Pablo

I did a Vulcan mindmeld. I have a close, personal relationship with Pablo. And Bob Dole.

Here's what the Pablo top 5 looks like 1. 184:Missouri_Aeoden Sinclair 2. 184:Minnesota_Max McEnelly 3. 184:Penn State_Rocco Welsh 4. 184:Iowa_Angelo Ferrari 5. 184:Michigan_Brock Mantanona

I know Pablo has McEnelly ahead of Welsh. I think it watched the match and gave him the takedown.

There is more to it, though. That winning percentage vs rating curve has an analytical relationship. If you remember your stats class, it has the shape of a standard integrated normal distribution. If you don't remember your stats class, what you can do is to look how far the rating difference (in standard deviations) is from the mean (in this case 0) and convert it to a probabilty (statistical programs have this information built in; in Excel you use normsdist to convert rating difference to probability, or normsinv to convert probability to rating difference). The way Pablo is designed is that it should be linear with respect to that transformed probability. Details of how that gets implemented are available upon request. But the key is the plot of the transformation vs rating difference. Indeed, this is a pretty darn good linear relationship (r^2=0.988). The other feature of this plot is the slope, which is 0.0007 or something like that. The higher the slope, the more senstive the winning probablity is to the difference. In principle, the slope would nominally be 0.0005, so it's about 40% higher. I can tell you that is really good. Earlier in the season that slope will be more like 0.00035 (a slope of 0 would mean that the every match has a 50/50 outcome regardless of the rating difference). In the end, Pablo is cooking along pretty well now. I've started working on pre-nationals rankings and will update when I know more.

Unrelated to seeding and to Pablo ratings. I have looked at winning pct vs Pablo rating difference. The premise of Pablo ratings is that when guys are close in quality, the chance of either winning gets closer to 50/50. Basically, if you took Jesse Mendez and duplicated him and had him wrestle his duplicate, someone would win, but who would win would basically be 50/50. At the other end, if you took him and had him wrestle some random middle schooler, the probablity of him winning is basically 100% (there is a non-zero probability that a ceiling beam could fall and cause an injury default). Most D1 wrestlers are somewhere in-between. The plot below shows the winning percentage for the higher rated wrestler as a function of that rating difference (these are based on last week's ratings). As expected, as the rating difference goes to 0, the winning percentage goes to 50/50. As the rating difference gets bigger, the winning percentage increases and then asymptotes toward 100%. I can tell you that when the difference was greater than 3300, the higher rated wrestler always won (interestingly, the biggest upset of the weekend was in the EIWA at 133, where 150th ranked Treshaun Tecson beat #62 Mason Leiphart of Franklin&Marshall, a rating difference of more than 3200; that was the only upset where the rating difference was >2650)

Not all seeding was a problem, though. For example, at 184 in the Big Ten, the better seeded wrestler won 27 out of 28 matches! That includes the matches for 9th (or was it 11th?). That is incredible. In terms of weight classes, though, 197 was the best seeded, with 78.2% correct. 184 came in at 77.7%. At the other end, 157 was the hardest weight class to seed, only 71.7%, and 125 was 72.6%. 165 was 73.3% and everyone else was pretty close to 75.

Every once in a while, I do a check to see how well Pablo rankings for a given week do at predicting outcomes of matches in the following week. It's useful data to know (usually it comes in at about 75%), but it's hard to interpret because that depends on a lot of factors, like how close the actual matches are and other stuff. It is what it is. However, come conference tournaments, we actually have the opportunity for comparison because we have seeding. Despite the issues that happened with the Big Ten pre-seeding, in the end the seeds were adjusted and so that is all well and done. What I've done now is to compare at how often the better seeded wrestler (higher seed? Lower seed? what's the correct description?) won in the conference tournament vs how many times the higher rated wrestler in Pablo won. Pretty good data set, with more than 1300 matches (note that I don't count matches that don't end properly, so no byes, forfeits, injury defaults, DQs, etc) In those matches, the higher rated wrestler in Pablo won 77.8% of the time. I also went through all the brackets and logged the results based on seeds. This was all done counting outcomes manually, so I may have missed something here or there, but after doing that, I got that the better seeded wrestler won 75% of the time. The difference isn't huge, but over 1300 matches, that difference is significant. It's almost 40 more matches correctly predicted using Pablo than by the seeds. If you focus only on the top, you will see some problems with Pablo, like Bouzakis rated higher than Lilledahl but seeding had correct, but that is taken into account in the assessment. Should tournaments just be using Pablo for seeding? I won't say that, but hey, the could do worse...and they do. Maybe do the seeding for the top 4 and let Pablo handle the rest? FWIW, I don't have the breakdowns at the conference/bracket position level for Pablo, but I can tell you from a seeding standpoint, seeds do a lot better in the championship side of the bracket (79%) than on the consolation side (69%). A lot more upsets on the consolation side of the bracket. From a seeding perspective, the Pac 12 (83%) and Ivy (80%) had the most accurate seeding. Then again, those were smaller tournaments, so not near as many wrestlers to seed. At the other end was the SoCon, where only 66% of the better seeded wrestlers won. All the other conferences were pretty close to that 75% mark. The tl;dr summary: Pablo does as good of a job at assessing wrestlers (if not better) as the people seeding the brackets. To be fair, Pablo doesn't have to worry about crap like "doesn't have enough matches to qualify for RPI" and the like, although it also doesn't have the ability to rate wrestlers who have no matches at their conference tournament weight (there are a few, but not Gabe Arnold - he had a few matches at 197)

I'm already licensed. What are you waiting for? Contact your state association.

I think Noah Weaver has a lot of potential at 197

Purdue volleyball is extremely well supported. Nominally that is a non-revenue producing sport (especially considering the Purdue gym is too small for the demand)

Just a friendly PSA, we always need more wrestling officials. More at the jr high level will create more available for the high school level, which will create more available for college. There is such a shortage in my state that they even let me do the high school post-season. They are obviously desperate.

Left out of what? With my cutoff of 10 matches, I have something like 150 wrestlers ranked at each weight (200 at 149)

285 Won Lost Rating 1. 285:Iowa State_Yonger Bastida 22 0 9456 2. 285:NC State_Isaac Trumble 15 0 8707 3. 285:Michigan_Taye Ghadiali 20 2 8508 4. 285:Ohio State_Nick Feldman 17 4 8354 5. 285:Oklahoma State_Konner Doucet 14 3 8282 6. 285:Nebraska_AJ Ferrari 16 2 8276 7. 285:Penn State_Lucas Cochran 9 1 8070 8. 285:Penn State_Cole Mirasola 15 5 7937 9. 285:Wyoming_Christian Carroll 17 4 7924 10. 285:Wisconsin_Braxton Amos 19 4 7847 11. 285:Nebraska_Cade Ziola 16 3 7829 12. 285:Virginia Tech_Jimmy Mullen 21 6 7616 13. 285:Iowa_Ben Kueter 5 5 7477 14. 285:Lehigh_Nathan Taylor 14 3 7411 15. 285:Oklahoma_Juan Mora 15 5 7378 16. 285:Army West Point_Brady Colbert 18 4 7368 17. 285:Navy_Spencer Lanosga 17 5 7337 18. 285:Arizona State_David Szuba 20 9 7333 19. 285:Pittsburgh_Dayton Pitzer 18 5 7329 20. 285:Cal Poly_Trevor Tinker 7 3 7302 21. 285:Rutgers_Hunter Catka 17 6 7182 22. 285:Minnesota_Koy Hopke 19 8 7166 23. 285:Duke_Connor Barket 18 5 6832 24. 285:Illinois_Luke Luffman 11 5 6698 25. 285:Columbia_Vincent Mueller 22 6 6671

197 Won Lost Rating 1. 197:Penn State_Josh Barr 17 0 10441 2. 197:Iowa State_Rocky Elam 14 0 8707 3. 197:Wyoming_Joey Novak 14 2 8684 4. 197:Oklahoma_DJ Parker 15 6 8241 5. 197:Stanford_Angelo Posada 17 4 8232 6. 197:Oregon State_Justin Rademacher 23 2 8217 7. 197:Nebraska_Camden McDanel 19 5 8105 8. 197:Oklahoma State_Cody Merrill 13 3 8026 9. 197:Rider_Brock Zurawski 18 4 7985 10. 197:Little Rock_Stephen Little 12 2 7900 11. 197:Ohio State_Luke Geog 15 7 7765 12. 197:Pittsburgh_Mac Stout 17 3 7728 13. 197:Missouri_Evan Bates 21 8 7707 14. 197:Maryland_Branson John 23 6 7669 15. 197:Rutgers_Remy Cotton 15 4 7577 16. 197:North Dakota State_Devin Wasley 22 8 7571 17. 197:Virginia Tech_Sonny Sasso 25 5 7556 18. 197:South Dakota State_Bennett Berge 11 3 7546 19. 197:Indiana_Gabe Sollars 11 8 7509 20. 197:Wisconsin_Wyatt Ingham 15 7 7484 21. 197:Ohio State_Seth Shumate 15 5 7393 22. 197:Spartan Combat RTC_Jude Correa 16 3 7310 23. 197:Brown_Andrew Reall 29 4 7265 24. 197:West Virginia_Rune Lawrence 14 10 7166 25. 197:Ohio_Zayne Lehman 16 2 7136

184 Won Lost Rating 1. 184:Missouri_Aeoden Sinclair 27 1 9229 2. 184:Penn State_Rocco Welsh 18 0 9081 3. 184:Minnesota_Max McEnelly 19 1 9012 4. 184:Iowa_Angelo Ferrari 10 1 8456 5. 184:Ohio State_Dylan Fishback 17 6 8400 6. 184:Franklin & Marshall_James Conway 31 1 8166 7. 184:Iowa_Gabe Arnold 9 4 8157 8. 184:Michigan_Brock Mantanona 16 6 8149 9. 184:Nebraska_Silas Allred 15 6 8070 10. 184:Wyoming_Eddie Neitenbach 16 3 7739 11. 184:Oklahoma_Brian Soldano 11 3 7542 12. 184:Oklahoma State_Zack Ryder 10 6 7462 13. 184:Rutgers_Shane CartagenaWalsh 20 6 7298 14. 184:Illinois_Chris Moore 16 6 7271 15. 184:West Virginia_Ian Bush 16 9 7235 16. 184:Columbia_Aaron Ayzerov 12 6 7220 17. 184:Lehigh_Rylan Rogers 15 6 7215 18. 184:Columbia_Joe Curtis 18 3 7100 19. 184:Edinboro_Jared McGill 14 2 7084 20. 184:American_Caleb Campos 23 6 7013 21. 184:Iowa State_Isaac Dean 15 5 6982 22. 184:Indiana_Sam Goin 11 5 6928 23. 184:Pittsburgh_Chase Kranitz 14 8 6894 24. 184:North Carolina_Jake Dailey 16 3 6843 25. 184:Cornell_Christian Hansen 22 7 6783

174 Won Lost Rating 1. 174:Penn State_Levi Haines 19 0 13187 2. 174:Ohio State_Carson Kharchla 15 3 12240 3. 174:Iowa_Patrick Kennedy 15 2 12045 4. 174:Nebraska_Christopher Minto 18 4 11685 5. 174:Cornell_Simon Ruiz 14 0 11565 6. 174:Oklahoma State_Alex Facundo 14 6 11466 7. 174:Michigan_Beau Mantanona 19 5 11465 8. 174:Missouri_Cam Steed 14 4 11177 9. 174:Navy_Danny Wask 20 3 10980 10. 174:Columbia_Nick Fine 23 7 10849 11. 174:Bucknell_Myles Takats 20 6 10818 12. 174:NC State_Matty Singleton 16 3 10784 13. 174:Indiana_Derek Gilcher 13 7 10736 14. 174:Oklahoma_Carter Schubert 15 4 10727 15. 174:Iowa State_MJ Gaitan 14 5 10711 16. 174:Oregon State_Daschle Lamer 18 3 10684 17. 174:Northern Iowa_Jared Simma 13 6 10663 18. 174:Penn State_Will Henckel 9 1 10654 19. 174:Pittsburgh_Luca Augustine 11 4 10611 20. 174:Lock Haven_Avery Bassett 21 6 10507 21. 174:Illinois_Colin Kelly 14 6 10333 22. 174:Northwestern_Eddie Enright 19 8 10327 23. 174:Binghamton_Carter Baer 14 3 10305 24. 174:Drexel_Jasiah Queen 16 6 10275 25. 174:West Virginia_Brody Conley 16 7 10230

165 Won Lost Rating 1. 165:Penn State_Mitchell Mesenbrink 20 0 10772 2. 165:Iowa_Mikey Caliendo 17 3 9246 3. 165:Purdue_Joey Blaze 19 0 8702 4. 165:Lehigh_Max Brignola 16 4 8690 5. 165:Oklahoma State_LaDarion Lockett 13 1 8599 6. 165:Arizona State_Nicco Ruiz 21 5 8193 7. 165:Illinois_Braeden Scoles 15 6 8042 8. 165:Nebraska_LJ Araujo 14 6 7939 9. 165:Northern Iowa_Ryder Downey 17 3 7843 10. 165:Iowa State_Connor Euton 15 6 7787 11. 165:Ohio State_Paddy Gallagher 12 6 7779 12. 165:Little Rock_Matty Bianchi 18 1 7711 13. 165:Minnesota_Andrew Sparks 17 4 7608 14. 165:NC State_Will Denny 15 2 7584 15. 165:Missouri_Maxx Mayfield 12 4 7581 16. 165:Indiana_Tyler Lillard 12 7 7565 17. 165:Princeton_Ty Whalen 20 7 7398 18. 165:Army West Point_Gunner Filipowicz 19 6 7356 19. 165:Iowa State_Aiden Riggins 11 3 7327 20. 165:Ohio State_e`Than Birden 20 8 7316 21. 165:Virginia Tech_Ryan Burton 19 7 7296 22. 165:SIU Edwardsville_Brock Woodcock 21 8 7256 23. 165:Rutgers_Ryan Ford 11 3 7188 24. 165:Pennsylvania_Sean Seefeldt 18 6 7156 25. 165:Oregon State_Matthew Olguin 11 5 7145

157 Won Lost Rating 1. 157:Ohio State_Brandon Cannon 16 1 9395 2. 157:Cornell_Meyer Shapiro 15 0 9211 3. 157:Oklahoma State_Landon Robideau 18 1 8875 4. 157:Stanford_Daniel Cardenas 15 3 8851 5. 157:Nebraska_Antrell Taylor 20 2 8846 6. 157:Penn State_PJ Duke 20 1 8835 7. 157:Illinois_Kannon Webster 16 2 8721 8. 157:Iowa State_Vinny Zerban 14 2 8447 9. 157:West Virginia_Ty Watters 17 2 8357 10. 157:Pennsylvania_Jude Swisher 19 3 7864 11. 157:Penn State_Joe Sealey 12 2 7783 12. 157:Minnesota_Charlie Millard 16 6 7698 13. 157:Missouri_Teague Travis 13 6 7692 14. 157:Pittsburgh_Dylan Evans 16 3 7585 15. 157:Iowa_Jordan Williams 7 7 7450 16. 157:Lehigh_Logan Rozynski 11 3 7426 17. 157:Michigan_Cameron Catrabone 15 7 7382 18. 157:Virginia Tech_Ethen Miller 11 2 7248 19. 157:Iowa_Victor Voinovich 10 4 7138 20. 157:Ohio_Derek Raike 16 4 7022 21. 157:Missouri_J Conway 13 6 7005 22. 157:North Carolina_Laird Root 13 9 6937 23. 157:Central Michigan_Mason Shrader 22 6 6899 24. 157:Columbia_Kai Owen 15 5 6894 25. 157:Buffalo_Kaleb Burgess 15 3 6880

149 Won Lost Rating 1. 149:Penn State_Shayne Van Ness 21 0 9657 2. 149:Cornell_Jaxon Joy 23 2 8876 3. 149:Missouri_Seth Mendoza 13 2 8583 4. 149:Arizona State_Kaleb Larkin 12 1 8465 5. 149:NC State_Koy Buesgens 21 2 7983 6. 149:Stanford_Aden Valencia 12 6 7981 7. 149:Maryland_Carter Young 11 1 7926 8. 149:Oklahoma State_Casey Swiderski 10 6 7899 9. 149:Virginia Tech_Collin Gaj 17 5 7889 10. 149:Penn State_Connor Pierce 11 2 7873 11. 149:Pennsylvania_Cross Wasilewski 22 2 7868 12. 149:Nebraska_Chance Lamer 15 5 7768 13. 149:Iowa_Ryder Block 10 6 7767 14. 149:Ohio State_Ethan Stiles 13 4 7696 15. 149:Utah Valley_David Evans 15 3 7691 16. 149:Iowa State_Jacob Frost 12 4 7645 17. 149:Michigan_Lachlan McNeil 12 5 7614 18. 149:Michigan_Sergio Lemley 21 1 7558 19. 149:North Dakota State_Max Petersen 12 5 7504 20. 149:Wisconsin_Joseph Zargo 15 4 7485 21. 149:SIU Edwardsville_Caleb Tyus 19 1 7483 22. 149:Little Rock_Brock Herman 10 3 7095 23. 149:Pittsburgh_Kade Brown 12 6 7084 24. 149:Northwestern_Sam Cartella 10 7 6944 25. 149:Illinois_Michael Gioffre 14 7 6936

141 Won Lost Rating 1. 141:Ohio State_Jesse Mendez 21 0 10446 2. 141:Oklahoma State_Sergio Vega 17 0 8765 3. 141:Lehigh_Luke Stanich 10 0 8620 4. 141:Nebraska_Brock Hardy 18 4 8468 5. 141:Iowa State_Anthony Echemendia 17 2 8281 6. 141:Rutgers_Joey Olivieri 18 0 7880 7. 141:Cornell_Vince Cornella 23 1 7856 8. 141:Minnesota_Vance Vombaur 19 4 7741 9. 141:Lock Haven_Wyatt Henson 21 5 7525 10. 141:Penn State_Braeden Davis 11 4 7472 11. 141:Iowa_Nasir Bailey 10 6 7354 12. 141:Arizona State_Pierson Manville 15 6 7322 13. 141:Stanford_Jack Consiglio 12 5 7223 14. 141:NC State_Ryan Jack 12 7 7219 15. 141:Rider_Elijah Griffin 24 6 7211 16. 141:Pennsylvania_CJ Composto 15 3 7144 17. 141:South Dakota State_Julian Tagg 16 4 7076 18. 141:North Carolina_Nick O`Neill 15 3 7060 19. 141:Navy_Caedyn Ricciardi 17 7 7056 20. 141:Northern Iowa_Cory Land 13 3 6961 21. 141:North Carolina_Luke Simcox 13 5 6838 22. 141:Oklahoma_Tyler Wells 13 7 6786 23. 141:Utah Valley_Haiden Drury 19 6 6724 24. 141:Pittsburgh_Anthony Santaniello 11 6 6686 25. 141:Virginia Tech_Tom Crook 19 12 6672

133 Won Lost Rating 1. 133:Oklahoma State_Jax Forrest 10 0 10837 2. 133:Virginia Tech_Aaron Seidel 17 2 10174 3. 133:Penn State_Marcus Blaze 20 0 8788 4. 133:Ohio State_Ben Davino 23 1 8656 5. 133:Iowa State_Evan Frost 9 1 8550 6. 133:Iowa_Drake Ayala 9 7 7987 7. 133:Arizona State_Kyler Larkin 15 0 7736 8. 133:Gardner-Webb_T.K. Davis 20 1 7612 9. 133:Northern Colorado_Dominick Serrano 14 1 7407 10. 133:Stanford_Tyler Knox 13 4 7334 11. 133:Nebraska_Jacob Van Dee 15 4 7256 12. 133:Illinois_Lucas Byrd 18 0 7245 13. 133:West Virginia_Gunner Andrick 22 6 7149 14. 133:Virginia Tech_Dillon Campbell 19 4 7080 15. 133:Wisconsin_Zan Fugitt 17 4 7055 16. 133:Oklahoma State_Ronnie Ramirez 7 3 6994 17. 133:Pennsylvania_Evan Mougalian 20 4 6975 18. 133:North Carolina_Matthew Botello 15 4 6911 19. 133:Northern Iowa_Julian Farber 15 8 6867 20. 133:Maryland_Braxton Brown 15 7 6809 21. 133:Lehigh_Matty Lopes 9 2 6783 22. 133:Army West Point_Ethan Berginc 17 5 6780 23. 133:Missouri_Gage Walker 16 5 6765 24. 133:NC State_Zach Redding 10 8 6762 25. 133:Wyoming_Luke Willochell 14 8 6742

125 Won Lost Rating 1. 125:Ohio State_Nic Bouzakis 13 2 9156 2. 125:Penn State_Luke Lilledahl 16 1 9139 3. 125:Oklahoma State_Troy Spratley 14 3 8151 4. 125:Indiana_Jacob Moran 14 3 8149 5. 125:Lehigh_Sheldon Seymour 17 0 7876 6. 125:Virginia Tech_Eddie Ventresca 21 2 7811 7. 125:Iowa State_Stevo Poulin 12 6 7749 8. 125:Iowa_Dean Peterson 10 4 7579 9. 125:NC State_Vincent Robinson 13 3 7526 10. 125:Illinois_Spencer Moore 14 6 7520 11. 125:Oklahoma_Sebastian Degennaro 8 2 7466 12. 125:Princeton_MarcAnthony McGowan 15 4 7342 13. 125:Stanford_Nico Provo 11 5 7299 14. 125:Rider_Tyler Klinsky 21 3 7290 15. 125:Oregon State_Maximo Renteria 18 2 7217 16. 125:Wisconsin_Nicolar Rivera 17 4 7128 17. 125:West Virginia_Jett Strickenberger 14 5 7049 18. 125:Minnesota_Jore Volk 19 5 7027 19. 125:Ohio State_Brendan McCrone 9 1 7000 20. 125:Michigan_Diego Sotelo 11 9 6940 21. 125:Pennsylvania_Davis Motyka 15 3 6902 22. 125:North Carolina_Kysen Terukina 12 4 6723 23. 125:Drexel_Desmond Pleasant 20 7 6718 24. 125:Northern Iowa_Trever Anderson 11 9 6634 25. 125:North Dakota State_Ezekiel Witt 20 10 6607

I meant to have this done a lot sooner, but then I was directed to this wonderful resource https://almanac.mattalkonline.com/2025-26-division-i-individual-results/ Thank you to @SetonHallPirate and @Jason Bryant for their brilliant work! This had more than 1000 matches that I didn't have in my data set. Right now, my final data set is more than 20000 matches! (I include matches against non-D1 opponents that are not included in the mattalk data) I'm keeping the cutoff at 10 so that Jax Forrest qualifies... PS If you have someone you want to know about, please ask. I only went 25 deep this week

1) Just this season, Didn't compare to last season 2) I could get this data if i wanted to, but I don't have time right now

OK, now this is something that is very helpful! Thank you a ton!