A look at this year's biggest seeding blunders

The brackets for the 2016 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships were released on Wednesday. As is the case every year, there are some head-scratching seeds.

184 pounds

Let's begin at 184 pounds where InterMat's No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 are all on the top side of the bracket. Cornell's Gabe Dean is the clear No. 1. The committee got that right. The No. 2 seed was given to Big Ten champion Sammy Brooks of Iowa. While Brooks did have an impressive run to a Big Ten title, he had losses this season to the No. 7, No. 12 and No. 13 seeds. The loss to the No. 13 seed, Pete Renda of NC State, came just a few weeks ago in his final regular season match.

Virginia Tech's Zack Zavatsky defeated Edinboro's Vick Avery in a dual meet on Feb. 7 (Photo/Rylie Steiner)

Michigan's Domenic Aboundader, on the other hand, enters with a 23-2 record, with his only losses coming to the top-seeded Dean and Nebraska's T.J. Dudley, a wrestler who pinned Brooks this season. Abounader has several quality wins as well, including two over fifth-seeded Zack Zavatsky of Virginia Tech. Speaking of Zavatsky, he was somehow seeded below Edinboro's Vic Avery, a wrestler he defeated on Feb. 7. While Avery is a returning All-American and accomplished wrestler, the committee uses only current season data. Avery has missed most of this season. He made his season debut on Jan. 16. He has only 13 wins, with only one win over a seeded wrestler, No. 6 Blake Stauffer of Arizona State.

Nolan Boyd of Oklahoma State has not lost since Jan. 2 (before Avery made his season debut) and is seeded five spots below Avery, but has wins over four seeded wrestlers, and is the only wrestler to defeat No. 1 Dean this season. There's no denying the fact that Avery is really good and has the potential to be an NCAA champion, but it's hard to justify his No. 3 seed when he lacks quality wins this season.

Matt Cimato at 149 pounds

Drexel's Matt Cimato is having a solid season. He is coming off an EIWA title and enters the NCAAs with a 34-5 record. However, his No. 4 seed is baffling considering his season resume. My opinion is that Cimato should be seeded anywhere from No. 9 to No. 12. He's currently ranked No. 10 by InterMat. During the regular season Cimato competed in three tournaments, Roadrunner Open, Keystone Classic and Southern Scuffle, and failed to reach the finals in any of them. His losses during those events came to Stanford's Paul Fox, Penn's C.J. Cobb and Central Michigan's Justin Oliver. Cimato also has a loss this season to Binghamton's Frank Garcia less than two months ago. Garcia had a season record of 6-5 and a career record of 12-13.

Cimato's most notable win this season came over Northwestern's Jason Tsirtsis, a 2014 NCAA champion and two-time All-American, but that win came back in November. Michigan's Alec Pantaleo is seeded below Cimato, but has two wins over Tsirtsis this past weekend, and owns more victories over seeded wrestlers. Nebraska's Jake Sueflohn is seeded two spots below Cimato, but has been much more consistent this season. His only questionable loss came to Princeton's Chris Perez, and he has a victory over third-seeded Lavion Mayes of Missouri, who enters the tournament with a record of 26-2.

Iowa's Nathan Burak defeated Minnesota's Brett Pfarr at the Big Ten Championships (Photo/Mark Lundy, Lutte-Lens.com)

Brett Pfarr vs. Nathan Burak at 197 pounds

At 197 pounds, Minnesota's Brett Pfarr is seeded No. 3, one spot ahead of Iowa's Nathan Burak. The two wrestlers met this past weekend at the Big Ten Championships, with Burak coming out on top. It was the second meeting between the two wrestlers this season, with Pfarr winning the first meeting on Jan. 29. The committee needs to account for when wins and losses occur during the season. Burak's only other losses besides Pfarr (which he avenged) came to No. 1 Morgan McIntosh of Penn State in the Big Ten finals. Burak not only has less losses than Pfarr this season, but also won the most recent meeting. Burak dropping to No. 4 puts him on the same side of the bracket as McIntosh, a wrestler he is 0-5 against.

Isaiah Martinez, Tommy Gantt and Jason Nolf at 157 pounds

There are countless examples of the committee favoring undefeated wrestlers over wrestlers with one less, even if the undefeated wrestler has less impressive wins than the one-loss wrestler(s).

In 2013, Arizona State's Anthony Robles was given the No. 1 seed over one-loss Matt McDonough of Iowa. In 2014, undefeated Mitchell Port of Edinboro was seeded ahead of Ohio State's Logan Stieber, who split with Penn State's Zain Retherford that season. That same season, Maryland's Jimmy Sheptock entered the NCAAs undefeated and earned the No. 1 seed over Penn State's Ed Ruth, who split with Cornell's Gabe Dean that season.

Penn State's Jason Nolf is 29-1 with bonus points in 27 of his 29 wins (Photo/Mark Lundy, Lutte-Lens.com)

Most assumed the committee would seed NC State's Tommy Gantt No. 1 at 157 pounds based on the fact that he's the lone undefeated wrestler in the weight class. Fans feared that the consensus top two wrestlers in the weight class, Isaiah Martinez of Illinois and Jason Nolf of Penn State, would be placed on the same side of the bracket as the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds because they split matches. As turns out, the two wrestlers are on opposite sides of the bracket, but the seeding order of the three leaves a lot of question marks. Martinez was given the No. 1 seed. So does that mean the committee is more forgiving to one-loss wrestlers? Apparently not â€¦ because Gantt is seeded No. 2, one spot ahead of one-loss Nolf. Gantt's best wins this season are over eighth-seeded Nick Brascetta of Virginia Tech and 10th-seeded John Boyle of American. Nolf has beaten the No. 1 and No. 6 seeds, and has been much more dominant than Gantt. In fact, according to the NCAA Awards Standings, no wrestler in Division I has been more dominant than Nolf this season.

So the obvious question is, if one-loss Martinez is seeded ahead of Gantt, shouldn't one-loss Nolf also be seeded ahead of Gantt?

Debatable seeds â€¦

At 125, Ronnie Bresser of Oregon State is seeded No. 11, four spots below Darian Cruz of Lehigh. Bresser has more wins against seeded wrestlers than Cruz. In addition, Bresser has gone 2-0 against Tim Lambert of Nebraska, while Cruz is 0-1 against Lambert this season.

Wisconsin All-American Ryan Taylor is not seeded in the top 10 at 133 pounds despite beating fifth-seeded Jordan Conaway twice at the Big Ten Championships. Taylor missed most of this season due to injury, but is riding a lot of momentum heading into the NCAAs. Interestingly, if the seeds hold, Taylor and Conaway will meet again in the second round in NYC.

At 174, Oklahoma State's Chandler Rogers earned a top 10 seed (No. 9) despite losing in his conference tournament this past weekend to a wrestler not seeded at the NCAAs, Iowa State's Lelund Weatherspoon. While Rogers does have two wins over the No. 10 seed Mike Ottinger of Central Michigan and a win over fourth-seeded Ethan Ramos of North Carolina, he also has losses to Jacobe Smith of Northeast Oklahoma, Ben Stroh of Wyoming and Casey Kent of Penn.

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