This installment of "By The Numbers" breaks down the dual between the Northern Iowa #panthertrain and Central Michigan Chippewas. The Panthers won the battle of being aggressive, but the Chippewas won the war by converting on their attacks.

Takedowns:

UNI: 8
CMU: 16

Central Michigan won the dual by converting on a higher percentage of their attacks. They were very good scrambling out of attacks forced by Panther wrestlers and did a nice job capitalizing on go behind opportunities. It isn’t often you see the team with fewer attacks win the takedown battle, but the Chippewas did just that.

Committed Attacks:

UNI: 49
CMU: 43

This dual had a common theme throughout. UNI was attacking and CMU was using the Panther attacks to score points. CMU scored five go behind takedowns off of missed leg attacks opportunities by the Panthers. The Chippewas made the most of their opportunities and made the Panthers pay for their mistakes.

Reversals:

UNI: 0
CMU: 0

Nothing to see here. I am starting to accept the fact that reversals just don’t happen at the Division I level. Hopefully, the reversal gets increased value along with the takedown if that rule change happens. Maybe that will be detrimental to the reversal because top wrestlers will bail out more quickly, but it can’t help to try to create incentive.

Nearfall:

UNI: 2 sets of 4
CMU: 0

Both sets of nearfall came from the neutral position. Dylan Peters took Fleetwood straight into criteria, while Cooper Moore has a slight hesitation to sink in a bottom leg Turk. It is difficult to turn a guy that is just trying to escape unless you name is Zain Retherford. If guys have incentive to go for reversals you might see more guys give up nearfall points chasing them down.

Stall Calls:

UNI: 2
CMU: 13

This was a stunning statistic when I saw the final tally. Both of UNI’s stall call were on the new boundary rules. None of CMU’s calls came from the new rule. They picked up stalling calls in a variety of ways. Sometimes they were protecting leads, sometimes they were being outclassed, and other times they just seemed to be waiting to counter attack. It didn’t hurt the Chippewas in the final outcome, but you can never be happy about giving away that many stalling calls.

Riding Time:

UNI: 2
CMU: 3

This continues to be the statistic that has the best correlation to winning the match. Only one evaluated match this season has seen the losing wrestler score a riding time point. It makes sense, if you are on top you normally had to score points to get into that position.

Each week I have brought to light an issue that focused on how the match was called by the official. Mostly gray areas where judgment came into play. This week there is no gray area or judgment involved, just a call that you don’t see made very often. The double knee kick back became illegal a few years ago. I know it was 2010-11 for the high schoolers, but I haven’t been able verify the exact year it went into effect on the NCAA level. I know I have seen it used at least 20 times since it has been illegal, and I have never seen it penalized.

This is an easy call. The situation doesn’t allow the move to be hidden and it isn’t difficult for the official to see, no matter what angle he is looking at the action. “It was legal and used often for a long time” is the only explanation I can think of when searching for reasons officials don’t make the correct call. If it’s in the book, the officials should get the call correct, no excuses.