All-Time Busted Brackets

[BruceyB]

While combing through all of these brackets, one stuck out in particular as maybe the most broken bracket I've ever seen. This is the 2006 157 pound bracket.

#1 seed Trent Paulson upset in the 1/4's by #9 Joe Johnston (he would go on to take 4th)

#2 seed C.P. Schlatter upset in R16 by (US) Andrew Flanagan, wins one match on the backside before being eliminated by (US) Tony Hook.

#3 seed Alex Tirapelle upset in 1/4's by #11 Derek Zinck, and then is eliminated after his next match in R12 by #7 Dustin Manotti

#4 seed Matt Lebe upset in the R16 by (US) Michael Chandler, and is eliminated after dropping his next match to #7 Manotti

#5 seed Ben Cherrington is your national champion

#6 seed Brandon Becker upset in R16 by #11 Derek Zinck (he would go on to take 7th)

#7 seed Dustin Manotti upset in R32 by (US) Tony Hook, he would then battle all the way back for 3rd taking out #3 and #4 en route

#8 Craig Henning wrestled to his seed with an 8th place finish

Some interesting facts that come out of this bracket..

The #2, #3, and #4 wrestlers failed to place

None of the top 4 seeds reached the semis

The semis were #5 vs #9 and #10 vs #11

#5 Ben Cherrington won a national title without facing a wrestler seeded above him

#10 Brian Stith made it to the finals without facing a wrestler seeded above him 

So, you had a national finals between a #5 and #10 and neither wrestler faced anyone seeded higher than #9 to get there. I'd be surprised if this has happened any other time in the modern era.

 

Can anyone think of any other brackets that compare to this kind of combustibility?

[ScottishSteel]

How bad did the bracket blow up Branch's freshman year? Feel anytime a guy w/ a losing record wins it there's a chance at chaos

[cowcards]

Since 1979 when the 12 seed era began there have only been 67 semifinal matches that didn't include a top-4 seed.

The following brackets didn't have a top-4 seed in the semis at all:
1981 - 190 (5, 8, 11, US) [Placers were 8, US, 5, 11, US, 1, US, US]
2006 - 157 (5, 9, 10, 11) [Placers were 5, 10, 7, 1, 11, 9, 6, 8] 

Fun Fact - Joe Johnson was in the semis against a non-top 4 seed in back-to-back years in 2005 (#8 vs. #5 Percival) & 2006

I think 1981 may take it.

[BruceyB]

18 minutes ago, ScottishSteel said:

How bad did the bracket blow up Branch's freshman year? Feel anytime a guy w/ a losing record wins it there's a chance at chaos

It blew up, but Branch did a lot of the damage. He upset #2 in R32. He also beat the #7 and #6.

Branch's finals opponent, Laszlo Molnar, also did the job on his end beating #4, #5, and #1.

So, for the most part Branch and Molnar blew-up the bracket by knocking off the big dogs themselves, where as in 2006, Cherrington and Stith were benefactors of upsets that led them to the finals without having to beat any of the top seeds themselves.

[BruceyB]

27 minutes ago, cowcards said:

Since 1979 when the 12 seed era began there have only been 67 semifinal matches that didn't include a top-4 seed.

The following brackets didn't have a top-4 seed in the semis at all:
1981 - 190 (5, 8, 11, US) [Placers were 8, US, 5, 11, US, 1, US, US]
2006 - 157 (5, 9, 10, 11) [Placers were 5, 10, 7, 1, 11, 9, 6, 8] 

Fun Fact - Joe Johnson was in the semis against a non-top 4 seed in back-to-back years in 2005 (#8 vs. #5 Percival) & 2006

I think 1981 may take it.

The final results might favor 1981, but Martucci beat the #1 and #5 en route to the finals, while Mantella had an easier path facing #6 and #11. 

It's definitely a crazy bracket, but I'd still lean towards a #5 and #10 making the finals without recording any upsets themselves as the craziest.

[BruceyB]

1 hour ago, cowcards said:

The following brackets didn't have a top-4 seed in the semis at all:
1981 - 190 (5, 8, 11, US) [Placers were 8, US, 5, 11, US, 1, US, US]
2006 - 157 (5, 9, 10, 11) [Placers were 5, 10, 7, 1, 11, 9, 6, 8] 

I didn't fully digest this the first time reading through. These are the only two brackets in the #12 seed era without a top 4 seed in the semis? I'm guessing we aren't finding any others that are going to top those two. 

[Antitroll2828]

The most busted bracket of all time is all ten in 2020:

[BruceyB]

35 minutes ago, Antitroll2828 said:

The most busted bracket of all time is all ten in 2020:

[cowcards]

1 hour ago, BruceyB said:

I didn't fully digest this the first time reading through. These are the only two brackets in the #12 seed era without a top 4 seed in the semis? I'm guessing we aren't finding any others that are going to top those two. 

That would be correct. I think these 2 are the clear front-runners with some debate on which takes the cake.

Rough math says there were 45 tournaments between 1979-2025.
450 brackets.
2 had no top-4 seed (0.4%) in the semifinals.

900 semifinal matches.
67 of those didn't include a top-4 seed (7.4%).

You'd expect 0.56% brackets to not have a top-4 seed, which lines up. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

I think this was one of the first things I did in 2021 when I first started gathering data. I only looked at 2010-present (because that was all I had).

At that time the 2016 174 bracket was the most busted by far using my criteria. And that is still true.

To do this I calculated the difference between the seed and the finish for the top 8 seeds in every bracket. For finishes outside of the podium I used the mid-point of the range. For a bloodround finish (9-12) a wrestler gets credit for finishing 10.5. Going 0-2 put you in the 25 to 32 range so you get credit for 28.5. And so forth.

The #2 seed (Brain Realbuto - Cornell) and the #4 seed (Ethan Ramos - North Carolina) both going 0-2 really killed this bracket. But with only 3 of the top 8 finishing on the podium, it was an uphill fight regardless.

Edited 2 hours ago by Wrestleknownothing

[Wrestleknownothing]

For context I think the 2006 157 bracket finished at -32.5 for the top 8.

By my metric (which is just one way to view this) there are 17 more busted brackets above.

[Wrestleknownothing]

The 1981 190 bracket gets a -80.5 using my metric. But that is a little meaningless as three of the seeded wrestlers lost to non-semifinalists and were eliminated after going 0-1. Back then only the losers to the semifinalists/finalists made the consolation bracket. Without the opportunity to wrestle back it is really hard to compare across eras.

[Hammerlock3]

4 hours ago, BruceyB said:

While combing through all of these brackets, one stuck out in particular as maybe the most broken bracket I've ever seen. This is the 2006 157 pound bracket.

#1 seed Trent Paulson upset in the 1/4's by #9 Joe Johnston (he would go on to take 4th)

#2 seed C.P. Schlatter upset in R16 by (US) Andrew Flanagan, wins one match on the backside before being eliminated by (US) Tony Hook.

#3 seed Alex Tirapelle upset in 1/4's by #11 Derek Zinck, and then is eliminated after his next match in R12 by #7 Dustin Manotti

#4 seed Matt Lebe upset in the R16 by (US) Michael Chandler, and is eliminated after dropping his next match to #7 Manotti

#5 seed Ben Cherrington is your national champion

#6 seed Brandon Becker upset in R16 by #11 Derek Zinck (he would go on to take 7th)

#7 seed Dustin Manotti upset in R32 by (US) Tony Hook, he would then battle all the way back for 3rd taking out #3 and #4 en route

#8 Craig Henning wrestled to his seed with an 8th place finish

Some interesting facts that come out of this bracket..

The #2, #3, and #4 wrestlers failed to place

None of the top 4 seeds reached the semis

The semis were #5 vs #9 and #10 vs #11

#5 Ben Cherrington won a national title without facing a wrestler seeded above him

#10 Brian Stith made it to the finals without facing a wrestler seeded above him 

So, you had a national finals between a #5 and #10 and neither wrestler faced anyone seeded higher than #9 to get there. I'd be surprised if this has happened any other time in the modern era.

 

Can anyone think of any other brackets that compare to this kind of combustibility?

swear to god i thought of this one when i saw the title.

[Fadzaev2]

21 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The 1981 190 bracket gets a -80.5 using my metric. But that is a little meaningless as three of the seeded wrestlers lost to non-semifinalists and were eliminated after going 0-1. Back then only the losers to the semifinalists/finalists made the consolation bracket. Without the opportunity to wrestle back it is really hard to compare across eras.

Darn WKN.... did you major and minor in statistic.....maybe a double major, statistics and swimming perhaps????  Asking for some friends.

[BruceyB]

28 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

For context I think the 2006 157 bracket finished at -32.5 for the top 8.

By my metric (which is just one way to view this) there are 17 more busted brackets above.

I guess I am mostly blown away by the frontside of the bracket. For 7 of the top 8 seeds to be upset before the semis is crazy. The highest seed in the semis being the #5 is crazy. And for neither finalist to have beaten someone seeded above them is absolutely unbelievable. 

Statistically, I guess it is not the most busted. Thanks for contributing numbers to the topic as always!

[ScottishSteel]

5 hours ago, BruceyB said:

It blew up, but Branch did a lot of the damage. He upset #2 in R32. He also beat the #7 and #6.

Branch's finals opponent, Laszlo Molnar, also did the job on his end beating #4, #5, and #1.

So, for the most part Branch and Molnar blew-up the bracket by knocking off the big dogs themselves, where as in 2006, Cherrington and Stith were benefactors of upsets that led them to the finals without having to beat any of the top seeds themselves.

Appreciate the knowledge; genuinely!

[RawDog]

Sounds like this Tony Hook guy should have been seeded.  He took out the #2 and #7 seed.

[Wrestleknownothing]

41 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

I guess I am mostly blown away by the frontside of the bracket. For 7 of the top 8 seeds to be upset before the semis is crazy. The highest seed in the semis being the #5 is crazy. And for neither finalist to have beaten someone seeded above them is absolutely unbelievable. 

Statistically, I guess it is not the most busted. Thanks for contributing numbers to the topic as always!

My method is just one way to look at it. It is not a definitive measure. I like how detailed your analysis is. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, Fadzaev2 said:

Darn WKN.... did you major and minor in statistic.....maybe a double major, statistics and swimming perhaps????  Asking for some friends.

It all comes back to swimming. As I pounded out the miles everyday I started distracting myself by doing math in my head. Especially fractions and percentages. I always wanted to know what was done and what was left. Sometimes I would do conversions. I would change from yards to feet to inches or convert from meters to yards.

Now I like making pictures that explain numbers. I just had an "ah ha" moment about a question a client wanted me to work on, cranked out a compelling (I think) visualization for them, and now I can't wait to share it tomorrow.