NCAA #1 seeds

[Boring]

125 Lilledahl

133 Byrd

141 Hardy

149 Henson

157 Kasak

165 MM

174 KOT

184 Starocci

197 Cardenas

HWT Steveson

[Ched64]

  On 3/11/2025 at 1:55 AM, BruceyB said:

I would say that injuries are separate from actual results from conferences. That being said, I do think if you're too injured to take the mat at conferences, you probably don't deserve the easiest path to the finals. There should be some punishment if you don't participate. Last year with Starocci was definitely egregious though. 

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What was particularly egregious was that they then put him at the 9 seed so the guy who got moved from 2 to 1 actually had to beat a 3x Natl Champ in the quarters vs wrestling the 6 seed who actually made the finals!

[Eagle26]

  On 3/12/2025 at 2:18 AM, cowcards said:

Historically, are the guys do better at nationals the ones that have had a better season of work or the ones that had a better conference weekend of work?

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That’s a good question. I’m not sure the answer to that, but I’d be interested to know. But the real question is: What do we value in the sport more - post season results or total body of work? I think it would be great for the sport to put more emphasis on regular season duals, but we all know that the only thing people care about are post season results. Conference tournaments are the beginning of the National tournament just like Sectional or district tournaments are the start of the State tournament in HS. You earn your qualification during that tournament. It’s the good and the bad thing about this sport that it all comes down to your performance at a couple tournaments. Yes, college gives you an out with the wildcards, but the main thing to get you there is the conference tournament. So IMO, you should not be able to get a 1 seed without winning your conference tournament.

[1032004]

I assume it was a pastry troll job but Ferrari doesn’t have a chance at the 1 right?

I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as he has to get through 1 of Cardenas, Buchanan or Barr.  But hopefully they don’t give AJ the 1 and then drop Barr to 6.

[Jimmy Cinnabon]

  On 3/12/2025 at 11:57 AM, 1032004 said:

I assume it was a pastry troll job but Ferrari doesn’t have a chance at the 1 right?

I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as he has to get through 1 of Cardenas, Buchanan or Barr.  But hopefully they don’t give AJ the 1 and then drop Barr to 6.

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Of course he has a chance.  He's an undefeated conference champ and former NCAA champion.  No one else is undefeated.

[Wrestleknownothing]

  On 3/12/2025 at 11:57 AM, 1032004 said:

I assume it was a pastry troll job but Ferrari doesn’t have a chance at the 1 right?

I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as he has to get through 1 of Cardenas, Buchanan or Barr.  But hopefully they don’t give AJ the 1 and then drop Barr to 6.

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Ferrari is third in the coaches' rank and sixteenth in the RPI list. I have to believe RPI and quality wins are closely related, so he is probably pretty far down in that too.

[Wrestleknownothing]

  On 3/12/2025 at 12:27 PM, Jimmy Cinnabon said:

Of course he has a chance.  He's an undefeated conference champ and former NCAA champion.  No one else is undefeated.

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He will likely get penalized for wrestling a very weak schedule. The difference between his coaches' poll ranking and his RPI ranking is the third largest in the field. 

[cowcards]

  On 3/12/2025 at 10:20 AM, Eagle26 said:

That’s a good question. I’m not sure the answer to that, but I’d be interested to know. But the real question is: What do we value in the sport more - post season results or total body of work? I think it would be great for the sport to put more emphasis on regular season duals, but we all know that the only thing people care about are post season results. Conference tournaments are the beginning of the National tournament just like Sectional or district tournaments are the start of the State tournament in HS. You earn your qualification during that tournament. It’s the good and the bad thing about this sport that it all comes down to your performance at a couple tournaments. Yes, college gives you an out with the wildcards, but the main thing to get you there is the conference tournament. So IMO, you should not be able to get a 1 seed without winning your conference tournament.

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I can tell you the answer without having the data is the regular season is a much better predictor of future performance than the conference tournament. Post-season tournaments are way more subject to randomness and chance. It's why #1 seeds are way more likely to place 1st than not place at all and a top-8 seeded wrestler is more likely to place than the 9th-33rd wrestlers in the bracket. 

Conference tournaments are qualifiers for guys that didn't have the best regular season, but you can get into the tournament without even placing at conference. I'd argue you actually earn your qualification through the regular season, unless you haven't had a good enough regular season, including match limits and whatnot. 

NCAA tournaments results is what matters most, but everything up to that, including conference, is data for seeding purposes. 

In the infinite realm of possibilities, what happens if a guy that didn't earn an allocation spot, wins each of the conference tournaments? Does one of those guys get the #1 seed? What about seeds 2-8? There are 8 conference tournaments. Should a guy get the #2 seed if he didn't win a conference, unless he lost to the #1 seed?

[maligned]

  On 3/12/2025 at 10:20 AM, Eagle26 said:

That’s a good question. I’m not sure the answer to that, but I’d be interested to know. But the real question is: What do we value in the sport more - post season results or total body of work? I think it would be great for the sport to put more emphasis on regular season duals, but we all know that the only thing people care about are post season results. Conference tournaments are the beginning of the National tournament just like Sectional or district tournaments are the start of the State tournament in HS. You earn your qualification during that tournament. It’s the good and the bad thing about this sport that it all comes down to your performance at a couple tournaments. Yes, college gives you an out with the wildcards, but the main thing to get you there is the conference tournament. So IMO, you should not be able to get a 1 seed without winning your conference tournament.

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  On 3/12/2025 at 12:56 PM, cowcards said:

I can tell you the answer without having the data is the regular season is a much better predictor of future performance than the conference tournament. Post-season tournaments are way more subject to randomness and chance. It's why #1 seeds are way more likely to place 1st than not place at all and a top-8 seeded wrestler is more likely to place than the 9th-33rd wrestlers in the bracket. 

Conference tournaments are qualifiers for guys that didn't have the best regular season, but you can get into the tournament without even placing at conference. I'd argue you actually earn your qualification through the regular season, unless you haven't had a good enough regular season, including match limits and whatnot. 

NCAA tournaments results is what matters most, but everything up to that, including conference, is data for seeding purposes. 

In the infinite realm of possibilities, what happens if a guy that didn't earn an allocation spot, wins each of the conference tournaments? Does one of those guys get the #1 seed? What about seeds 2-8? There are 8 conference tournaments. Should a guy get the #2 seed if he didn't win a conference, unless he lost to the #1 seed?

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@cowcards I assume he's talking only about these situations like Hardy vs. Bartlett. Bartlett has a better season. Hardy gets the Big 10 title and probably ascends to the #1 seed despite a worse overall resume. (We're obviously not talking about whether an unranked guy from a weak weight class in a small conference outperforms the NCAA # 2 or 3 seed.) I think the Bartlett/Hardy and Lilledahl/Ramos type of scenario is the one that would be interesting to analyze. i.e. Do results become more predictive of tournament success later in the season? I'm sure they do for a variety of reasons, but it would be cool to see a study that could give us an objective picture of how much more predictive they  are.

Edited March 12 by maligned

[BruceyB]

  On 3/12/2025 at 12:56 PM, cowcards said:

I can tell you the answer without having the data is the regular season is a much better predictor of future performance than the conference tournament. Post-season tournaments are way more subject to randomness and chance. It's why #1 seeds are way more likely to place 1st than not place at all and a top-8 seeded wrestler is more likely to place than the 9th-33rd wrestlers in the bracket.

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I would question whether this is true or not. High conference finish usually results in higher seeds at Nationals, which in turn results in an easier path to placing. A wrestler that has had a good season but has a poor showing at conferences often gets dropped out of a top 10 seed and then fail to place. You start by saying that regular season is a better indicator, but then change the argument to the seeds of wrestlers at nationals.. two different things.

 

  On 3/12/2025 at 12:56 PM, cowcards said:

In the infinite realm of possibilities, what happens if a guy that didn't earn an allocation spot, wins each of the conference tournaments? Does one of those guys get the #1 seed? What about seeds 2-8? There are 8 conference tournaments. Should a guy get the #2 seed if he didn't win a conference, unless he lost to the #1 seed?

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This strawman argument isn't relevant. I never said that there could never be a #1 seed that lost at conferences, but just that given two sets of quality resumes, I would defer to the wrestler who got the job done most recently.