The Wisconsin Badgers travel to Happy Valley to take on reigning NCAA champion Penn State, and the premier matchup this Sunday will involve two of the best gunslingers in NCAA wrestling, Evan Wick and two-time NCAA champion Vincenzo Joseph. 

Wick has an uphill battle ahead of him, but there are a few things that he MAY be able to do score some points on Cenzo. Contrarily, if Cenzo keeps it simple he can make Wick's trip back to Madison a long one.

O>D 

 When we think of Evan Wick and how he goes about scoring points, we have a tendency to think that he will be defensive, using his length and size to drape over the back when his opponents take his leg. That may not be far from the truth, but against the best that the NCAA has to offer, Wick’s offense is what has proved more fruitful. 

In his two bouts against Alex Marinelli, Evan Wick had much more success in the first bout when he was in on Marinelli’s legs. If he wants to be successful against Cenzo, he is going to have to be all over his legs from the neutral position, and he is going to need to be more aggressive getting his hands locked on that cradle… Oh yeah, when he gets his hands locked on a cradle, forget about it. You're going over. 

Stay With Me

I know that most coaches like to say that finishing a single up on your feet with your opponent hopping around on one foot is the best course of action. I'm not convinced that that is always the case, especially for someone like Wick. 

OK, if you're a true wrestling tech nerd you're going to be able to follow me here. If you're not, just know that I don't allow myself to go this deep down the rabbit hole too often. It's just too time-consuming to try and explain. 

This sport is all about angles. Most of the time, coaches take that sentence and they relate it to the angle at which their athlete attacks their opponent. Obviously, attacking someone’s leg from a 90-degree angle as opposed to right in front of them is extremely valuable, but that’s not the angle that I'm talking about. I'm talking about the angle of your hips in comparison to your opponent’s when you’re already in on a leg. Keeping your hips close to his hips becomes crucial, and doing that while still being able to support the weight with your body position. 

Watch the clips below. I want you to pay close attention to the angle at which both wrestlers’ hips are pointed. The way that I think about it is that there are lasers shooting out from the points of their hips. In a perfect world for Wick, he dives at the leg using his long frame and when he gets to the leg he has a 180 degree angle, i.e., the lasers from his hips are facing east and Marinelli’s hip lasers are facing west. Then, keeping the action on the ground, he chases down a 45-degree angle on Marinelli’s hips. Wick then steps over the leg with his left foot and uses his left leg to KEEP Marinelli from squaring his hips up. Wick winds up with another 180 degree angle, this time both sets of hip lasers are pointed west (TTTWWWOOOO).

The second part of the clip is Wick vs. Marinelli at this season’s Midlands Championships. you see Wick back in on a leg and every time he starts to get that angle Marinelli can turn and face him because Wick didn’t use his left leg scoop Marinelli’s right leg.

Not geeky enough for you? Oh, I'm just getting started. Now I want you to look at all the times Wick tries to go from the mat to his feet with the leg. When he does, his hips move away from the leg and there’s nothing under the lock to support the weight of Marinelli’s leg. 

Think of it this way. If Wick locks his hands around a leg, let's pretend (for the sake of this explanation) that there are 1,000 pounds of weight on that lock. Obviously, you’d prefer (if you were Wick) to support that weight with something other than the small muscles in your lower back. But there are a few times in the second match versus Marinelli that Wick works really hard to muscle that 1,000-pound leg up with those small muscles. That gets exhausting. Quick. The longer exchanges like that go, the more they favor the defensive wrestler. 

When you look at the pics above try to visualize that lock having 1,000 pounds of weight on it and think about how uncomfortable that would be to hold on to. Now take into account that all four pics are from the same shot and your lungs should start burning just reading this. 

If you made it through both of those explanations, the video, and the pics, CONGRATS, you are a true wrestling tech nerd… Please tweet me with nothing more than the nerd emoji so that I can see just how many of you are out there. 

Just Grab Both Legs

If I was wrestling Evan Wick, I’d do anything that I possibly can to make sure that I find a way to get my hands on both legs when taking a leg attack. Seems easy enough, right? Marinelli figured out the Wick puzzle this year at Midlands, scoring on double legs from each side that both started as right-handed single legs. 

When previewing the Marinelli/Wick matchup, we talked a lot about conversion time. Marinelli didn’t waste any time at all when he was in on Wick's leg this time around, changing that single to a double and finishing ASAP. 

Lucky for Cenzo he’s got a pretty good double.