fifth trip to Fargotwenty sixth actually because during the COVID year,

(08:37):
my nephew got married lives in Fargo, so I was there. The
tournament was not, so I don'tknow how how do you do that street?
Twenty five tournaments twenty six years?I don't know. Anyway, I
was in Fargo twenty six years.Yeah, but it's twenty five tournaments,
so I you know, it's I'ma semantical being gentlemen. So but speaking

(08:58):
of semantics, semantics are also numbers. So Glenn, why don't we fire
up the old statistical vacuum of Idon't know, statistical vacuum of thing.
I don't know. I'm just comingup with words to say today? Episode
thirty four, The three point Takedown, Q dramatic music. What do we
got? Okay? Obviously this showis that Jason is introduced, is about

(09:22):
the more things change, the morethey stay the same. Okay, this
is a huge change in wrestling,uh in me and Kevin's lifetime. This
is the biggest rule change that we'veseen in NCAA. Wrestling. So being
in a match stats show, wesaid, we got to dive into this
and see what's going on. Okay, So just like we doing every show,

(09:43):
we tell people, I feel likea number. You know, we're
statistical people here. It's a statisticalshow. Okay. The old Danny's Glass
eight six seven, five, threeoh nine Danny's Glasses replaced Tommy two tone,
at least for those the three ofus that have spent time in Virginia.
So yeah, again, we gotto reach out to them for some

(10:05):
type of Hey, you know,we mentioned you guys on every show.
Every show we mentioned Day's glass.Okay, and just so you know,
the opinions expressed of this show donot necessarily reflect any policies or opinions of
the NWCA or Danny's Glass for thatmatter. So and also at times,

(10:26):
Gormley Bryant, How's It might noteven agree with each other on a lot
of things that we're saying. Okay, Matt status is based on numbers of
statistics analyzing them. It starts withfacts, not opinions. Okay, so
everything has to be numurder qualified.Okay. The first slide we always see
on every show here is an updateon how many four year collegiate programs we

(10:52):
have now men and women combined.We're up to five hundred and six right
now. That's all. When youlook at the power, you could break
it all down. I'm not goingto read it to everybody, but it's
just great news that every month wesee at least one more school. We're
just trying to keep on growing thisOkay, And this is something part of
the show where we disagree because Glennaalways throws his rocky top stuff out here,

(11:16):
and granted, yeah, my stepbrother'suncle played football there and wrestled there,
but uh, geez, give ita rest. This is not an
opinion show, Jason. It's astat show. And the stat show that
the national champion is clydd in BigOrange. Okay, we'll skip through that
quickly. Okay. The next thingis Happy Birthday to Kevin, which we

(11:37):
already said. Okay, he's stillseventy five airs repeating because he's again he's
enjoying retirement. And through the pastseveral years of these shows, we've also
noticed that the various backdrops and nowhe's chilling in Delaware, which also had
its first women's freestyle All American outin Fargo in state history. He's in

(11:58):
Delaware. Now what Delaware? Wedon't have any there's no Jack Ham.
Well, there's probably you know,we talked about the construction that's around where
he's living now, but that's nothis office that we're hearing building stuff around.
So he's enjoying the nice quiet lifeof the beach in Delaware at the
beach and it's a wonderful place tobe. Yep. Okay, all right,

(12:24):
we're going to talk about college takedownsand they're worth three points. That
has been a really big scoring change. And we're going to analyze the data
and I guess you know what didwe really come up with from looking at
the data? Okay, First ofall, I want to thank Kevin Hazard
and John Phipps for doing the massiveamount of data collection on this project.

(12:48):
Those guys had to watch and orgo over every scorecard of Division one championships
and Division two championships in twenty threeand twenty four. In case that you
guys, I don't know, Fippsiehe was a football player. Were you
married? But he actually won twointermural titles at William and Buried wrestling.
He wasn't wrestled high school. Hewas known for having a great ball and

(13:11):
chain. Our famous wrestler Sweeze.He's taught him that technique way back when
intermural wrestling. Last time I actuallycompetitively stepped on a matt was the intermural
wrestling tournament that school in Norfolk.First time I think I had wrestled in
like four years at that point andwoke up, had to drive to Delaware
the next day and boy that thathurts. You were sore bad. Yeah.

(13:33):
Last time I put on my shoeswas about five years ago to go
to Storm practice in paumel Greco.Yeah, I felt about like I did
twenty years earlier, like, no, I'm not going to do that.
So Intermural Heroes, though, fourthdid not get pinned, probably because I
knew the refs all right, threeday point takedown. And what does it

(13:54):
mean for scoring? We've the lastcouple of years we've covered the fact that
there's been a decrease in scoring incollegiate wrestling, and it's been and we've
got a track over the last tenyears. So let's let's look at how
that comes about. Okay, justso you guys know, all the points
per match were determined using the followingdata for the Division one, which this

(14:18):
shows about Division one this part one. Okay, we use six hundred and
twenty matches in the twenty three andtwenty four so in other words, twelve
hundred and forty matches. The reasonwe didn't use the two rat tails per
weight class is because we couldn't getthat on the video or the scorecards for
that for whatever reason, if therewas a pinner or default, they are

(14:43):
not included in the final score becauseyou need a numerical value to have an
arithmetic mean, et cetera. Okay, so all the moves that you see
later are taken from anything that'sart apinner to fault either. Okay. From
twenty three to twenty four Okay,when I say that I'm meeting men's NCAA

(15:05):
Division one Championships, the total scorywent up almost twenty four percent, about
nine and a quarter to eleven anda half points per match. Okay,
okay, So twenty four percent increasein scoring, and that you know,
like you just said, in thattournament, where did that scoring come from?

(15:28):
Okay? Tell you for asking thatquestion, Kevin, here we have
on the screen or if you can'tsay at home. I'll try to go
over this as best as I canfor you, and once again as a
reminder, we will have the slideshow in the show notes too if you're
listening on if you're listening in thecar not driving, you can click it
and follow along with the PDF ofr of our slideshow For those of you

(15:48):
that are doing the audio thing hereon NBCA onlineermattwalkonline dot com. That's just
our PSA about Hattle how to getall this Bookou medicine Bokou of statistic from
the Sultan of stat here. Okay, so this slide here is the total
points NCAA Tournament twenty three and twentyfour. Okay, you can see there

(16:11):
the takedowns went up per match fourpoint three six points to six point seven
six points. That's an increase oftwo point four points per match coming from
takedowns, or a fifty five percentincrease. As Kevin and I said earlier,
the total points only go up twentythree point eight or twenty four percent,

(16:34):
That is two point two points permatch. Well, what happens not
everything goes up. You can seethe writing time went down, the near
fall time went down, the reversewent down. We'll get into the writing
time points a little bit and alittle deeper too. About that. Okay,
Now, if you go to thenext slide. In twenty three,

(16:56):
forty seven percent of all points andthe men's in the tournament came via takedowns.
Now it's up to fifty nine percent. That is a twenty five percent
increase. Guys. I know whatsome people saying. Fifty nine minus forty
seven is only twelve, but it'sa twenty five percent increase. In other

(17:19):
words, if you go from twentyfive percent to fifty it's one hundred percent
increase. Okay, So guys,that is a huge difference. Okay.
All the other categories, reverse escapes, near for astalled ridings all went down
as a percentage of the overall points. Okay, all right, so score

(17:42):
went up twenty four percent, Butdid that necessarily mean that the number of
takedowns increased a lot? Hi,Kevin. The next screen here once again,
like Jason mentioned, you can followit. The total amount of takedowns
in twenty three was two point oneeight. In twenty four it was two

(18:03):
point twenty five. It's only athree percent increase of takedowns and of the
scoring moves. We don't count stallingand writing as a stalling move because it's
not a move that you do,it's you know, through time. Obviously,
writing time is a minimum of sixtyseconds. The scoring moves only went
up zero point eight percent. Inother words, they didn't go up either

(18:27):
one of them. A lot oftimes it's happenstance from one year to the
next. Okay, So what weknow from this, guys, is you're
not seeing any more takedowns or anymore really scoring moves. Okay. Now
we're doing a little hypothetical here,and I will say, and I even

(18:49):
have it in the print here.When lawyers and medias use examples of that
without to prove a point stats,guys can go nuts. Okay, So
ione explain this as best as Ican. For takedown, we're still worth
two points in twenty four, Okay. The total points in twenty three were
already know, were nine point twentyfour points per match. In twenty four

(19:14):
they would have been nine point oneto nine points. And I'll explain later
why the writing time points are goingdown. Okay. Now, when I
was in the William and Mary suite, which I go to every year,
Okay, because I have a longhistory and a couple of degrees from that
institution, or as I should callit, that school in Williamsburg, Virginia.

(19:37):
Okay, it was very common tohear in that suite and other places
that there was so much more actionin twenty four. Well then Kevin Jason
and I and Fifthsey did some researchon that. Okay, in a random
fifteen matches, you saw one moretakedown. In a random twenty four matches,

(20:03):
you sold one more scoring move.Okay, there's a great chance if
you think you sold more action,your mind is playing games with you,
or you were spending a lot oftime at the bar. Hey, Kansas
City was good for that. Imean there was a lot of access to
the SuDS there in the libation.So it could be one of two things,
Glen it. It could be themalted hops effect, or it could

(20:26):
be just our placebo effect in effect. Yeah, yes, I like that.
I do get multi hops reference thoughthat Kevin lives close to a good
one. Anyway, we'll get awayfrom the beer discussion wrestling across over to
breweries. Here, say a drinkof beer dogfish. That's great. Now,

(20:48):
with that said, is there anycorrelation between weight classes an increase in
score. So, okay, wasit different across all the different weight classes?
Okay? Basically, the scoring wentup in every weight class. There
is a very moderate correlation between theweight class and the scoring increasing. In

(21:11):
other words, as you get toa heavier weight, it's more likely that
scoring increased. Okay, for thewinner's points, okay, Then we go
down to the loser's points, it'sa little bit more correlated, okay,
And the total points okay, Butthe scoring went up, okay, over
all total points. It went upin every weight class except for one twenty

(21:36):
five. All right, Now,the margin of victory went up in every
weight class, but there's no correlationwhatsoever between margin of victory and weight class.
Now, what I want you guysto understand from this weight class thing,

(21:56):
what we've learned to pass shows thatwe're learning more here comed up with
Slide twenty seven is that in episodeeleven we learned that there was a normal
curve for distribution except for two eightyfive, and now two eighty five is
in that the increase in points attwo eighty five making a normal curve.
In other words, the weight classesare randomly distributed on the X axis.

(22:21):
What I'm saying here, guys,is wrestling really is one sport when it
comes to scoring, and it doesn'tmatter what the weight class is. And
in case anyone was wondering, therewas more points per match in twenty twenty
four at two eighty five than onetwenty five. Okay. If you would

(22:42):
have made heavyweight shout out, yepuh. If you, guys would have
made a bet with this, youprobably could have bet everyone before the tournament
and they would have all taken onetwenty five, you could have retired.
Okay at that point, Hi,Kevin? All right, So we're looking

(23:06):
at points, and we said itwas there was all the major increases and
takedowns, But what did it mean? What did that mean to the match
scoring? What about major's text pinsand defaults? Were there any changes there?
Okay? The increase in the frequencyof majors, okay, went up

(23:26):
twenty three percent from twenty three totwenty four. So that's a nice sizable
increase. Okay. The thing thatwent up the most by far is the
number of texts. We saw afive eighty eight percent increase in tech falls
from twenty three to twenty four.That is staggering. Okay. And another

(23:49):
thing in case you're wondering, therewere more technical falls at two eighty five
than there were one twenty five.Okay, oh that's a hard Yes,
I don't know. It used tobe the sitting where it's like, wow,
a tech fall at heavyweight, thatguy must have stuck. You know,

(24:10):
it's like you think it's a mismatch. I mean, I mean tech
falls are mismatches, but it's likeyou don't. The tech fall at heavyweight
used to be like a rarity.It was like you're either winning three to
two or you're pinning the guy.That was like, those were the two
decision types. Yep. Now it'sso the stereotype said, yes, no,
we know. Yeah. A lotof times stereotypes are based on just

(24:33):
old lives tales. Okay, I'mgoing to try to explain the writing time
as best as I can hear.So in my mind, the main reason
the writing time is going down theamount of writing time points is because the
increase in tech falls. You don'tget the writing time point if you get
a tech fall, unless you're winningfourteen by fourteen points, then you get

(24:56):
the writing time or it does goto seven minutes and you have the guy
hens back, et cetera. Soit's rare to get the writing time point
in a tech. Okay, thisis also a point of contention. I
want to shout out Leah Howard andAmanda Eml for this, and Chris andringas
so over the years. Again,the sticklers for stats, the scorekeepers at

(25:19):
Nationals are actually probably kind of guiltyof this, probably more than that,
And I think the regular fan baseis kind of guilty of picking it up.
They'll see a tech fall at Nationalsand then they'll see the point go
up on the board that is incorrect. It got to the point where we
even made a graphic that said itwas the writing time flow chart, and
we put it out on social media. Each year. It's like, did

(25:41):
the match go seven minutes? Yes, add the writing time point. No,
don't add the writing time point.It's that simple. It's that simple.
You do not add a tech.Another reason why is it important,
you say, Well, in aduel meet, it really could make a
difference because if that's the match pointwhen you go back and total up the
points for criteria, if that's calculatedincorrectly, it could adversely affect the outcome

(26:06):
of a dual meet. So addingthe technical the point after a technical fall.
Again, that's been like one ofthose like those like beating the drum
that only like three people actually knowuntil it's too late. So thank you
Glenn for telling the world again youmust go seven minutes and don't get into
the semantics. Well, what ifyou're an over you know, what if
the mass No, if the matchgoes regulation, you add the point.

(26:30):
That's it. Okay, really importantsticklers for stats. We got to remember
that because that's a great name fora band or we are, or an
academic challenge team like quiz bowl whateveryou call it. Yeah, like bar
trivia. Okay. So as faras pains, we saw a decrease of

(26:52):
eighteen percent of the frequency of pinswith just a two year thing. It's
really too hard to draw any totalconclusions on this. Okay. Some of
this could be that, you know, going for the technical, you know,
getting your takedowns easier than getting apin. Who knows, good news
with the faults. The faults aredown fifty percent from twenty three to twenty

(27:18):
four. Now that's great, butonce again, in a two year thing,
you really can't say for sure what'sgoing on. It might have just
been a couple of guys got hurtpretty bad at twenty three and fortunately to
get hurt in twenty four. Okay, the next slide shows you the Nu
Miracle set of percentage of pins tofalse majors text decisions, and you can

(27:41):
see what they're all up or down. Okay, and we've already gone through
those. Now the new takedown rulehas resulted more majors of texts. No
clear cut reasons for the pins arethe faults. Like we said, this
is something this topics is going tocontinue to do for several years as long

(28:03):
as there's a three point takedown rule, as long as that's still in effect
to see what goes on, becauseit takes more than one year to develop
a trade. And also moving forward, I'm sure we're going to touch on
this in Part two. And justfrom a programming note, we had program
we had part one here in thebeginning of the show. Our next show

(28:25):
is going to be a live showat the NBCA Convention. Then the following
show will come back with Part twoin September on this. So if you're
waiting to stick around, we've gottenthat, and there's a little note that
we've got there too, is becauseof like the preview guide, I've got
the Division one versus Division one individualresults throughout the season, so we got

(28:45):
pens, text majors and falls anddefaults. There. There is a distinct
difference in the number of defaults thisyear then there was last year, and
that's something we're going to address inpart two as well. And that doesn't
have to do with the three pointtakedown and it's with the oh the default
counts as a loss kind of thing. So yeah, a lot less,
a lot lot more wrestlers were like, Yeah, I'm going to wrestle this

(29:08):
tournament out versus taking the two l's. So that's something I want to just
foreshadow while we're on this particular topic, because that's the one I found the
most thicking. The same thing.Yep, tournament, we don't see it
because this is the end. Youknow, your default, that's tournament.
You're hurt. Yeah. So okay, so scoring was going down and we

(29:33):
watched it trending and we just lookedat it over a ten year period.
How has this the change in therule, Has it made a difference in
the scoring, and how is ittrending Okay, As we talked about in
episode eleven, a couple of yearsago, we went, we had two
five year periods eighty eight to ninetytwo. In twenty seventeen to twenty two.

(29:56):
Okay, the scoring we saw,and you can see it here on
the slot. It's gone down fromlike slightly over eleven points in seventeen,
eighteen and nineteen to nine point twofour and twenty three. Okay. Who
knows once again if twenty three justhappened to be an anomaly, but when
you have that many matches, it'sprobably not. So we saw less or

(30:18):
less scoring, okay, and thenall of a sudden we saw it jump
up. Okay in twenty four becauseof the new rule. You can see
it, it's down eleven point fourto four. Okay. Now with this,
you can see on slide thirty eightthe margin of victory has jumped from
four point two to two to fivepoint seventy three. Okay. In other

(30:42):
words, when you increased the scoringof the move that used to be half
the points down slightly over half thepoints, the winner usually gets more takedowns
than the loser, right, Okay, that's why you win the match.
So what we're seeing there is ahigher scoring match with no more scoring moves,

(31:02):
but a bigger margin of victory.Okay, the next slide we see
where we might see some anomalies oftwenty twenty three, where we show that
amount of technical's majors, et cetera, and the five and the four different
type frames that we have. Okay, now, Kevin, all right,

(31:26):
so now we've looked at it throughthe whole tournament. Were there any real
differences if you looked at it ona round by round basis? Okay,
we broke when I say wee Kevinand Pipsey broke all this down. I
just analyzed it. Okay, theydid it by rounds. The scoring increase

(31:49):
between the championships and the consolations arealmost identical, so it really didn't matter
whether it was a championship round bracketor consolation bracket. With the amount of
points per match, twenty three andtwenty four are the increase, They're almost
identical. Now I do, Ido, But looking at that, I

(32:10):
do find it interesting and I wouldthink it wouldn't be so that there was
a bigger percentage change in the finalsthan there was in the in all the
other rounds. Okay, that's right. That's very interesting to say that.
Part of the reason for the opportunityfor this is because there's only ten final

(32:32):
bouts each year. Okay, there'ssixteen first round bouts in every weight class,
so that means there's one hundred andsixty of those, so there's sixteen
times the amount of stuff. Soif there's just one weird thing that happens
that could really change the scoring inthat and just a ten man a ten

(32:55):
fish pool, okay, So youreally don't know from that if the percentage
of changing around a round is anydifferent or anything, because you really can't
take too much credence to the finalsbecause there's only ten notches. Now,
you know when you go to themargin of victory, the same thing happens

(33:19):
with the finals as a huge marginof victory. Uh. The one that
doesn't is the semifinals. Okay,so it's light forty two. So what
happens there is you can see thethirty five percent increase a margin of victory.
The margin of victory goes from fourpoint two to two to five point
seventy three. That's about a pointand a half per match. That's a

(33:44):
big difference in the margin of victory. Now, the increase in scoring could
really make a lot of fans happy, but well, the more lopsided match
cause fans to lose interest. Theone great thing about the world's oldest and

(34:04):
greatest sport is when we're listening toJason and Brian Hausard announced at the tournament,
if I'm bored by the one match, I have seven other ones to
look at. Okay, that's great. However, in the dual meet,
you only got one to look at. And let's face it, if you're
watching a college NFL football, basketball, whatever game on TV, okay,

(34:30):
and it's a blowout, you're probablyhitting the channel guy to find another game.
Okay. And I will say thistoo from from just a presentation standpoint.
So people ask me, what whatevents do I like doing better,
and I say the tournaments because it'sit's a circus. There's there's chaos.

(34:51):
A dual meet you can get realintense and it can be a great draw
for the fans. But it's alsoyou know, it's it's you know,
as you say here, I livedby the sword and die by the sord
of double edge sword. Great opportunityto bring people in for a ninety minute,
two hour sporting event to get themhooked on the sport. It's also
a great opportunity to run them outthe door because nothing happened. So and

(35:15):
as as somebody that's job is toannounce, you can only drum up one
point escape so many times. Soobviously more scoring is great Optically it looks
good. But a boring match isstill a boring match, no matter if
it's three to one or two toone with or three to two with the
riding time or four to two atthe riding time. You can't really legislate

(35:37):
actual action. At least you're atleast putting a higher number on the same
action as what we're learning here.But yeah, if if it's a dual
meet, you got one matt tocover, you're just kinda you go find
to get some popcorn or something.Yeah, especially if there's a pond further
review of a duel meet, wellthat's always the time you go. You
get you always go to the concessionsto owner of the bathroom and there's a

(35:59):
room. It's one man. That'sbye anyway. Okay, so just so
you guys know, we did alot on the nineteen eighty eight to ninety
two. In the past, wehaven't touched much on the show, but
the scoring was higher than that itwas in the next five year period were
addressed or the twenty three or twentyfour what we learned in the past show
about this is just to refresh people'smemories. Back in eighty eight ninety two

(36:23):
we didn't have the but what Icall the modified double elimination. Okay,
so the championship scoring was much higherthan than the consolation so that was kind
of the reason for that going on. But the scoring was still higher even
with that considered. Okay, nowwe've discussed it, there was a decrease

(36:51):
in scoring. Okay. A lotof times increase in scoring can really make
things more exciting in a lot ofpeople's minds. Here on Rocky Top,
we become known, we've become knownas home run you. And there's an
expression chickstig the long ball. Okay, that is really a lot more reason
that people go to see the gamethan to see a pitching duel. Let's

(37:14):
face it, Okay, does anyonenot love the home run friendly confines of
Wrigley I know I've spent many anafternoon with Rob Laermore and the bleachers.
They are just having fun. Okay, perhaps scoring and wrestling will bring in
more fans. Okay, winning ahome runs has done that in baseball and
Rocky Top. But we do haveto consider the margin of victory is going

(37:37):
up, that we're running a risk, Kevin, see, I well,
going back to that before we dothis. I think I think somebody getting
blown out is not a bad thing. I think I agree with Jason.
I think somebody winning sixteen to twois more exciting than a three to two

(38:00):
match. Yeah, I just Ijust, you know, people like the
action and I don't think that's gonnahurt us. But let's talk about basketball.
So kind of hell, I wouldnever say that statement on this show
every now, I'm just kidding.I still watch Duke Caroline every year.
Yes I do. Uh yeah,but it's so much better since they took

(38:22):
away the four corners. Right,Well, that was to your point,
But they think I think my highschool still implors it because yeah, anyway,
and they put a three point shotin, and they put a shot
clock in and how much. Soit's kind of a similar situation to what
we've done in wrestling. But they'vegot more data because it happened long ago.

(38:45):
How has that changed the scoring incollege basketball? I thank you for
answering that question, Kevin. Thereason we chose basketball, besides the obvious
two to three point takedown and twoand three point shots of basketball? Was
it something that's been around while?And if yours I Jason might not remember
the days before there was a threepoint shot in college, I'm no sure

(39:07):
college I do. I do knowthat the NBA added it in nineteen seventy
nine, in the year I wasborn, and Chris Ford hit the first
three point shot in NBA history.However, I also know the ABA implemented
this thing in the late sixties,so it's been around. It was around
and then men's college basketball. Idon't know when the women adopted it,
but I know the men's college basketball. I think we were still in the

(39:29):
mid eighties when we didn't have athree point shot, because I do.
I think I recalled Danny Manning playingin college without a three point line,
and I'm like, wait what becauseyou can see those those old the old
footage from Jordan and Ewing and thoseyou know, actually it was like like
the Villanova Georgetown year. I don'tthink there was a three point line in
that or the name Thompson heave fromhalf court or the Valvano run like crazy,

(39:53):
there's no three point line that waslike eighty two. So I definitely
know the into the mid eighties therewas no three point li on in men's
college basketball. Well, what happenedin college basketball is following the eighty one
eighty two season, different conferences haddifferent three point lines. It wasn't standardized
until eighty six. So Jason iscorrect some of those things he said,

(40:15):
like when Jordan played in the finals, there was no three point line,
okay, because it wasn't in aconference game. Okay. Then at eighty
five, we had a forty fivesecond clock that's now whittled down to a
thirty second clock. So what Idid was I used two ten year increments,
the most recent ten years and theten years before there was any type

(40:38):
of three point shot to see howthat's changed college basketball. Now. I'm
sure most people feel with the threepoint shot and the shot clock, scoring
is going up through the roof rightnow. Just so everybody knows, this
is points per team, not pointsin the game. Okay. Scoring has

(41:00):
gone from seventy three and a halfto a little under seventy two. Now.
In other words, scoring has gonedown very minimal, but it has
gone down now that we've implemented athree point line at a shot clock.
Now since we used scoring moves inwrestling, I used the field goals plus

(41:23):
free throws, and they've gone downsignificantly, about ten percent. Because of
course, if scoring is about thesame and you do have a three point
line, you're going to need lessshots to to get to that number.
Okay. Now, ironically, inbasketball, the percentage of free throws of
the total scoring hasn't changed one bit. What's happened is the scoring has remained

(41:49):
the same points per game, butthe game has changed drastically to a game
now even the big manner shooting threepoint shots okay, and of course fourth
corner Tean Smith games, Okay,you have to play a faster paced gate.
Okay. They still play defense incollege basketball as well. Also,

(42:10):
college basketball does have the benefit ofof you know, we've got the one
and done's, the flashy players thatcome in for one year and then jump
to the draft. But there's stillthree hundred and change teams that aren't on
TV all the time that are playingthe same game, the same rules.
So the data set gives us alot more to draw from because again,

(42:31):
we've got seventy nine D one wrestlingteams and in a you know, thirty
two plus one, you know,thirty three man bracket times ten. I
mean, you've got hundreds of basketballgames in each league each year that always
make it. Uh, you know, you've got this team. Like when
Paul west Had, for example,was coaching at George Mason was bringing the
run and gun or a loyal andmerrymount. You know, they were scoring

(42:52):
one forty one to fifty game becausethey'd run down, shoot the ball as
all threes. Grenelle plays that styleof basketball three school in Iowa, So
it was a Jack Taylor scored likeone hundred some points in a game D
three guys. So there are obviouslythe outliers to this. But yeah,
they're still playing defense in college basketballthankfully. Yeah. So this is an

(43:15):
example, guys that it's changed drastically, okay, the game of college basketball,
but scoring has remained the same.The more things change, the more
they say the same. Okay,is a game better or worse or the
same for the fans? Who knows? Okay, our minds can't remember back
pre nineteen eighty two and stuff likethat, but nobody can now imagine three

(43:38):
a game with basketball without those things, Right, Kevin, I kind of
summon that up rules are changing.The new three point takedown doesn't mean the
world's ending. We've seen this majorchange in sports and it seems to help

(43:58):
the sport. It sounds good thatwrestling is trying to improve the sport,
and I also think that we needto look at this like we just looked
at basketball, and see what itdoes over the next couple of years.
One thing I want to add here, I was when when I was going
through this, I was remembering thattakedowns got so prevalent and I don't remember
the year, but there was thepoint in time in college wrestling, well

(44:22):
the first takedown was worth two pointsand then the subsequent ones were a point
because they were trying to get awayfrom the just you know that that kind
of mindset that they changed it backreally short period Gray Simon's era, because
he competed under those rules the earlyhe had scored a million points. I

(44:42):
think one of his titles was definitelyin the two one one one era.
So yeah, yeah, So anyway, Kevin, I answer your questions here.
There's been major sports rule changes.Just read it alive, And just
to highlight a couple of the bigone that we can't imagine the games without.
Major League Baseball put the DH rulein in seventy three, they introduced

(45:06):
inner league play. They lowered theMAL to nineteen sixty nine. Kevin,
and I old enough to remember BobGibson's one point one two e are okay.
The NFL legalized the Ford pass andsix and not even Hazard's old enough
to remember that. Okay. Also, of note, stupid factoid because I
knew the Chris Ford stat When GeorgiaTech beat Cumberland two hundred and twenty two

(45:30):
to nothing in the highest scoring gamein NCAAIR college football history, they did
it without throwing a forward pass.Yep, and they never had a third
down. Another rule, which ofcourse I hate, is instant replay.
It slows everything down. We didPD testing. Okay, we have a

(45:50):
targeting rule in football. I seemto be the only one Ford when I'm
at a game. Okay, thetuck rule. Nobody understands whatever the hell
that means. Okay, and collegefootball adopted a playoff in ninety eight and
it changed things, and we allknow who was the first school to win
that. You know, with thenew playoff system, it's still not an
NCAA championship no matter. No,it's not how much you want it to

(46:14):
be, by the way, andalso it does nobody cares because guess what
the biggest hottest item right now isCollege football twenty five had just got released.
Yeah, I got thirty extra bucksto play it three days early.
By the way, I don't.I don't have a PlayStation five or an
Xbox. I'm gonna have to getone because again, as I've said it
on the show many times, Ilove college football, but I hate college

(46:35):
football, but I love that freakinggame. Well, great, go ahead,
get the game anyway. I don'tknow much about the game, but
I was at that game in ninetyeight when the balls won. So we've
got this new rules change. Whatdo you think it's going to do long
term? Well, so far,Kevin, our analysis shows that there are

(47:01):
more points per match, a highermargin of victory, and the same number
of takedowns and scoring moves. How'sa statistician, I really can't say what
is going to mean long term.Okay, the world changes that were part
of that. Okay, I'm allfor the rule change to see what happens.

(47:23):
Okay, am I against it?You know, after enough data that
we see the changing it back.No, but I think we keep it
like it is for next year andtry to see how the sport will change,
because the sport's going to change.My question is how long my worry

(47:45):
about this? And again I wasn'tinitially for it because I didn't see it
was fixing a problem other than themargin of victory. Well, like I
think people look at I think itwas the kun Wwzdowski final at heavy it
was like eight seven, but itwas like it was a one point match,
but there was one takedown. Itwas like three takedowns to one takedown.
It's like, how is that aone point match? I don't care.

(48:06):
The right wrestler won the match nomatter what the score said. So
to me, I thought it wasagain, it was a solution to problem
that didn't really exist unless you're likeconcerned so much about the margin of victory,
which doesn't mean anything except if it'sa you know, you get the
bonus point for the major or thetech, which in a close match,
it's immaterial. I worried about whatwas going to happen if because wrestling coaches

(48:31):
are some of the best people inwell actually, I think any coach,
regardless of the sport, will takea rule and find a way to exploit
it to their advantage. And wedidn't see that in year one. We
didn't see people taking the stall callout of bounds like we thought we were
going to. Instead of, oh, on the edge, I'm going to
give up three, I'm just gonnarun out and give up the stall point.

(48:51):
You know, you got a littlebit more cushion there. So we
didn't see that gamification of the rule. For you know, every good rule
has its consequences or it's you know, it's unforeseen byproducts. So I didn't
see that, and that was actuallyI was fine with it, but it
took us took a big basically aminute to get used to. Now that
was high school's going to three.We won't have events like a Virginia duel

(49:14):
where you've got three point takedowns overhere, two point takedowns over here.
Uniformity is good. So the factthat we're on the same page, I
think that's good. I'm just waiting. I feel like, I don't want
to sound pessimistic when I say this, but I am kind of waiting for
the other shoe to drop because greatrules get applied, and then they get
gamified, and then they get youknow, there's gamesmanship all over the place

(49:36):
with it, and there's you know, like like finding what happens with the
default, and then now you getlike, well, what happens we've had
the rule was basically just you know, I've taken advantage of the point where
a guy that's legitimately hurt like Cardistarachihas to take two l's to you know,
and those are on his record that'sthat ended ended his wind streak,

(49:57):
So they're the byproduct of that ishe was hurt. Well us what those
losses count. So I worry aboutwhat's going to happen when when they when
we figure out how to beat thethree point takedown basically so, but right
now it hasn't happened, So hopefullywe continue to wrestle because we like to
wrestle, We like to score pointsversus trying to cheat the system, and

(50:19):
it gives us something to do forthe next couple of years. True.
Yeah, and it's it's just likeI said earlier. I agree with you,
Jason. We don't know yet.Did I have reservations about it when
it happens, Yeah, you know, I looked into it statistically and it
the sport. Has it changed yet, But you're right, a lot of
different things could happen. Yeah.I didn't have like a vehement a position

(50:39):
of it one way or the other. And as I say all the time,
I don't care who wins, SoI just want to see great action.
I want to you know, it'sI want to I want to watch
the sport as a fan. Iwant to watch the sport of somebody who
loves the sport of wrestling, notnecessarily be like, well, my team
lost, because that you know,a lot of people shape their opinions of
the rules or their opinion on therule changes based on what their head coach

(51:00):
things, not necessarily what they think, Oh is it good for my program?
My coach things is good, soit's got to be good. So,
you know, sometimes it's from afan standpoint, it can be a
tribalistic following of, you know,a pied piper type of thing. Oh
well, my coach says this,so we're gonna We're for that until get
a new coach and changes his opinion. Well, maybe the other way is
better, but that's uh, itmight be another question entirely. Yep.

(51:22):
And what Kevin just said, itgives us something to do. This is
we're the money ball of wrestlingnalysis Ogood Melas. And you know, like
I said, we're the money ballof wrestling, and we're going to keep
on looking into this. You know, like Billy Joel's famous song, we
didn't start the fire. Things happenin life, okay. And we're trying

(51:43):
to help out the coaches, thefans, the wrestlers, moms, dads,
you know, aunts, uncles,trying to understand the sport and see
how it might change. Maybe itbecomes a better sport. Maybe nobody even
notices five years from now, Idon't know, Okay. Now, match
stats will dive into Man's NCAA Divisiontwo championships and the change in margin of

(52:08):
victory in part two. Okay.Once again, I just want to thank
Kevin. He's the OW, theoutstanding worker on this on this episode.
In the next one, yes itis first OW Okay, for the amount
of work you put into this.Now let's hear that the monthly Kev's notes.

(52:30):
All right, let's do these Kev'snotes. And we you know,
as we were saying, the majorchange in collegiate wrestling twenty twenty four takedowns
and now were three points. Andwe looked at how this affected scoring.
First increase in points of almost twentyfour percent, and that's points per mat
from twenty three to twenty four.Most of these scoring increases were from takedowns

(52:55):
fifty takedown points per match, andnow take should have been forty seven,
and now takedowns are fifty nine percentof scoring. Coaches note takedowns are now
more important than ever. While takedownpoints increased fifty five percent, the number
of takedowns only increased three percent,and the number of score moves only increased

(53:19):
point eight percent. So all thechanges was just in the takedowns. There
were no more scoring moves, nota whole lot more action, just more
more points. There are not alot of difference in the number of points
per match when looked at through thedifferent weight classes, worth considering the margin
victory went up thirty six percent,or about one and a half points per

(53:43):
match. Interestingly, two eighty fiveJason and I were happy about that average
more points per match than one twentyfive at the two to twenty four Men's
Championships. The question is is atan anomaly or is it good for the
sport? Number eight major decisions increasetwenty three percent, tech falls almost six.

(54:08):
So the biggest, biggest difference wasreally in tech falls. One of
the really nice things the rule changereverse the decrease in points per match we
didn't witness in the last ten years. Like we looked at steadily going down
boom, all of a sudden,it bumps up two points and ten.

(54:29):
It's really going to be interesting watchingthe change over the next couple of years,
and we'll see if the sport changesmuch like the NCAA men's basketball has,
but the number scoring moves remain thesame. We'll see how that goes,
all right, Kevin, thank youfor summing that up. One thing

(54:49):
we're trying to add here to theshow to let people know, Match Stats
encourages our viewers to contact us withquestions, topic requests, and observations.
Okay, feel free to contact usat NWCA mattch Stats at gmail dot com,
or at our Twitter account. Okay, We're here to help the sport.

(55:10):
Now, if you're at the convention, okay, which Kevin and I
will be there. Jason will bethere virtually. Kevin and I will be
at Booth twenty nine, Vendor Boothtwenty nine. Feel free to come by
and ask us any questions you have. Okay, while we're talking about the

(55:30):
convention, Match Stats has alive gameday type show at the twenty twenty four
Convention. Okay, it's Thursday,July twenty fifth, eight forty five to
nine to fifteen pm. That's Easterntime, during the welcoming cocktail party there.
Like I said, Jason will bethere virtually. Kevin I will be

(55:51):
their live, but we look forwardto seeing everybody then. As Jason so
elak we said earlier in the show, our next show will be in September,
because our August show is basically inJuly. Here in a couple of
days, Jason's going to be overseas. The next show in September will be

(56:14):
further into how the three point takedownhas affected this. Okay, any closing
statements from Jason or Kevin, Well, my camera's frozen here, so you
might hear me, but you justcan't see me. I'm looking in deep
thought here on the screen. Sothis is a show on the fun technology.
I'm just sitting there staring at ourbeautiful, wonderfully present done presentation here.

(56:38):
But no, that's all I got. Maybe one of these days we
got that that. We can alsolook at other things like digging into numbers
from Fargo because you know, grantedthat's in July, something we can look
at in future episodes, as wellas metal counts from the Olympiad as they
come off. So those are someother things we're going to look at in

(56:59):
the future. So that's all I'vegot, uh for you guys. So
I'm frozen here on screen. SoGlenn, Kevin, you guys can wrap
it up as you see fit oneone one thing For me, I will
look forward, you know, comesee Jason and I or Glenn and I
at the at the convention. Lookforward to meeting a lot of you,
okay, guys, and on behalfof my Cohorst Jason Bryant, Kevin Hazard,

(57:23):
I'm Glenn Gormley. A match that'sa money bowler wrestling