Carter Starocci's Path To A 4th NCAA Title (2024)

Though many feel Carter Starocci was a complete lock to win his 4th NCAA title last weekend, fate decided to give him a different test altogether. Carter’s leg was injured not long before the Big Tens, prompting the wrestling world to wonder if he was going to be healthy enough to compete at NCAA’s let alone win his 4th title. Also, it’s not like he had an easy bracket, with 2 other returning NCAA champions in the same weight class, you could say it was one of the tougher weight classes in the tournament. To make it even more of a challenge, Cael decided it was better to look out for Carter’s health at the Big Tens and give him some more time to heal, than let him compete through the tournament. So Carter injury defaulted at the start of both of his matches at Big Tens, which was necessary to get to NCAAs, but this gave Carter 2 losses, which unfortunately knocks him down a peg in the race for the Hodge trophy, while making him suffer in seeding points as well. That’s a super difficult decision to make as a coach, I guarantee Cael did not make that decision lightly because he knew what it would sacrifice, but ultimately he wasn’t willing to put Carter’s health on the line for a hodge trophy when there’s so much else left to do after NCAA’s. So, a difficult decision for sure, but arguably the correct one.

So, unfortunately for Carter, he was forced to start the NCAA tournament seeded number 9. Due to how the seeding was handled, or I assume mishandled, he had both national champions on his side of the bracket, Mekhi Lewis and Shane Griffith, and he would have to wrestle both of them on his path to the finals. Talk about trying to throw someone under the bus.

A lot of times when you go to a tournament, it’s just easier to be seeded higher so you don’t have to go through each and every good wrestler there, every highly ranked wrestler gets separated so the better matches end up being in the semis or hopefully the finals. This is good for the fans and also helpful for the better wrestlers because they can be fresher for the final match, and then in turn the fans see a match with a higher energy output. So it’s good on many levels, but to be an NCAA champion sometimes means you have to be able to beat every single person in your bracket, you can’t just hope to get lucky here or there with a few upsets. And that’s the task that Carter put on himself when he stated, “don’t even have me seeded, I’ll take them out one by one inside of three days”. That’s confidence, but it’s also reality, sometimes you’re just not going to get the draw you want, but you have to beat everyone if you want to win anyways.

If you’re no stranger to the sport of wrestling, you know that seeding is not always calculated correctly. If you look at Pennsylvania’s high school state tournament for example you can see that seeding barely even exists, prompting some of the best matches to happen well before the finals, and then you have a finals match where it’s completely lopsided and everyone in the stands is either like, “wow this guy is amazing, look at how he teched the guy in the finals”, or more realistically, “wow, can’t believe i missed the best match of the tournament because it happened 2 rounds ago, who organized this tournament and why are they so terrible at their jobs?”

We’re going to go through all 5 matches of his NCAA tournament so you can see his ups and downs and we can go through some of the drama that took place. I’ll even go over my thoughts on the Bo Nickal, Jordan Burroughs, Carter Starocci drama that happened afterwards because I think there are some important things to talk about and also why not. But we’ll do that at the end of the video, let’s get to the matches.

Match #1: #24 Andrew Sparks

First match vs Andrew Sparks from Minnesota, funny cause Sparks would have had to wrestle Carter his 2nd match at Big Tens if Carter didn’t injury default, I guess you can only dodge that bullet for so long. He probably saw that draw at nationals and was like “greaatttt”.

30 seconds in, Carter takes a fairly random high crotch from space. A little head tap, then he goes, which you can’t expect shots like this to get you in very easily against an opponent that can react, and react Sparks does. He circles away from the shot as he sprawls, which is the direction you do want to go, away from the shot, helps stretch your opponent out and lets you get to a sprawl easier. Sparks however is not able to stay on his feet and keep his knees off the mat, most likely because Carter reaches down with his right hand and secures the ankle, which keeps the leg straight, pulls it under, and forces Sparks to a crack down. Here in this crack down, defensively, you would try to scoot your hips to the right, get a good crotch lock, lock up the near ankle with your leg, get your hips up, cross-face, for the takedown. This can be an issue if the offensive guy does a good job keeping his shoulder into your hips, which Carter is doing. If you need added safety you can also put your inside hip down, which limits their ability to get a crotch lock, but it doesn’t seem like Carter needs to do that here. He would be looking to reach across for the double to get his takedown.

Sparks however, reaches over the body, grabs Carter’s drive leg, falls his body over top of the head, and starts to funk. You can do this same funk maneuver when someone has a high crotch and is on his feet, about to drive to a double. The drive leg is an easy target, though dropping to it can be sketchy. This funk here is problematic mostly because it’s difficult to stop, you really want to hang your hips back, let the leg float over top of the body, get your left arm between the legs and look for a navy ride or get control of the bottom leg so you can control the hips and not let your opponent roll away from you, which allows them to gain position. We saw Tyler Kasak do this a bunch of times to opponents trying to funk with a lot of success in the last video. However, all of that might be a huge issue for Carter and his recently injured right leg.

Sparks gets height, turns, looks for a cross-face cradle, but settles for the takedown. Score is now 3-0 Sparks, and this moment is when people really started to doubt whether or not Carter was healthy enough to compete at this level, but a takedown did not deter Carter one bit.

Carter makes his way up to his feet, gets his escape, 3-1 Sparks, Carter immediately fires off the exact same lefty high crotch, and gets into the exact same crack down. This time, however, Carter does a better job of keeping his drive leg away from Sparks’ reach, eliminating the repeat funk, and circles his way to the takedown. 4-3 Carter. It’s super important for you to be able to take previous information in a match and use it to your advantage later, and Carter does a good job of adjusting to this position.

Sparks holds on too long, reaches for the near leg this time, I’m assuming he’s trying to funk again, but Carter reaches up for an easy claw ride, gets a weak turk, which is the hooking of the bottom leg with his leg, and starts pulling the other ankle up with his free hand. The leg turk there, you would try to hook the leg and elevate it to get more of a control of the hip, then hop your hips to the far side, which does a good job of turning the hips and makes it easier to turn the upper body, but it’s pretty easy to see why Carter won’t be doing that here.

Carter doesn’t get the pin with his claw, he would need to put more shoulder pressure into that top shoulder, maybe get his claw a little deeper and tighter, but honestly claw rides, while they’re great for controlling someone, are not great for pinning. He switches to a half nelson, notice him keep shoulder pressure and circle his body towards the head, which allows leg strength and general leverage to push Sparks over, not relying on his tricep like youth wrestlers do. This is someone who understands how to create the right leverage with a half nelson. Regardless, Carter’s chest is too far forward and he doesn’t have a good enough wrap around the head, so he isn’t able to secure the fall. He does get 4 points for the 4 swipes. Even though technically those are 2 holds, the claw and the half, Sparks wasn’t able to get back to his base and back to safety in between, so the ref was just holding the backpoints through the entire half nelson. So, score is now 8-3. Period runs out without any other scoring.

2nd period, Carter gets choice, takes neutral. I’m assuming we’re going to see a lot of this, as being on bottom wouldn't be a great thing for Carter’s leg. So if the match isn’t close, he’ll probably lean on taking neutral every time.

Minute 18 left in the period, Sparks takes a random lefty single from space, zero setup, and so Carter sprawls, circles to the left which clears the lefty single grip, Sparks reaches up with his right arm to catch a righty single, so Carter quickly circles back the other way, clears his legs, and gets the takedown. So, not only is this really good reaction from Carter, circling away from the shot, which is what you need to do, he does it twice within two leg attack attempts, which makes it super difficult for Sparks to control anything. This is coupled by the random shot that Sparks takes, which puts him in a bad position to get a shot to begin with. The easiest way to get to a better shot would be to use a tie-up, underhook, russian, pass-by, arm drag, maybe a fake, anything but just reaching and hoping that your opponent doesn’t react quickly enough. You’d be surprised how often this happens, even at the highest level. This shot from Sparks was an elementary school league level shot. Sorry, but it’s true. You need to set up your shots. Score is 11-3 Carter.

Sparks makes his way up to his feet by the 47 second mark, gets his escape, 11-4 Starocci. Period runs out without anything exciting happening.

Sparks takes bottom. 1:20 mark is able to get his escape, nothing too interesting, 11-5 Starocci. Starocci gets a second stall call at about the 7 second mark, 11-6, but basically just holds on for his first round victory, 12-6 with the riding time point. You can see that his leg is holding him back a bit, but he’s sure to get stronger and smarter with each match.

Match #2: #8 Adam Kemp

Match number 2 against the 8th seeded wrestler, Adam Kemp from Cal-Poly. Almost off the whistle, Carter reaches with his right arm, and so Kemp pops that elbow up for a nice righty high crotch, which turns into a lefty single. We used to call this a knee-pull single. Starocci kind of just bails from the shot and gives up the takedown. So, the 2nd match and this is the second time we’ve seen Starocci give up the first takedown, again prompting the wrestling community to be worried about whether or not he can defeat the upcoming national champs that he has on his plate. Not much to talk about with this takedown, other than pointing out once again how effective a simple elbow pop can be. Score is 3-0 Kemp.

You can also see Kemp hanging on that right side and hooking the injured leg with his left leg. Now, that might be the side that Kemp is always on, as you get older it is more and more common for wrestlers to be on the right side in referee's position. Good wrestlers are looking for any advantage they can find, so that’s why they start switching over to the right side as they get older. That’s also why I teach righty and lefty stand ups every time I go over that series, to get you used to a lefty stand up, which is going to be needed against better kids. If this isn’t Kemp’s normal side, as well as Sparks’s normal side, you can see how they are both trying to use Carter’s injured leg to their advantage. Just something to note, something I’m going to discuss after we see Carter win NCAAs.

At about the 2:30 mark Kemp elects to just let Carter up and give him an escape, a nice little gift. Score is 3-1 Kemp.

Minute 20 left, Carter pops the right elbow up and goes for a lefty high crotch, beginning to sense a pattern here. Lefty shots work super well in general, mostly because you see them a lot less and so your muscle memory of reacting to them isn’t as good. Kemp doesn’t do a very good job initiating a scramble here though. No sprawl to start his defense, no forcing of the shin whizzer or out the back door or crack down if the sprawl fails, nothing really. He kind of just starts kicking away, which isn’t the right thing to do when someone gets to your leg, because it’s not difficult for a good opponent to reach up and collect both legs as you try to kick away. You’ll end up giving up an easy takedown that I don’t have much advice for because you didn’t try anything really. Also, fleeing the mat and stalling could get called. It’s just a bad idea all around. Starocci keeps his feet in bounds, score is 4-3.

Starocci rides Kemp out for the rest of the period. Gets choice, chooses down, makes his way up to his feet, gets an escape for the 5-3 lead. A lot of hand fighting and no real shot attempts for the rest of the period.

3rd period, Kemp has choice, chooses neutral. Proceeds to back away for most of the period, isn’t able to get anything going, and so the final score is 5-3 Starocci.

Match #3: #1 Mekhi Lewis (Quarters)

Match number 3 against number 1 seed Mekhi Lewis from Virginia Tech. This was one of the most anticipated matchups in this bracket, if not the whole tournament. Mekhi is very, very good. As I stated before, he is also an NCAA champion.

Starocci does get a takedown in the first, though it takes a while to get there. He goes for his usual head tap on the right to a lefty high crotch, but as he does that it looks like Mekhi is taking a shot of his own, so Starocci immediately changes course and drops down on that right foot, the one Mekhi was stepping super deep with. This is an interesting change in direction, it takes a lot of skill to see that shift of motion and attack the leg that’s stepping, so, it requires a super good feel.

Here the easiest way to finish the takedown is to put your head in the knee, put pressure forward while trying to pull the ankle to your chest, plant your opponent to his butt, tripod, circle to the double. It looks like Carter tries to do that, but then starts circling left and settles for a single. Mekhi should be looking for a whizzer here, but it either isn’t available or he’s just more comfortable attacking hands. If you can separate the hands you can slip your leg out, it’s a very underrated way to defend a single, though at this level wrestlers do tend to have a super strong grip, so that would be difficult. Carter comes up with the single, you really want to try to lift the leg and do a back trip as soon as you can, makes it tough for your opponent to find his footing, makes your takedown easier, and it’s an easy thing to go for immediately, there’s no reason not to, but it looks like Carter is a bit more concerned about the whizzer Mekhi finds, cause he starts to let go of that leg with that arm and limps his arm out, but this would definitely give someone time to jump under and dive for some funk, and that’s what Mekhi does.

Mekhi almost misses the leg, unfortunately for him. The funk he was diving for, it just seems like he was tentative with it, almost like he wasn’t sure if he should do it or if it would work. It was a half a second too late. The smallest bit of hesitation is what makes stuff like this fail. If you’re gonna do something crazy and dive at something, it needs to be done with full confidence, like you already know it’s going to work, otherwise it probably won’t.

Mekhi does settle for a normal lefty high crotch, as Starocci finds his way to a sprawl position, which is not good for Mekhi. Starocci is lifting the near ankle, which is another thing you would do with a good sprawl, this is in an attempt to break Mekhi down to his hip and make the sprawl easier, but Starocci stays on his left knee, which eases up the pressure of the sprawl in general. With a good sprawl you want both knees off the mat, opposite hip down, as you circle away and lift the near ankle, then you lift the far elbow to make him decide to let go of your leg because all of this stretches the shoulders out. So Carter has every bit down, except for the knee, which might be again due to his injury. It’s difficult to keep your knees off the mat in this situation, puts strain on both of your legs, so I can see why he wouldn’t be able to do this if he is trying to.

Mekhi comes up with the high crotch, so Carter commits to the shot he’s close to, and so Mekhi lets go of the leg to defend this high single. Carter would be trying to run the pike here, put pressure with his shoulder, circle left, try to get Mekhi to hit his butt, and then reach for a double and the takedown. Mekhi tries to use his grip on Carter’s right shoulder to do an armdrag, scoot his butt around, but if you’re going to do that you need to create your angle and then get to a crotch lock immediately so you can keep the angle, and Mekhi holds onto the arm drag way too long for that, which allows Carter to get his shoulder back into Mekhi’s hips, pull the ankle down, and circle around for the takedown. Also, if Mekhi had that crotch lock and got circled into, he could use it to roll backwards and find his way back on top. Score is 3-0 Starocci.

That was a long takedown, a fairly decent scramble, but you can see that most of the issues with the scrambles were brought on from the defensive wrestler at the time missing important details. These are all things that could be fixed, this takedown could have happened a lot earlier for either wrestler. A long scramble doesn’t always mean a good scramble. In most cases, it means that both wrestlers continually missed opportunities to seal the takedown.

Carter rides Mekhi out for the rest of the period, gets choice in the second, takes bottom, controls hands well, and gets his escape by the 1:40 mark, bringing the score to 4-0 Starocci. They hand fight for the rest of the period, no real shot attempts by either.

Mekhi takes neutral in the third, isn’t able to get anything going, honestly, he doesn’t even take a good shot, does a lot of reaching, looks like he’s tired, it’s Carter’s shot that creates a scramble that eats up the last 40 seconds in the period. Carter gets to a single, Mekhi gets a shin whizzer, but isn’t prepping for anything really. Carter starts coming up, and here you could honestly let go of the leg, limp your arm out, and look to catch the body. If you circle into and behind your opponent this is even easier. You’re letting go of the leg, so your opponent could kick free, but if they have too much pressure down on the whizzer at this point, that pressure could make them fall and make the takedown super easy to get. As you come up and your opponent faces you you can push the head to the left and kick the foot out to the right. Starocci does try this, but it’s done when Mekhi was stable on his foot, so it’s done too late. Mekhi does a decent job keeping his free leg away, goes into a split, but getting a stalemate here isn’t going to help him win the match, and so Starocci takes out NCAA champ #1 4-0.

Match #4: #4 Shane Griffith (Semis)

Match number 4 against 4th seed Shane Griffith. 2 minutes in, Carter has this same position he had before, and goes for the same trip, but this time fares even worse, mostly because of the position that Shane has over it, leaning towards his head. You can use the grip you have of the leg, lock your hands, whip it to the right, which forces your opponent to his hands, especially if he’s leaning that way, and if he reacts well you can either run the pike or do the, push the head, sweep the foot finish. Carter doesn’t get anything here.

Period runs out, Shane gets choice, chooses bottom. Carter rides him out the entire period, gaining 2 minutes of riding time.

3rd period, Carter gets choice, chooses bottom, 10 seconds in, makes his way to his feet, separates hands, gets his escape, 1-0 Carter. And nothing crazy happens for the rest of the period. Shane did have some shot attempts, but nothing better than a simple fake to a shot, so no real scrambles were initiated. Carter didn’t get called for stalling until the 10 second mark, which is inconsequential at this point, score ends 1-0, 2-0 with riding time. And so Carter takes out NCAA champ #2 without much issue.

Match #5: #6 Rocco Welsh (Finals)

Finals match vs Rocco Welsh from Ohio State who is a freshman, which is super impressive that he was able to make his way to the finals, though he obviously had an easier route to get there. Now I know this tournament is crazy difficult, every one is good, no match is easy, but comparatively, I mean, come on.

Carter stays on the attack the entire first period, Welsh gets hit with stalling at about the 42 second mark, and then again right before the period is over. Carter had control of the mat the entire time, attacked often, and got the second stall call right before the period ended, making the score 1-0.

Carter gets choice in the second, chooses bottom, gets up to his feet, separates hands, gets his escape, score is now 2-0 Carter. No score for the rest of the period.

Welsh gets choice, chooses neutral, and so Carter kind of just chills for the rest of the match. He gets hit for his first stall call at the 22 second mark, not a big deal, especially because he takes advantage of Welsh’s subpar shot and subpar positioning afterwards to attack the outside single. Again, head in the knee, tripod, circle to the double, but he commits to the single, Welsh gets a shin whizzer, does nothing with it, Carter comes up, but Welsh kicks out of bounds a little into a sprawl, and his foot hits the floor which is probably why this is stopped so quickly.

Carter dances for the last 10 seconds and gets the victory 2-0. I don’t mean to be too hard on these wrestlers, but to get a decent shot against a good opponent you need to get a little more creative. We’ve seen in the past 5 matches a total lack of proper setups. If you attack from space you will always be at a disadvantage. Now, some wrestlers can get away with it, for a time anyways, but against the best in the country, let alone the world, you need to chain some tie-ups together, go from one tie up to another, add a few fakes in if you can, and chain all of that together for a shot. David Taylor, Jason Nolf, these are guys that do exactly that. Even Mitch Mesenbrink, though I think his technique and general decision making could use some work, I believe he’ll get there in time. He’s young, but he has the right pacing and the right attitude, just needs some more time to truly develop into the wrestler he’s going to be. If you have that kind of activity level and aren’t afraid to make mistakes, there’s a good chance you’ll get good eventually.

I’m not saying you’ll need 10 setups for every single shot you take, but against truly quality opponents, you might. Regardless, no matter where you are in your wrestling journey, you will benefit from drilling that concept. Arm drag, fake single, pass-by, fake high crotch, far single. Fake single, arm drag, to the opposite side single, pull the head, back to the righty single. I just want to see some more creative setups out of these wrestlers. And I know it’s easy to say this from the sidelines and after the fact, but that’s what all time greats like David Taylor show, and that is what they need to develop. Way too often do I see them sit in one tie-up, then sit in another tie-up, and then take a random shot, hoping that their opponents don’t react well. You can’t get by for very long on a hope. You need more assurances, and that’s what creating proper setups and using multiple tie-up combinations will do for you.

So after all of this happened, Carter Starocci is an NCAA champion, again, winning his 4th title, becoming Cael’s first 4 time NCAA champion, which is a really big deal, some drama happens afterwards as well. The announcers, among others, were Daniel Cormier, who is known to stir the pot, and Jordan Burroughs. Cormier asked Burroughs if he would go after Carter’s injured leg if they wrestled, and Burroughs laughingly agreed that he would. They are slated to be at the same weight in a few weeks, so this is a matchup that very well could happen. Bo Nickal did not take kindly to these remarks, and stated on Twitter and his podcast how irresponsible a comment like that is. So they all got into a heated back and forth. Honestly, Bo is Carter’s teammate, so him standing up for Carter is super normal. And Burroughs stating that he would go after someone’s injury is super disrespectful to his platform and the sport of wrestling in general. Wrestlers will naturally go after each other’s injuries, and that’s why you never state what injury you have if you can help it, but it’s not something you tell the world and especially not something you tell kids who are aspiring wrestlers. And honestly, if you know someone’s leg is injured, and you go after the fresh one, you force the injured leg to support them, which, depending on the injury, could be more effective than going after the injured one in the first place. So either way they’re at a disadvantage.

Wrestling is not a sport where you’re meant to go after injuries so you can further injure someone, let alone try to injure them in the first place. The point of the sport is to control your opponent, not to hurt them, though putting your opponent in a situation where they have to decide if getting an injury is worth giving up points happens very often. I used to say that college wrestling is like a legal street fight, but it has rules. It’s hurt or be hurt, and wrestlers will try to if you give them the opportunity. For example, if you get stuck in a front headlock, they will try to pinch and grab at your Adam’s apple, because they are in position to do so and the referee can’t see it that well, so it’s not hard to get away with. I’ve had it happen to me a few times. They also try to slam your head off the mat. It’s called “bouncing the head” and it’s something that college wrestlers drill. Are you actually trying to concuss them, not really. You’re just trying to break them down. But if their head does hit the mat, you can spin around easier while they’re a bit dazed. So defensively, you don’t want to spend much time under a front headlock if you can help it. I always had my wrestlers attack the hand, post, pop the head out, arm drag, go for a reshot, instead of grabbing the elbow and getting yourself more entrenched in the situation.

So while this is a common idea in the sport, it’s mostly looked down upon, especially if you’re being malicious and super obvious about it. I’ve had injuries before. I dislocated my right ring finger the week before a dual against Ohio State and Reece Humphrey who I was wrestling, who coaches at Princeton now, grabbed both fingers that were taped up and was snapping them. Now, I could get mad at him and sing the blues, but I didn’t, because this kind of thing happens, and honestly the tape gives you a good grip. I wasn’t mad at him then, nor am I mad at him now, because if the tables were reversed I can’t say that I wouldn’t use it to my advantage as well. Would I be trying to injure? No. Was he trying to injure me? I really don’t think so. He most likely doesn’t even remember it. But using the grip you have of the tape and the pain they probably feel against your opponent is not a very far fetched idea.

I also tore ligaments in my ankle a week before Districts when I was a Junior in High School. I was on crutches for a week, my right foot was blown up, most of my leg was purple from the knee down. Regardless I had to wrestle through it and I did have some other wrestlers try to twist my ankle. I made it to the semis of districts, injury defaulted out because I was qualified already, made it to the finals of Regionals, then the finals of states, all while trying to rehab an injured ankle. You gotta do what you gotta do, you’re not always going to feel 100%, States is not a tournament you can just decide to not go to if you want a scholarship for college. NCAA’s is a bit of the same, just on a much bigger playing field. It’s mostly a test of mental fortitude. It’s also why I tell youth wrestlers, if they’re sick or something, they should still try to go to that important tournament they have, because this is practice for later, when you don’t have the choice to not go, and this will give you experience dealing with hardship and so later it won’t be so daunting. You’d be surprised how good you can wrestle when your body is in “survival mode”.

Another thing, I loved riding legs and doing power halves. A power half is a move that usually forces your opponent to decide to go over or get hurt. And the more you do it to someone in a match, the more it degrades the strength of the shoulder you’re targeting. As long as you’re not pushing the arm past the spine, it’s technically fine and shouldn’t get a potentially dangerous call and stopped dead. But it still hurts a lot, and can injure someone. I’m not above pushing that power half to its limits to get my pin. And I’m not above going back to that same shoulder after the guy already took injury time, is rolling it out, and complaining that it’s hurting. It’s weaker now, so it’s an obvious target, you go back to it. They don’t have to stay on their stomach, they can roll over and get pinned if they want to. It’s their decision and I’m not doing anything illegal, I’m even looking out for his health by staying within the referee’s guidelines. So, I’m not trying to injure them, but applying legal pain to get things done is a very real tactic, especially against good wrestlers, and injuries do happen when someone fights something too hard that they shouldn’t be fighting. As a wrestler, keeping yourself injury free is a skill in itself.

So anyways, I understand both sides of their argument. While it’s really not cool to state to the entire wrestling community that you’re going to go after someone’s injury, so Bo’s response to this was completely justified and warranted, it’s also not a very foreign or far-fetched idea within the sport of wrestling. It’s an unspoken element that you’re forced to deal with, but if Carter shows up to that next tournament like he did this one, it won’t deter him very much from getting the success that he’s really after.