As the 2021 NCAA Division I wrestling regular season winds down, wrestlers, coaches and fans alike prepare for postseason action. Part of that preparation includes understanding the qualifier allocations for the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.
However, comprehending the NCAA's rationale for the qualifier allocations during this COVID-19-condensed college season isn't so simple. Not only did the NCAA have to use a different formula to come up with these allocations, but the NCAA got them wrong.
In 2021, the college wrestling season was different and drastically shortened. With that, the typical method for determining the qualifiers had to be adjusted accordingly.
Per the NCAA's Feb. 11 release, the weight class conference champion in each qualifying tournament will earn an automatic berth to the NCAAs. Each conference was awarded additional pre-allocations based on the five-year average (2016-20) of pre-allocations earned by the conference in each weight class.
In recent years, pre-allocations have been determined by a formula measuring Division I winning percentage, ratings percentage index and coaches' ranking. A decrease in overall matches, and in particular non-conference matches, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, led the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee to transition to using the five-year historical average to determine pre-allocations for 2021. For any adjustments in conference alignment over the last five years, historical pre-allocations stayed with the conference where they were earned. The competition status of schools for 2021 also did not impact the calculation of pre-allocations.
"The committee knew that there wasn't going to be enough regular-season competition to utilize the existing process where wrestlers earned pre-allocations for their conference based on regular season performance," said Karen Langston, senior associate athletics director at California State University, Bakersfield and chair of the wrestling committee in the release. "The option to utilize the five-year historical average was an equitable alternative, and the way it worked out has opened more at-large spots this year for deserving wrestlers who don't qualify through their conference tournament."
I acknowledge that there is no perfect solution to this pre-allocation conundrum, but few can deny that the chosen option for 2021 is deeply flawed. Here's why:
Three main problems
1. These allocations did not factor in (or factor out I should say) teams that did not compete at all during the 2021 season.
2. These allocations did not adequately adjust for teams that may have switched conferences at some point during that five-year window between 2016 and 2020.
3. The five-year historical window used to get these averages is entirely too large.
What these problems mean
1. Last year, the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) got 44 allocations automatic bids prior to the conference tournament. This year though, the EIWA received 45 spots despite the conference's top teams -- those in the Ivy League -- are not competing in 2021. This is because, in November, the Ivy League decided to cancel competition for all of its winter sports programs. So, in summary, the EIWA has seven of their 17 teams (six Ivies, plus fellow conference affiliate Franklin & Marshall) not on the mat in 2021, yet, as a conference, it received one more allocation spot than last year when every EIWA team competed. This simply isn't right. Furthermore, according to the NCAA Division I Wrestling Coaches Rank -- through Feb. 7 matches -- there are 35 ranked EIWA wrestlers listed. So, the EIWA could possibly be bringing roughly a dozen unranked wrestlers.
2. With respect to problem No. 2, it is interesting to me that in situations where a school may have switched conference affiliations during the five-year window from 2016 to 2020, the bids allocated during that window are awarded to the conference they were earned in, rather than the conference where the school now belongs. In other words, all of UNI and Fresno State's numbers don't necessarily benefit their new conference, the Big 12, rather they benefit the Mid-American Conference. For comparison sake, last year the Big 12 had 54 pre-allocations. In 2021 the Big 12 was awarded 45. One could argue that the Big 12 is a stronger conference this year than it was last year. Additionally, the MAC, which absorbed seven Eastern Wrestling League (EWL) schools (Bloomsburg, Clarion, Edinboro, Lock Haven, Rider, George Mason and Cleveland State) gets absolutely zero benefit from the pre-allocations of the various EWL schools that were earned prior to the merger in 2019-20.
Wyoming's Mark Branch, Oklahoma State's John Smith, and Clarion's Keith Ferraro were just a few of the college wrestling coaches to categorically dislike the way in which the 2021 conference pre-allocations were awarded. Some called for these pre-allocations to be further readjusted.
They're going to have to re-release it.
�" Keith Ferraro (@keithferraro) February 12, 2021
John Smith on the NCAA wrestling pre-allocations this season: "I have absolutely nothing good to say about it" #okstate
�" Seth Duckworth (@Seth_Duckworth) February 17, 2021
Smith also told Jason Elmquist of Stillwater News Press that he was not happy, saying, "There's not very many people happy -- and that's all I'm going to say, because I have absolutely nothing good to say about it," Smith said Wednesday, Feb. 17. "Hopefully, they'll revisit it. I think it needs to be revisited."
With respect to problem No. 3, one might also argue that the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) -- along with the Big 12 -- was another conference that was under-allocated by this new pre-allocation method. This is because the data being used from four and five years ago isn't reflective of the top-to-bottom strength that the conference now has in 2021.
This year, The ACC has consistently had five of its six schools ranked in the NWCA Coaches Poll during the regular season. During that five-year window, from 2016-2020, the ACC wasn't as talented conference-wide. Thus, its allocation numbers during those sessions were lower than they have been recently. As far as the ACC is concerned the data utilized to arrive at the 33 pre-allocations that the ACC earned isn't indicative of the conference's strength in recent years, 2021 in particular.
How to fix these conference pre-allocation issues
As was mentioned before, 2021 has been a challenging season. The NCAA was given a fairly small sample size of matches to work with during the regular season. For this reason, trying to determine the appropriate conference pre-allocations for the national tournament in St. Louis next month is an unenviable task. However, at the very least, the NCAA must do the following to rectify the currently inaccurate pre-allocations:
1. Produce an entirely new set of conference pre-allocations.
2. In creating this new set of pre-allocations using historical averages, do not include data from teams that are not competing during the 2021 season.
3. Base the historical averages on the last two or three seasons as opposed to the last five seasons. This will help increase the accuracy and validity of these averages.
While the three "fixes" referenced above do not create the "perfect" solution, they would be a step in the right direction. Under the current pre-allocation structure, there will be some very talented and deserving competitors left at home. Simply put, the current system does not ensure that the nation's best 330 NCAA Division I wrestlers are all competing in the pinnacle event of the season. This is an unfortunate injustice that the NCAA must rectify to the best of its ability.
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