Do Seeds Matter?

[Wrestleknownothing]

Don't put too much stock in this as it only covers two 5-year periods (so call it weak evidence), but it occurred to me last night that we have a bit of a natural experiment.

The 33 seed era is now 5 years old and the 16 seed era only lasted 5 years. So I thought I would take a look at what the expansion from 16 seeds to 33 seeds has meant.

In theory, if seeding is accurate, then going from 16 to 33 would have different impacts on different ranges of seeds. Concentrating on the first round:

• In a 33 seed bracket the top 8 seeds face seeds 25 - 32 (or 33). In a 16 seed bracket the top 8 seeds may get anyone in the 17 - 33 range. So seeding all should be beneficial to the top 8.
• In a 33 seed bracket the 9 - 16 seeds face seeds 17 - 24. In a 16 seed bracket the 9 - 16 seeds may get anyone in the 17 - 33 range. So seeding all would be harmful to the 9 - 16 seeds.
• In a 33 seed bracket the bottom 16/17 seeds face the top 16 seeds. In a 16 seed bracket the bottom 17 seeds may get anyone in the 1 - 33 range (other than themselves). So seeding all would be harmful to the bottom 17.

And that is what the results show.

• The top 8 seeds have performed better in the 33 seed era,
• while the next 8 seeds have performed worse,
• and the bottom 17 have performed worse.

So, good job seeding committee.

[152lbs]

Do you have a crunch of the 17 to 33 seeds that AA?

[Wrestleknownothing]

12 minutes ago, 152lbs said:

Do you have a crunch of the 17 to 33 seeds that AA?

Killian Cardinale is the only two timer (2021, 2023)

 

[ionel]

No!   Why are you asking again?  Style matchups matter.  

[flyingcement]

[MPhillips]

3 hours ago, flyingcement said: