Red Blades

Wrestling should do the seeding like basketball - no grumbling about seeds there: Geno Auriemma on UConn's NCAA tournament No. 2 seed: 'If we weren't called UConn, we'd be a No. 1' (msn.com)

What if we made "dual meets" also count as "ranking events"? Then dual meets would actually matter... Right?

I remember back when I attended wrestling camp at the Naval Academy (Ed Peery ran the program), they had a huge sign up inthe wrestling room in McDonough Hall,"If you can read this YOU ARE PINNED!"

I've spent a great deal of time studying this, but only on the hight school level.

Art. 3. Slam. The term “slam” is interpreted as lifting and bringing an opponent to the mat with unnecessary force. This infraction may be committed by a wrestler in either the top or bottom position on the mat and in the neutral position during a takedown. When a wrestler lifts the opponent off the mat and brings that wrestler to the mat with excessive force, a slam shall be called without hesitation after the situation occurs. If an illegal hold starts within the match and concludes after the match is over, it shall be penalized as an in-match violation. http://www.ncaapublications.com/p-4629-2021-22-and-2022-23-ncaa-wrestling-rules.aspx (Oops - BRF beat me to it)

Hatters gonna hat.

Someone please correct me if this is wrong - but as I recall - the process compares each wrestler to each of the 32 other wrestlers, and does a point score for each comparison - and then the wrestler's total score is the sum total of the 32 separate scores - and then the final ranking is based upon the total score for each wrestler. So it is possible then to score higher compared to one individual, but be ranked lower based on the sum total score. Is that still how the process works? To further muddy the waters - there is some optional subjective criteria that presumably can be considered in the case of a tie or even close point score. In other words: " It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key."

Here are the top 8 from the previous Coaches Ranking - I'm curious, what do you think changes, if anything? (to be fair - I have no idea how I'd do this, I'm just fishing for answers!) Previous Coaches Ranking, top 8: RANK NAME TEAM CONFERENCE POINTS 1 David Carr Iowa St. Big 12 396 2 Keegan O`Toole Missouri Big 12 384 3 Shane Griffith Stanford Pac 12 370 4 Quincy Monday Princeton EIWA 355 5 Cameron Amine Michigan Big Ten 340 6 Dean Hamiti Wisconsin Big Ten 336 7 Julian Ramirez Cornell EIWA 319 8 Patrick Kennedy Iowa Big Ten 312

Previous Coaches Ranking, top 8: RANK NAME TEAM CONFERENCE POINTS 1 David Carr Iowa St. Big 12 396 2 Keegan O`Toole Missouri Big 12 384 3 Shane Griffith Stanford Pac 12 370 4 Quincy Monday Princeton EIWA 355 5 Cameron Amine Michigan Big Ten 340 6 Dean Hamiti Wisconsin Big Ten 336 7 Julian Ramirez Cornell EIWA 319 8 Patrick Kennedy Iowa Big Ten 312 It'll be interesting to see how much (if at all?) this changes. Coaches ranking is 15% in the criteria, head-to-head is 25%. I'm not sure I understand how this works as applied to the entire field, though.

I'm curious what people think after the EIWA 165 lb final - who gets seeded higher, Ramirez or Monday (assuming the NCAAs do not use the EIWA Seeding Formula!)

Sometime seeding is not equal to results. Anyone predict that Cardenas would win over Beard?

Glory beating Lee would be on topic...

Wanna bet? Oh, wait... Never mind.

A little off-topic, but as an aside - Glory looked HUGE at 125. No sign of any gas-tank issues, though, he seemed to have that well under control.

there you go - that explains why the current system is a strictly objective mathematical point system.

It's interesting to go back to Bracketbuster's earlier post (Feb 20) where he rolled out his interactive bracket for EIWA's prior to the preseeds being announced: EIWA Projected Seeds/Interactive Bracket - College Wrestling - Intermat Forums His initial seeding assumption was pretty close to the latest EIWA rankings at the time - which is essentially a composite average of several ranking services. Under the actual preseeds, Cornell actually loses 4.5 placement points, but Lehigh loses quite a lot - Penn is the big beneficiary, going from 105 placement points up to 114. Lehigh and Penn essentially flip points. Ivy conspiracy? I think many (myself included) would have preferred we just let Bracketbuster seed the tournament. Of course - the wrestlers still have to wrestle to earn their points. May the odds be ever in their favor.

Lost in all the fuss over the top seeds, Brendan Furman is seeded 9th at 285, considerably lower than his EIWA average ranking would have put him (6th), and puts him against the 1 seed in the quarters IF he gets past the 8th seed Knighton-Ward in the first round (Furman was also at a disadvantage due to only wrestling part of the season, as Fernandes was originally the starter) So yes, the system works against Cornell in some cases, and at 285 could cost them potential team points or even a qualifying slot. As for Ungar - there is no figuring him seeded over Glory, but past that, seeding the next 4 at 125 could pretty much be a random draw, and Ungar still has to get past quarters and semis to even face Glory. If seeding holds, he gets Sotelo of Harvard in the semis - no easy task, nor would be Babin from Columbia. I think the Big Red fans figure - sometimes the Seeding gods giveth, and sometimes they taketh; but the gods of War and Thunder are the ones that matter most.

OK, as far as Brignola having lesser chances facing Yianni than he might have facing Zopf - I would agree. But to generalize that into "hurting guys at smaller schools", well, I hardly consider Lehigh a "small school", at least in terms of wrestling stature (although some might argue that point in recent years). But also, Brignola lost to Zapf already (11-4, a point short of a major), so the degree of difference here goes from slim to almost none. More to the point - Brignola has a 62% winning percentage. There may be quite a few others more deserving of that at large qualifying slot. As for 125 - the bigger mystery there is not so much Unger getting the 1 seed (well, OK, that is BIG a mystery!), as much as how did Bailey, who is ranked higher, end up seeded behind 8. Max Leelee, American and 9. Micah Roes, Binghamton? Flip one or two of those places, and I think Bailey fans would be happier; but in this case, I think the seeding process used has actually helped the wrestlers from the smaller, lesser-known programs (which I suspect is in part the intent of the process used). Bailey is hurt here by his own lack of record - he's only listed at 7-9 (less than 50%) so how do you argue that he deserves a spot anyhow? And with 6 AQ slots at this weight available - if Bailey really deserves one of them, he's got plenty of opportunity to wrestle his way in (even though he did not earn an AQ slot for the conference). So while I get that the seeding IS way off in some instances, and I would certainly like to see some kind of appeal process to re-adjust by the "eye test" (whatever THAT might be ), on the whole I don't share the same level of outrage over lesser ranked or less prominent wrestlers/programs being hurt. On the other hand - it seems the guys who benefit most from this process are the guys who wrestled a full schedule, and especially a full conference schedule - so count me among the fans in favor of the process. STOP THE DUCK!

How exactly does it do that?

That's some crazy stuff... I'm guessing some of this get's sorted out in the final seeding meeting, althought from a Cornell perspective - I can't say it's all bad, just silly.

is that an official stat? Duck percentage?

Aye, but there lies the rub - are the rankings that good? The way I see it, the top 24 guys, maybe more, are going to qualify one way or another. But the current system also provides a way for the guys who might be on the wrong side of the bubble to "play their way" in. This also makes the conference tournament more meaningful. I do think the current system is also WAY better than the old system (was replaced when, say 15-20 years ago?) where the conference allocations were awarded based on prior year's AA count per conference, and the conferences could allocate among the weight classes as they chose to. And I like that each conference gets that minimum one qualifier per weight class. It gives every conference some representation, and a chance to prove that sometimes the pundits are wrong. Let's go, LIU!!

Who's on first.

Yianni hit 100 wins earlier this year.