Another NCAA tournament without a top 8 finisher.

www.msnsportsnet.com/page.cfm?...&cat=exclusives

EWL 2012 All-Americans

197 - Christopher Honeycut (Edinboro) 2nd
165 - Bekzod Abdurakhmonov (Clarion) 3rd Place
197 - Matthew Wilps (Pittsburgh) 4th Place
157 - James Fleming (Clarion) 5th Place
149 - Tyler Nauman (Pittsburgh) 5th Place

EWL had 3 top 20 Teams

15. Pittsburgh 35.0
17. Edinboro 32.5
18. Clarion 32.0

Has Craig Turnbull retired yet?

Since Greg Jones graduated, it seams like the program went stagnant.

The decline has much more to do with the departure of former assistant coach Zeke Jones, an Olympic silver medalist, to become the head coach at the University of Pennsylvania, and who now directs the Olympic training center. This is bio info from Penn 's website:

"In his time with the Mountaineers, Jones coached three NCAA champions (including Greg Jones, one of only 10 freshmen ever to win national titles), five NCAA finalists, 12 All-Americans, 17 Eastern Wrestling League conference champions, three first-team Academic All-Americans and 12 NWCA Academic All-Americans. He helped lead the team to three conference titles (2002, 2003 and 2005) and several West Virginia records, including most NCAA points (1999), most All-Americans (1998, 1999), most NCAA qualifiers (2002) and longest win streak (21 matches, extending from 2002 until 2004).

Off the mats, Coach Jones did just as much work to build the West Virginia wrestling program into a respected and successful one. His responsibilities included supervising the academic achievement and progress of student-athletes, recruiting top Division I prospective wrestlers, organizing fundraising and promotional projects, assistant directing the EWL, and co-directing the West Virginia University Open, in which more than 400 wrestlers compete. 

In addition, Jones founded and served as director of the Mountaineer Wrestling Club and the Zeke Jones/West Virginia University/California Wrestling Camps, which more than 700 wrestlers attend. He also founded and served as head coach for the Sunkist Kids National Training Program at West Virginia University, a training center for national team athletes."


WVU should never have let Zeke get away.

NT