Making Sense of the 2024 NCAA Brackets

Last night, brackets for the 2024 NCAA DI Championships were released. As the NCAA selection show progressed, or people found a way to fast forward ahead, social media and message boards quickly exploded with plenty of chatter regarding the brackets. 

Generally, I’ve thought that the brackets generated over the past couple of years have been decent. I understand that people are going to have gripes any way you try to sort out seeding 330 wrestlers in ten groups of 33. Usually, a lot of that negative feedback can be attributed to some sort of team or family association. It can be difficult to digest the cold-hard facts when your heart is involved. 

Speaking from an outside observer, someone who doesn’t have an affiliation to one particular school or doesn’t have a child in the tournament, the 2024 brackets were….eh, not particularly good. 

Let’s talk about ‘em.

1. The system is formula-driven

There is an NCAA Championship Committee that meets to determine at-large berths and to compile the NCAA brackets; however, a large portion of their job is formula-driven. Wrestlers get a certain number based on the coaches rankings, RPI, conference finish, and winning percentage and those numbers are used to generate seeds. 

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