What Happens When You Qualify Ten?

[Wrestleknownothing]

I found a new visualization that I wanted to experiment with, so here goes.

Looking at the 16 and 33 seed era (2014-2025) and filtering down to teams that qualified all ten wrestlers (35 teams), I took a look at what their average seed was (thin vertical black line to the far right in each row), and how they performed relative to that seed (red/green bars).

No real surprise here. The higher the average seed, the easier it is to beat the seed. But there are no guarantees, as two of the worst performances came from teams in the bottom quarter.

[Wrestleknownothing]

Someone asked me about the broader trend.

Using the past 11 tournaments, here is how teams who average at least 6 wrestlers per tournament have performed relative to their seeds.

[steamboat_charlie]

The second chart is interesting.  Two takeaways from that at a glance:

1) The old PAC schools were underrated, historically speaking.  Presumably due to lack of competition and rankers not respecting their schedules.  Kind of doubt that will still be the case moving forward.  

and

2) Big 10 guys in the middle tier of their respective weight classes tend to outperform seeds.  I think people are generally aware of this--a Big 10 wrestler with a ~.500 record can still be quite dangerous at NCAAs, but will probably be seeded in the 20's.  Interesting to see some data backing it up.  

[timmythesupermonkey]

My poor Wolfpack! 

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, timmythesupermonkey said:

My poor Wolfpack! 

Good news / bad news?

They had a rough 8 year stretch from 2016 - 2024 where they underperformed each year. But they snapped back nicely in 2025, beating their average seed by 1.1 spots.

That also means Iowa now has the longest active streak of underperforming seed at 5 straight years.

Edited May 2 by Wrestleknownothing

[AgaveMaria]

If Penn State and Minnehaha are used as the examples you underperform at The Big Dance.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, AgaveMaria said:

If Penn State and Minnehaha are used as the examples you underperform at The Big Dance.

Simpleton

[Cornell Kevin]

Cornell did actually qualify all 10 guys in 2024 as well as 2025, however Vince Cornella withdrew shortly before the tournament in order to have reconstructive knee surgery. 
 

This is great stuff, can’t get enough of it, keep it coming! 

[GV4444]

Time for some regression analysis

Take all the performers and their seeds and see if there is a relationship between seed and under/over performance.  A #1 seed can never overperform, but is a 32 seed more likely to over-perform than an 8 seed?  Is there an optimum seed for overperforming?

Edited Wednesday at 08:51 PM by GV4444

[MPhillips]

7 minutes ago, GV4444 said:

Time for some regression analysis

Welcome to the show.

WKN will be along shortly. He already has a document made to answer your question...

[Wrestleknownothing]

54 minutes ago, GV4444 said:

Time for some regression analysis

Take all the performers and their seeds and see if there is a relationship between seed and under/over performance.  A #1 seed can never overperform, but is a 32 seed more likely to over-perform than an 8 seed?  Is there an optimum seed for overperforming?

Regressing at the individual wrestler level is problematic as the data is not continuous because exact placement only goes to eight.

For example, if the 33 seed wrestler wins one match they finish in the 17 to 24 range. But where in that range? Got me. 

And the discrete jumps are largest for the lowest finishes. Wrestlers who finish 0-2 in (ish) are a group of 9. Wrestlers who finish 1-2 are a group of 8. The round of 12 and 16 are groups of 8. And everything else is groups of 1.

So measure to the mid-point of the range and regressed at the team level in an attempt to smooth out some of the discontinuity, but that was pretty unsatisfactory.

The R-squared was a paltry 0.1255.

Here is what that looks like for the 21 teams that averaged 6 NQ per year filtered down to just the years they had at least 5.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, GV4444 said:

Time for some regression analysis

Take all the performers and their seeds and see if there is a relationship between seed and under/over performance.  A #1 seed can never overperform, but is a 32 seed more likely to over-perform than an 8 seed?  Is there an optimum seed for overperforming?

As for your other question, is there an optimal seed for overperforming?

Below is how the seeds have unfolded in the last eleven years by relative performance bucket. It looks like the 8 seed is probably the value play.

But value is a relative term. It assumes you are "buying" the seed like in a pool. If it just a question of probability of placement, you still want that sweet 1 seed.

That said, not only does the 8 seed beat almost 43% of the time, but by doing so it gets into the juicy portion of the scoring curve (see below). While the 25 and 26 seeds are the only ones to outperform their seeds more than half the time, they typically are not jumping into the AA slots where they can really impact team scoring.