At Larges Announced

[killdozer]

Lopez definitely deserved an at large
He qualified the allocation. 
He has wins over 6 people in the field
Placed adjacent to an auto qualifier
Has a record >70%

[Pablo]

174 Pounds

19 Avery Bassett, Lock Haven

22 Jared Simma, Northern Iowa

27 Luca Augustine, Pittsburgh

29 Holden Garcia, Princeton

Yep, those are all fine

184 Pounds

38 Tyler Bienus, Bucknell

25 Sam Goin, Indiana

31 Nick Fox, Northern Iowa

18 Brian Soldano, Oklahoma

30 Gautreau of Lock Haven

Given the head-to-head, it's undestandable, although there could be better options.

197 Pounds

23 Evan Bates, Missouri

13 Brock Zurawski, Rider

34 Kael Bennie, Utah Valley

24 Rune Lawrence, West Virginia

31 Zyan Hall of NAVY

30 Jack Wehmeyer of Columbia over Kael Bennie.

Those three are all very close.

285 Pounds

48 Emmanuel Ulrich, American 

28 Connor Barket, Duke

43 Jack Forbes, Utah Valley 

14 Christian Carroll, Wyoming

Forbes (39 Stoner and 49 Rasmussen).
Lost to 60 Buhk ...placed 2nd in the MAC (Lost in the True 2nd match (see above - isn't that 3rd place?)) 

41 Ashton Davis 

[killdozer]

Parco did auto-qualify.
What I was saying is Smith while he is in the ranking at 57. He has the most wins over the field (Parco, Church, and Earnest). He also beat someone that Kesler lost to and Kesler only had one win over the field that Smith also beat.
Smith was in the finals and then lost the True 2nd match to Woodcock. So yes he took 3rd. Which was a placement adjacent to auto qualifier.  Their records are almost identical (Smith: 16-14, Keslar: 14-12)
I would like to see the reasoning. 

[killdozer]

When I say lost true 2nd I mean they made the finals and lost. Then had to wrestle a true 2nd. So as far as team scores. They earned 2nd place points. But had to do a wrestle off for the allocation. 
The MAC had 5 true 2nd matches and 4 of the five in the finals lost the true 2nd. 

Edited March 11 by killdozer

[Pablo]

10 minutes ago, killdozer said:

Lopez definitely deserved an at large
He qualified the allocation. 
He has wins over 6 people in the field
Placed adjacent to an auto qualifier
Has a record >70%

He satisfies the criteria, yes, but the question is whether he is as good of a wrestler as other guys who didn't get selected?

[Pablo]

3 minutes ago, killdozer said:

When I say lost true 2nd I mean they made the finals and lost. Then had to wrestle a true 2nd. So as far as team scores. They earned 2nd place points. But had to do a wrestle off for the allocation. 
 

OK, so this is silly.

"They earned 2nd place points."  Maybe, but they didn't finish second. It doesn't matter how it's scored.  They lost the wrestleback for 2nd place, which means they were the third best wrestler in the tournament.

The name itself says it, the TRUE 2nd place.  This is what wrestlebacks are for, to recognize that a single elimination tournament itself is not sufficient to rank the wrestlers due to issues of matchups.

Why did they have to "wrestle off for the allocation"?  Because they made the finals despite not being the 2nd best wrestler.

Wrestling is really good about using the wrestleback to find the "true 2nd" when they need it.  Iowa does this in their districts all the time, because the top two advance to state.  As such, it really matters who is #2, so if the matchups warrant it, they will do the wrestleback.

 

[killdozer]

I also did that to specify they made the finals in the tournament. If they took 3rd in the tournament and lost the true 2nd. I would say they took third. But if they made the finals and  then lost the true match I put "Lost true 2nd".  I actually think there is a difference.  I realize that it is splitting hairs. 

As far as Lopez who would be a better choice? That can match his resume? 

Edited March 11 by killdozer

[Bryce]

14 hours ago, Antitroll2828 said:

Brody Conley has been consistently ranked in the top 16-25ish range for 3 straight seasons and 3 years he laid an egg at big 12s and 3 years he gets screwed out of a wildcard. He beat Augustine head to head and is better than Garcia and I like Garcia he’s a jersey guy. Conley will go into his senior as a guy ranked for 3 straight years without wrestling a match at ncaas 

Agreed. Him above Garcia. But Garcia is also not Jersey. He was a PA Boy

[gimpeltf]

39 minutes ago, Bryce said:

Agreed. Him above Garcia. But Garcia is also not Jersey. He was a PA Boy

He crossed the river to go to ND. He lives around Pburg. His father wrestled for Pburg in the 90s and is the Lopatcong Chief of Police. NJ/Pa USAW chairs agreed to let him wrestle for Pa since his HS coaches coaches for Pa (although they live in Lopat also)

[Bryce]

8 minutes ago, gimpeltf said:

He crossed the river to go to ND. He lives around Pburg. His father wrestled for Pburg in the 90s and is the Lopatcong Chief of Police. NJ/Pa USAW chairs agreed to let him wrestle for Pa since his HS coaches coaches for Pa (although they live in Lopat also)

Dang. Did not know that. They would still count him as PA on the national qualifier list since his whole HS career was PA. Brett Ungar was same thing except he was just too old for Jersey

 

Edited March 11 by Bryce

[rsotelo]

3 hours ago, Pablo said:

Let me provide some additional information.  Pablo ratings for people mentioned

125 Pounds

30 Desmond Pleasant, Drexel 

26 Mack Mauger, Missouri

41 Brady Roark, South Dakota State

22 Nicolar Rivera, Wisconsin

25 Sulayman Bah, Columbia

Roark is the only questionable from this perspective but it's not egregious.  The others are certainly legit.  Just so you know, I'm not going to dig through all the non-automatic qualifiers to see who is more deserving, though, although I can anyone up if you have suggestions.

133 Pounds

28 Braxton Brown, Maryland

13 Dominick Serrano, Northern Colorado (ya think?)

30 Dylan Shawver, Rutgers

50 Marcel Lopez, SIU Edwardsville

23 Luke Willochell Wyoming

Lopez is pushing it here.

141 Pounds

20 Pierson Manville, Arizona State

33 Braden Basile, Army West Point

40 Billy DeKraker, Northwestern

50 Matthew Martino, Princeton

 58 AJ Rallo

41 Ragusin

Princeton got a gift here.  Ragusin is closer, but Pablo doesn't think Rallo is in the discussion.

149 Pounds

70 Kaden Cassidy, George Mason

19 Chance Lamer, Nebraska

23 Max Petersen, North Dakota State

35 Eligh Rivera, Princeton

32 Edmond

Yeah, swap Edmond for Cassidy.

157 Pounds

29 Mason Shrader, Central Michigan

10 Vinny Zerban, Iowa State

35 Jonathan Ley, Navy

18 Dylan Evans, Pittsburgh

19 Teague Travis (7 Larkin, 9 Watters, 4 Robideau, 10 Zerban, and 15 Jordan Williams; 28 Laird Root).  That's a tough schedule.  Based on those outcomes, it looks like Pablo has him in the right position, below Williams and ahead of Root.  But Pablo likes good losses a lot more than RPI does.  None of the 4 at-larges here are bad, but Travis is probably a better wrestler than a couple of them.

I'm an Illinois homer, so I am biased, but I don't see how Rallo and DeKraker got the nod over Ragusin and Pucino.  Very disheartening.

[hoosierdj]

Casual fan, watch what is available on BTN and ACCN and read this forum, but I have been day drinking, so … There are cases for everyone not included, but in wrestling it is also the hardest to justify near misses due to the numbers. With approximately 77 D1 wrestling programs and 33 making it to the championship, that’s 43% of wrestlers making the championship. But if you just invite all 77 (everyone is happy) what does that add, one extra round with a few more pigtails.  

[bnwtwg]

8 hours ago, No BS Fan said:

He was 6-6. 

His 4 losses:

Injured at end of match then immediately MFF, MFF out of tourney. #6, #8. Find the bad loss.

[ScottishSteel]

@Pablo if you don't mind, I'm curious where Noah Tolentino (Beavs) stood in your rankings/at large chances.  He allocated the spot and has been ranked most of the year so I was hopeful he could snag a 149 spot

[gimpeltf]

5 hours ago, Bryce said:

Dang. Did not know that. They would still count him as PA on the national qualifier list since his whole HS career was PA. Brett Ungar was same thing except he was just too old for Jersey

 

Not quite the same with Ungar. He had 2 years in NJ 2 years in Pa

[GimJustafan]

 

[gimpeltf]

I forget exact years of the changes but when I was working the head table (87-06) we used primarily total team score of the conference as compared to the overall total team scores (I believe minus D2/3) for my first few years. Then we switched to top 12s until after I was done and they went to the current method.

Personally, I think the current system is the best for picking the 33 (not necessarily for seeding (although they've tweaked it better). We couldn't have done this until around the last ~20 years since there wasn't a comprehensive database (OPC/Track) until relatively recently (that's using my geological frame of reference ). And someone had to adapt the ELO/FIDE system to create an RPI. I do have a slight issue with using RPI and WL separately. I don't think you should get points unless you have both a higher RPI and a higher WL. One stat relates inversely to the other.

As to 33 entrants per weight, I get nervous when people say to cut it especially when the reason appears to be a form of math symmetry OCD. We got lucky the NCAA didn't cut to 24 when I was working. The NCAA rep at the time told me the bean counters wanted to cut it down like they did with D2/3 but it was one of the few "minor" sports that drew well enough to overlook it. If they think about going to 32 they might go further.

A story of this subject from my first year was as we were finishing the NCAA rep and/or games committee asked me to produce data on how each conference fared team score-wise and do the math and give my analysis on how many qualifiers each conference earned. Back then there were 11 conferences. (off the top of my head B1G/B8/EIWA/Pac10/SoCon/SEC/WAC/ACC/ECC/W Reg/E Reg?). When I got to the SoCon and SEC- one of them earned 0.6 qualifiers (total not per weight) and the other 0.4. I suggested merging the two conferences and taking the OW! For some reason they didn't go with it.