Just a quick note about a peculiar rule that threatened to make the Gophers wrestling team’s day even worse here in St. Louis at the NCAA championships: apparently officials are checking how closely wrestlers have shaved their faces more seriously than in the past.

Yes, it’s a rule that wrestlers need to have shaved because of close contact/scraping. But traditionally it has been more of an implied rule than an enforced rule.

The Gophers had four wrestlers checked at the tournament, and all four failed.

The initial ruling was that the team would be docked three points (two warnings, a one-point deduction and a two-point deduction) and that head coach J Robinson would be suspended.

No, we’re not making this up.

Now, we just spoke with Robinson and head assistant Marty Morgan, and they believe enough teams have been impacted by this that there will be a reprieve to avoid what Robinson termed a “P.R. nightmare.”

It appears to be a very subjective rule; Robinson said 133-pounder Mack Reiter, for instance, shaved at 8 p.m. Wednesday and passed inspection Thursday morning; he then shaved at 10 p.m. Thursday night and did not pass inspection today.

Imagine the implications if this rule was ever enforced for Rollie Fingers or playoff hockey.

In a semi-related note, Iowa wrestlers could be wearing full beards right now and it probably wouldn’t make a difference. The Hawkeyes, as of a few minutes ago, were leading the team race with 67 points — nearly double what the Gophers (34.5) have.

Minnesota sent only one of its five quarterfinal wrestlers into the semifinals (Jayson Ness, via pin, which tied Morgan’s team record for pins in a season with 20). No. 5 seed C.P. Schlatter lost to Iowa’s unseeded Ryan Morningstar in the wrestlebacks, so Schlatter is finished. His brother, Dustin, lost shortly before that in the quarters, despite being the No. 2 seed. Roger Kish (184), Manuel Rivera (141) and Mack Reiter (133) also lost in the quarterfinals. In fact, Ness was the only Gopher to record a takedown in the quarterfinals.

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