Bracket Discussion

[ionel]

Where's the ban basketball reaction? 

[boconnell]

1 hour ago, BruceyB said:

I'm not going to bother arguing the difference between an NBA player and Olympic wrestler and their respective obligations.

In college basketball, the regular season is extremely important when it comes to making it to the national tournament and how you will be seeded. In wrestling, you don't even have to be on the roster for the first half of the season, let alone compete, in order to get the most advantageous seed at the national tournament.

I don't think we need guys wrestling 45 matches a year, but I think a minimum match threshold should be in place to qualify for the post season. Sure, there may be some unfortunate casualties, but when you have guys wrestling an easier opponent on Friday and then sitting out on Sunday, it's a problem for the sport. When every conversation about a big match up is concluded with the caveat, "if they both go," it's a problem for the sport.

Hit a couple of opens, get all of your guys 20 matches during the 4 month regular season, and you're good to go. 

 

How in the world does hitting a few opens to reach an arbitrary match number you made up going to help the sport in any meaningful way?

[jmoney]

16 hours ago, BruceyB said:

Uhh.. intermat 125 rankings.

#8 Provo

#9 Robinson

#10 Poulin

#11 McGowan

#13 Moran

I wouldn't exactly call those seeds criminal..

Provo beat Robinson twice this year, whaddaya want?

I’ll concede the Robinson point I’m always shocked how much a wrestler’s seed can fall off one year to next but Robinson hasn’t had a great year. Poulin was penalized for wrestling tough opponents. Moran at 14 just feels harsh with a solid B1G finish. McGowan I insist will not make the R12 without that seed gift. He’s still unlikely to. 

[jmoney]

7 hours ago, cl415 said:

My biggest takeaway from how they seeded is that it’s fine to miss the first half the season but don’t miss time late or you will be hit pretty hard. 

Right- and that’s sad at least to me. Has the tournament always rewarded late season health / fortune? Does the tourney “want” top form guys getting to the late matches or is this a new trend ?

[jmoney]

I am a Wrestling Nobody but I think it would be productive to have 2 volatile categories contribute around 10% each to the seeding ranks. The 2 categories would be # top 10 ranked opponent victories and  Placement at last year’s NCAAs (All American rank, R12, R16, then rank based on best NCAA R12 or All American you defeated / win percentage at NCAAs)

 

thoughts or other ideas? If this make believe dreaming annoys you, my apologies !

Edited March 12 by jmoney
Not specific enough

[ChickenWing]

6 hours ago, roguetrader said:

This guy was unseeded and he took the title. Just wrestle !

Were you thinking of Mark Branch?

https://pistolsfiringblog.com/a-look-at-mark-branchs-1994-ncaa-title-run-at-osu/

[forkemaz]

55 minutes ago, boconnell said:

How in the world does hitting a few opens to reach an arbitrary match number you made up going to help the sport in any meaningful way?

Higher match requirment = more wrestling= more guys hitting head to head = more data = more informed seeding for post season (maybe)

[mr.nonothingatall]

1 minute ago, forkemaz said:

Higher match requirment = more wrestling= more guys hitting head to head = more data = more informed seeding for post season (maybe)

[ionel]

16 minutes ago, forkemaz said:

Higher match requirment = more wrestling= more guys hitting head to head = more data = more Wkn = more informed seeding for post season (maybe)

ftfy  

Edited March 12 by ionel

[boconnell]

52 minutes ago, forkemaz said:

Higher match requirment = more wrestling= more guys hitting head to head = more data = more informed seeding for post season (maybe)

If he had stayed with the argument of ducking and said guys not ducking helps the sport I get it and kind of agree.  But he took a hard turn at the end and said everyone should hit a few opens to get to 20 matches, and that does nothing to help wrestling.  

[flyingcement]

Rank	College	#NQ	Average Seed
1	Penn State	10	3
2	Ohio State	10	7
3	Oklahoma State	10	7
4	Nebraska	10	10
5	Iowa State	10	12
6	Virginia Tech	10	13
7	Iowa	9	10
8	Rutgers	9	19
9	Stanford	8	14
10	Illinois	8	16
11	Wisconsin	8	20
12	Pittsburgh	8	24
13	NC State	7	10
14	Arizona State	7	16
15	Oklahoma	7	19
16	Columbia	7	20
17	Lehigh	6	8
18	Michigan	6	11
19	Minnesota	6	11
20	Pennsylvania	6	13
21	Wyoming	6	18
22	Oregon State	6	19
23	Missouri	6	19
24	West Virginia	6	19
25	North Carolina	6	19
26	South Dakota State	6	20
27	Indiana	6	24
28	Cornell	5	5
29	Northern Iowa	5	18
30	Bucknell	5	20
31	Navy	5	20
32	Rider	5	21
33	Princeton	5	22
34	North Dakota State	5	23
35	Utah Valley	5	24
36	Little Rock	4	14
37	Ohio	4	18
38	Army	4	18
39	Purdue	4	19
40	Maryland	4	20
41	Cal Poly	4	22
42	Lock Haven	4	23
43	George Mason	4	23
44	Edinboro	4	28
45	American	3	17
46	Southern Illinois Edwardsville	3	18
47	Brown	3	25
48	Appalachian State	3	26
49	Virginia	3	27
50	Drexel	3	27
51	Northern Illinois	2	10
52	Binghamton	2	18
53	Northern Colorado	2	20
54	Air Force	2	26
55	Morgan State	2	26
56	Northwestern	2	26
57	Kent State	2	28
58	Chattanooga	2	28
59	Central Michigan	2	29
60	Michigan State	2	30
61	Bellarmine	2	33
62	Bloomsburg	2	33
63	Franklin & Marshall	1	4
64	Gardner-Webb	1	17
65	Harvard	1	20
66	Buffalo	1	23
67	Duke	1	24
68	Davidson	1	26
69	Citadel	1	30
70	VMI	1	33
71	California Baptist	0	N/A
72	Clarion	0	N/A
73	Campbell	0	N/A
74	Hofstra	0	N/A
75	CSU Bakersfield	0	N/A
76	LIU	0	N/A
77	Sacred Heart	0	N/A
78	Presbyterian	0	N/A

Edited March 13 by flyingcement

[Booger]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

Where's the ban basketball reaction? 

My guess is... banned.

[flyingcement]

7 qualifiers is more than Columbia has had in the history of Wrestlestat (going back 12 years).  Hats off to Pritzlaff, Seabass, Buxton, and Janzer

[BruceyB]

55 minutes ago, boconnell said:

If he had stayed with the argument of ducking and said guys not ducking helps the sport I get it and kind of agree.  But he took a hard turn at the end and said everyone should hit a few opens to get to 20 matches, and that does nothing to help wrestling.  

I should have been more clear.

If coaches don't want to add more rigorous events to their already limited schedules, they can send guys early in the year to rack up some matches in some open tournaments to get the minimum match count taken care of. Some coaches, however, may figure if we have to wrestle 20 matches, we might as well make them worth while and add better events to their current schedules. Worse case scenario, a guy at least has to toe the line against 20 other D1 opponents and doesn't get to waltz into the post season with 11 matches on his record. Best case scenario, more quality match-ups happen during the season because teams are more active.

To some degree it's also about optics. When you have have a #1 seed that is 13-0 and a #2 seed that is 25-1 the message is that it doesn't matter how much you wrestle. If you beat a few good guys then that's all you need from the regular season. 

[flyingcement]

Teams that at least matched (or surpassed) their WS-era (since 2014) high in national qualifiers:
Penn State (10)
Ohio State (10)
Oklahoma State (10)
Nebraska (10)
Iowa State (10)
Virginia Tech (10)
Pittsburgh (8)
Columbia (7)
West Virginia (6)
Indiana (6)
George Mason (4)
SIU Edwardsville (3)
Bellarmine (2)
Morgan State (2)
VMI (1)
Presbyterian (0)


Teams that matched or surpassed their WS-era (since 2014) low in national qualifiers:
Cornell (5)
Virginia (3)
Northwestern (2)
Binghamton (2)
Central Michigan (2)
Chattanooga (2)
Citadel (1)
California Baptist (0)
Clarion (0)
Campbell (0)
Hofstra (0)
CSU Bakersfield (0)
LIU (0)
Sacred Heart (0)
Presbyterian (0)

[flyingcement]

when 30/78 schools are reaching a new high or low, it does reinforce the idea that we are going through a pretty big transition right now 

[boconnell]

1 hour ago, BruceyB said:

I should have been more clear.

If coaches don't want to add more rigorous events to their already limited schedules, they can send guys early in the year to rack up some matches in some open tournaments to get the minimum match count taken care of. Some coaches, however, may figure if we have to wrestle 20 matches, we might as well make them worth while and add better events to their current schedules. Worse case scenario, a guy at least has to toe the line against 20 other D1 opponents and doesn't get to waltz into the post season with 11 matches on his record. Best case scenario, more quality match-ups happen during the season because teams are more active.

To some degree it's also about optics. When you have have a #1 seed that is 13-0 and a #2 seed that is 25-1 the message is that it doesn't matter how much you wrestle. If you beat a few good guys then that's all you need from the regular season. 

I like the message that beating good wrestlers is more important than beating lots of guys.  That message will have more impact on guys toeing the line in the duals and matches we care about.  Especially since the guy in question got the big wins that got him the top seed by toeing the line in dual matches.  A guy showing up to an open tournament will accomplish nothing for the sport.  I am glad that a guy like Barr isn't punished for being under 20 matches.  He is clearly the best guy at 197 and giving the top seed to someone else because he had 19 matches would be silly.

I'd have no problem with Jax being the 2 or 3 seed.  If the coaches didn't think he was the best guy than his lack of RPI would have had that exact result.  But the idea that everyone needs to get 20 matches makes no sense and produces nothing good.  Good matches is what we want and to get them we should reward good matches.  We should not say accumulate 20 matches and then assume that will somehow make guys show up for tough matches.

Edited March 13 by boconnell

[MPhillips]

4 hours ago, ionel said:

Where's the ban basketball reaction? 

They deleted that entire topic. He never existed...

[BruceyB]

52 minutes ago, boconnell said:

I like the message that beating good wrestlers is more important than beating lots of guys.  That message will have more impact on guys toeing the line in the duals and matches we care about.  Especially since the guy in question got the big wins that got him the top seed by toeing the line in dual matches.  A guy showing up to an open tournament will accomplish nothing for the sport.  I am glad that a guy like Barr isn't punished for being under 20 matches.  He is clearly the best guy at 197 and giving the top seed to someone else because he had 19 matches would be silly.

I'd have no problem with Jax being the 2 or 3 seed.  If the coaches didn't think he was the best guy than his lack of RPI would have had that exact result.  But the idea that everyone needs to get 20 matches makes no sense and produces nothing good.  Good matches is what we want and to get them we should reward good matches.  We should not say accumulate 20 matches and then assume that will somehow make guys show up for tough matches.

I think we can agree to disagree. I would like there to be a minimum amount of participation that takes place during the regular season to get the benefit of the easiest path at Nationals. I think either the regular season should count for something, or what's the point?

Hypothetically, Mesenbrink says he wants to start focusing on the Olympics next year. He says he's not going to wrestle during the regular season, but he'll wrestle at B10s and Nationals. He wins B10s over the #1 ranked wrestler in the country, what should he be seeded at nationals? He has no losses to ding him and just beat the #1 guy in the country. I'd bet he's a top 3 seed even though he only wrestled 4 matches and didn't step foot on the mat during the regular season.

That doesn't seem right to me. This is obviously an extreme, but just an illustration of why I think there should be some requirement to a minimum amount of participation during the regular season. Guys shouldn't just be able to pull up at the last minute and compete for a national title.

[boconnell]

3 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

I think we can agree to disagree. I would like there to be a minimum amount of participation that takes place during the regular season to get the benefit of the easiest path at Nationals. I think either the regular season should count for something, or what's the point?

Hypothetically, Mesenbrink says he wants to start focusing on the Olympics next year. He says he's not going to wrestle during the regular season, but he'll wrestle at B10s and Nationals. He wins B10s over the #1 ranked wrestler in the country, what should he be seeded at nationals? He has no losses to ding him and just beat the #1 guy in the country. I'd bet he's a top 3 seed even though he only wrestled 4 matches and didn't step foot on the mat during the regular season.

That doesn't seem right to me. This is obviously an extreme, but just an illustration of why I think there should be some requirement to a minimum amount of participation during the regular season. Guys shouldn't just be able to pull up at the last minute and compete for a national title.

For your match number are you saying guys shouldn't be seeded, should be punished in seeding, or shouldn't be allowed to enter at all?

For your hypothetical, I would hope in that situation they would seed Messenbrink #1 since he is the best wrestler by a mile.  Seeding him lower wouldn't accomplish anything but punishing the guys who had earned seeds and had to wrestle him earlier.  

 

[BruceyB]

13 hours ago, boconnell said:

For your match number are you saying guys shouldn't be seeded, should be punished in seeding, or shouldn't be allowed to enter at all?

For your hypothetical, I would hope in that situation they would seed Messenbrink #1 since he is the best wrestler by a mile.  Seeding him lower wouldn't accomplish anything but punishing the guys who had earned seeds and had to wrestle him earlier.  

 

I've been saying that the match minimum should be the requirement to be wrestling in the post-season altogether. You can get your match minimum the easy way by wrestling in less competitive open tournaments, or coaches can add more quality events to their schedule. But wrestlers should wrestle, and this nonsense with guys like Shapiro last year rolling up to NCAAs with 11 matches and getting the number 2 seed, or Jax with 13 matches getting the #1 are both arguably correct while simultaneously being ridiculous. Right now, competing is quite literally optional in the regular season as we have more and more guys not even enrolled during the fall semester. Half of Cornell, Lamer, Jax, Bullock, etc. were all second semester only guys. What's the point of having a regular season if you can sit out for half of it with impunity?

I agree with you 100% that punishing someone for not wrestling punishes others just as much as the guilty party. That's my issue with Ferrari at the 7 this year. The case for Ferrari at the 7 is valid, but by putting him there you're punishing Sinclair.

[Offthemat]

19 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

I've been saying that the match minimum should be the requirement to be wrestling in the post-season altogether. You can get your match minimum the easy way by wrestling in less competitive open tournaments, or coaches can add more quality events to their schedule. But wrestlers should wrestle, and this nonsense with guys like Shapiro last year rolling up to NCAAs with 11 matches and getting the number 2 seed, or Jax with 13 matches getting the #1 are both arguably correct while simultaneously being ridiculous. Right now, competing is quite literally optional in the regular season as we have more and more guys not even enrolled during the fall semester. Half of Cornell, Lamer, Jax, Bullock, etc. were all second semester only guys. What's the point of having a regular season if you can sit out for half of it with impunity?

I agree with you 100% that punishing someone for not wrestling punishes others just as much as the guilty party. That's my issue with Ferrari at the 7 this year. The case for Ferrari at the 7 is valid, but by putting him there you're punishing Sinclair.

Would you be happy if they penalized Forrest like they did Starocci and put him in the nine seed?  Having the championship match Thursday night instead of Saturday?

[Offthemat]

4 minutes ago, Offthemat said:

Would you be happy if they penalized Forrest like they did Starocci and put him in the nine seed?  Having the championship match Thursday night instead of Saturday?

Friday morning. 

[BruceyB]

6 minutes ago, Offthemat said:

Would you be happy if they penalized Forrest like they did Starocci and put him in the nine seed?  Having the championship match Thursday night instead of Saturday?

Read my post again.

[gimpeltf]

7 minutes ago, Offthemat said:

Would you be happy if they penalized Forrest like they did Starocci and put him in the nine seed?  Having the championship match Thursday night instead of Saturday?

How did they penalize Starocci? They penalized Mekhi.