First Round Seed Pairs

[Wrestleknownothing]

I started updating my expected scoring and expected AA data last night, and something popped out to me. Ever since we went to 33 seeds, the 16 seed is a severe underperformer. That got thinking about pairings because the 17 seed is also an outperformer.

No other pair is as extreme but the 5 and the 13 seeds do struggle without the 28 or 20 seed seeing the benefit.

[NotThatDave]

I'm sure this is a dumb question to wrestling lifers, but I'm a baseball guy... Who is the 32/33?

[Wrestleknownothing]

Just now, NotThatDave said:

I'm sure this is a dumb question to wrestling lifers, but I'm a baseball guy... Who is the 32/33?

There is a pigtail match where #32 wrestles #33 for the right to wrestle #1 in round 1.

[NotThatDave]

5 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

There is a pigtail match where #32 wrestles #33 for the right to wrestle #1 in round 1.

Right, but did one of them beat a #1?

[Wrestleknownothing]

Just now, NotThatDave said:

Right, but did one of them beat a #1?

No, but a 33 did AA

[NotThatDave]

7 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

No, but a 33 did AA

I'm a lazy reader...

[Idaho]

2 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

No, but a 33 did AA

I would like to submit that Mark Branch would have been a 33 had there been 33 seeds. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

7 minutes ago, Idaho said:

I would like to submit that Mark Branch would have been a 33 had there been 33 seeds. 

So stipulated. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

5 hours ago, NotThatDave said:

I'm a lazy reader...

One more fun fact. The 16 seed is 35-25 against the 17 seed. Better than expected for a toss up match.

In spite of earning the extra half to one advancement point, the 16 seed scores less than the 17.

[Gantry]

2 hours ago, Idaho said:

I would like to submit that Mark Branch would have been a 33 had there been 33 seeds. 

I know he had a losing record, but how did Branch do at Big 12s?   If he wasn't the "last place" qualifier at his conference he could have avoided the 32/33

Edited April 16 by Gantry

[Idaho]

4 hours ago, Gantry said:

I know he had a losing record, but how did Branch do at Big 12s?   If he wasn't the "last place" qualifier at his conference he could have avoided the 32/33

He placed 3rd for the final spot at the Big 8 - he defeated Steve Kelly who did not qualify for the tournament by placing 4th. 

[Eagle26]

It appears that the 16/17 seed combined perform about as expected (correct me if I’m wrong on that @Wrestleknownothing). The weird part is just that they are basically flip flopped with the 17 getting more AAs but the 16 winning more head to head.
 

The biggest takeaway to me is that the seeding committee seems to do a very impressive job!