Any chance you would share your breakdown that gets Indiana 20 by seed please?
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Roar’s Annual Big Ten Seeding Review: 2026
- Thread starter RoarLions1
- Start date
Glad you asked, as I found an error in my model. In the deep recesses of my brain this info existed but never made it into current memory, sadly. It is worth explaining, so folks get a glimpse of a small piece of tournament scoring. Sorry to anyone that finds this BORING, as some surely will. If so, just move on please.
At the NCAA Championships, in general, ADVANCEMENT POINTS work like this...
4 points for 1st or 2nd
3.5 points for 3rd or 4th
3 points for 5th or 6th
2.5 points for 7th or 8th
2 points for 9th through 12th (blood round losers)
1.5 points for 13th through 16th (round of 16 losers)
.5 points for 17th through 24
Pigtails and a 2nd round loser making it to the 3rd place bout are variations.
Sooo, by the same logic at Big Ten's...
3 points for 1st or 2nd
2.5 points for 3rd or 4th
2 points for 5th or 6th
21.5 points for 7th or 8th
An unfilled 16-man bracket causes an anomaly here. Going chalk, the 11th and 12th place finishers actually have more ADVANCEMENT Points (.5) than the 9th and 10th place finishers. Here's where I blew it, going straight to 1 point for a 9th or 10th place finisher which is incorrect.
Clear? Anyway, to answer ccdiver's question, Indiana only gets 15 theoretical points, and I'm reposting the totals below.
-- Indiana has a 5th place finisher in my model (9 pts)
-- Indiana has a 7th place finisher (5.5 pts)
-- Indiana has 3 9th place finishers (0 pts, where I previously had 1)
-- Indiana has 2 10th place finishers (0 pts, where I previously had 1)
-- Indiana has an 11th place finisher (.5 pts)
-- Indiana has 2 14th place finishers (0 pts)
-- For a new total of 15 team points
| PSU | 161 |
| tOSU | 120 |
| NEB | 101.5 |
| IOWA | 84.5 |
| MICH | 71.5 |
| MINN | 67 |
| ILL | 63 |
| WIS | 49.5 |
| RUT | 47.5 |
| MD | 32.5 |
| PUR | 21 |
| NW | 19 |
| IND | 15 |
| MSU | 7 |
NOW my spreadsheet matches your table since I had gone ahead and plugged in your seed projections which are always so on-the-mark! (And like everything you do and share, is very much appreciated!!)
Thanks! Now a personal question… do you remember meeting at the Big Ten’s when they were at the Barn in Minnesota? We did, albeit briefly. One of my favorite venues. Always great meeting fellow fans. I’ve met a few over the years
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Oh I definitely remember meeting you, but I’m surprised you remember meeting me haha. You were a bit of a celebrity, as I’m certain is the norm in your travels. It was a definite pleasure meeting you for sure!! (*My avatar photo is from that event.Thanks! Now a personal question… do you remember meeting at the Big Ten’s when they were at the Barn in Minnesota? We did, albeit briefly. One of my favorite venues. Always great meeting fellow fans. I’ve met a few over the years
)So, I'm pretty sure the numbers are all right and your list may just be a cheat sheet, but for those that like to keep track as the tournament goes along, it's 1 advancement point for a championship bracket win and 0.5 for a consolation win.
Which if you add up roars points it works out. win 4 straight to the finals (1st or 2nd) 4 advancement points. Battle back to the 3rd place match(3rd or 4th) and get 3.5 advancement points and so on.
yup, that's why I called it a cheat sheet. Don't think I ever realizes the breakdown was so clean
Hope this is how it shakes out, Angelo has to go through Mantanano and McElnelly. McEnelly had several close matches this year, plus he would get Fishback. I bet it doesn't shake out that way.
Roar or someone may have plotted out Braeden's path, but I can't find it. If Roar's seeds hold then BD(6). He would have Danny Pucino(11). BD wins and would get Vance Vombauer(3) next. BD gets the L and goes into the consi bracket. He would then get the winner of Crumpler(13) and Exford(14). Call that a W for BD. Then he gets Olivieri. Is this right so far? did someone do this already?
This is correct according to seeds, except that Scooter would get the winner of Lemus(12)/Crumpler(13) in his first consi match.
Yep, I took a peak, but was waiting for the release this coming week before going into a full-fledged analysis. I am very interested in 141. With confidence, the other nine guys have earned their way to Cleveland already, even if they go 0-2 next weekend (I know, I know, just being factual, regardless how silly it sounds).
141 was a strange weight to analyze. Mentioned in my write-up was how weak the weight class was in the Big Ten. The pre-allocations bore that out, with "7", the lowest count of any weight class in the conference. The number of guys with low conference dual results, also noted in the write-up, made it difficult to seed.
However, IF these bouts happen...I'm not concerned about Pucino. At 5-4 overall, he does not appear to be close to last season's level when he was a NQ. He had a couple medical forfeits in early December, and hasn't been on the mat much since then. Nor am I concerned about Olivieri, despite his 15-0 record which is deceiving. 60% (or 9) of his wins were against guys Wrestlestat has at 100 or higher and a couple other guys are in the 70-90 range. It is a very weak schedule. Davis can beat both, but I'm not sure these are the guys we should be looking at. We will know the actual pre-seeds soon, then take another look.
To give everyone a sense of what it would take to auto-qualify for every PSU wrestler, here we go...
At 125, 133, 149, 165, 174, 184 and 197: One win anywhere in either bracket (championship or wrestleback), and they auto-qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Winning their first bout, which will be in round 2 of the championship bracket and they finish no worse than 6th. Losing in the 2nd round (highly unlikely), and winning their first wrestleback bout guarantees them no worse than 8th. Pre-allocations are all 8 or more.
157 and 285: Two wins anywhere in either bracket. Winning two anywhere guarantees at least an 8th place finish, and both weight classes have 8 or more pre-allocations. Winning their first two bouts in championships guarantees a 6th Place finish, for the record.
141: This weight class only has 7 pre-allocations. Win two bouts in the championship bracket will do it (guaranteed 6th), Win one in the championship bracket and two anywhere in the wrestleback bracket will also do it (maybe two straight, or one then winning the 7th Place medal bout).
I am confident all 10 guys will be heading to Cleveland, just hoping for an injury-free tourney.
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Thanks again Roar. Your seeding thread is my favorite one of the year.
The only question is whether the Big 10 really has changed its model and now is formula based. If so, the main ones affected will be:
133: Blaze would move ahead of Byrd -- more QWs and better RPI (+20) vs. Coaches (-1)
157: Taylor is the 1 over Cannon (loses HTH -25, but gets Big10 duels, QW, RPI, CR and AQ) and Duke is the 2 (loses common, but wins QW, RPI, CR, AQ)
184 Becomes a mess: Rocco and McEnelly stay 1-2 but Angelo would drop to 9 or 10. Based on my understanding of the Big 10 Matrix, it would split pout the following:
1. Welsh
2. McEnelly
3. Mantanona
4. Allred
5. Moore
6. Fishback
7. Cartagena-Walsh
8. Goin
9/10. Rowley/Ferrari
The only question is whether the Big 10 really has changed its model and now is formula based. If so, the main ones affected will be:
133: Blaze would move ahead of Byrd -- more QWs and better RPI (+20) vs. Coaches (-1)
157: Taylor is the 1 over Cannon (loses HTH -25, but gets Big10 duels, QW, RPI, CR and AQ) and Duke is the 2 (loses common, but wins QW, RPI, CR, AQ)
184 Becomes a mess: Rocco and McEnelly stay 1-2 but Angelo would drop to 9 or 10. Based on my understanding of the Big 10 Matrix, it would split pout the following:
1. Welsh
2. McEnelly
3. Mantanona
4. Allred
5. Moore
6. Fishback
7. Cartagena-Walsh
8. Goin
9/10. Rowley/Ferrari
I called those situations "traps & gaps" in the articles. There are cases, like the Ferrari one, where some logic should be applied. Maybe there is still room to negotiate at the coach's meeting, but I don't know.
Oh, and thanks for your posts, they are thorough, well thought out, and always wrestling-focused. Love other's perspectives on the facts/data side of things, and you're a personal favorite. You should post more.
One note on bonus points scored at the Big Tens last year.
PSU had 9 1st-round byes; Nebraska had 1. The Huskers used that advantage wisely, scoring 11 1st-round bonus points, while Davis was able to score an MD for PSU.
No team will likely get that big of a head start this year.
PSU had 9 1st-round byes; Nebraska had 1. The Huskers used that advantage wisely, scoring 11 1st-round bonus points, while Davis was able to score an MD for PSU.
No team will likely get that big of a head start this year.
Mineo saying some big surprises coming with seeds. Makes me think they stick pretty tightly to the new model and someone like Ferrari ends up really low cause he has so few matches.
A suggestion here: if they nudged Ferrari down to 11, then there would be almost no impact to the bracket overall. He'd still get McEnany in the semis. Worst hit would be the 6-seed, who would lose to Ferrari 1 round earlier than if they strictly went off the eye test.
On the old site I did some research and the only year that having byes (and no chance to bonus) made a difference in the final team score was when Michigan beat PSU by 1.5 points in 2022. Even then a lot of weird things had to happen to get that result... 7 Michigan wrestlers did better than their seed and the other 3 meet their seed (Lewan finished 2nd for Michigan at 157 that year)
How would Mineo know? Inevitably there will be surprises as usual, but we want specifics, LOL
I dunno. Do coaches get the seeds early? He said releasing tomorrow so, if so, coaches would know. Someone could've told him to expect seeding shocks
Some high profile hiccups in the new criteria-based system if anyone follows this and other "social media" platforms. Regardless, I thought I'd take a look and do a self-reflection on my seeds, manual system vs B1G new criteria-based system.
-- 83.6% of my seeds were either right on the B1G pre-seeds or off by just 1 seed.
-- Another 5.7% were exactly a difference of 2 from their pre-seed.
-- The wrestlers I missed the most on were all but one the result of a low conference bout count; Dean Peterson, Brandon Cannon, Ben Kueter, Angelo Ferrari and Nasir Bailey. In previous years I would have been closer with all of these guys, pretty sure.
-- 83.6% of my seeds were either right on the B1G pre-seeds or off by just 1 seed.
-- Another 5.7% were exactly a difference of 2 from their pre-seed.
-- The wrestlers I missed the most on were all but one the result of a low conference bout count; Dean Peterson, Brandon Cannon, Ben Kueter, Angelo Ferrari and Nasir Bailey. In previous years I would have been closer with all of these guys, pretty sure.
Considering how blatantly stupid the seeds are that you "missed", I'd prefer to just let you do the seeding for the B1G instead of the conference or Wrestlestat or whatever they did this year.
You'd have to be a special kind of something had you arrived at the same spot for that last grouping. Everyone in the world can see in a moment that last group Wrestlestat got wrong, not you!
I've been in IT since punch cards at the "Computation Center" in '77 and in the DoD/IC since with Oracle, IBM, Adobe, and ServiceNow. Wrestlestat is a poster child for where imperfect data and bad algorithms produce... predictably bad garbage.
Edit: any algorithm./computation that doesn't have Levi at #1 is the product of a failed CmpSci major.
Exactly. Why in the world someone would think it made sense to deduct seeding points from a competitor because the opposing coach decided to sit his starter is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Many years ago, I was visiting a client, an orthopedic implant manufacturer, and they took me on a plant tour. The production line began with the titanium bricks, stamping, then moved to tool and die, successive rounds of polishing, etc. (Funny side story, the GC told me that when they first started the operation, they were actually paying a guy to take away the titanium scrap after the initial stamping). At the end of the production line, the second to last step was a laser matrix that would assess the implant, and then a robot arm would grasp the implant and polish/buff it up as necessary on a rotating polishing wheel based on the laser diagnostics assessment.
But that was the second to last step. The last step was this guy who looked to be about a hundred fifty years old. He would take the implant from the robot arm, eye it at arms-length (through his glasses, naturally) as he rotated it in his hand, and then hand-buff a surface or two as he deemed necessary. Highest paid guy in the factory.
Wrestlestat playing the role of the robot laser and buffing wheel isn't the end of the world, as long as the coaches play the role of the highest paid guy in the factory.
The million dollar question is, who actually CAN figure out the formula to figure out which guys are within 15 points? And even so, can they simply admit this is a complete disaster and scrap this in time to get it right.
Because this is the talk of the wrestling world right now and this embarrassment is directly on the Big 10.
My question is: Which Big Ten seeding committee members does wrestle stat hold compromising photos of?
Because this is the talk of the wrestling world right now and this embarrassment is directly on the Big 10.
My question is: Which Big Ten seeding committee members does wrestle stat hold compromising photos of?
And I absolutely knew this was going to be a clown show the very second Shane said "Wrestlestat"
Willie is making the point that if you want the regular season to mean anything, you have to make them wrestle. That's fine unless it starts hurting other guys at the weight who DID wrestle like Rocco. You are punishing the guy who didn't wrestle which ended up punishing the guy who DID wrestle.
Wrestlestat system ran the #s they didn't come up with the formula or make up the #s
Some smaller NCAA basketball leagues get this right. They go by record to seed a tournament. But because they want to get the best teams of the season into the NCAA national tourney, top seeds get additional rounds of byes. Pigtail (PT) round is 12 - 13 with least conference wins. Round 1 is between pigtail winner and lowest wins seed 5 - 11 +PT. This group wrestles off to Round 2. Winner of round 2 goes to round 3, quarter finals and wrestles 3- 4 seeds based on # of wins. Winner of rounds 3 wrestles 1 & 2 seeds. in "semifinals". This would make the season matches very important. Get the leagues best wrestlers during the season through with good looking wins for the National tourney without risking injury if they wrestled during the year. If they did not wrestle during the year the path gets harder. While this still relies on seeding have a simple criteria (division wins) with simple subsequent criteria (Real Head to Head, followed by overall record, followed by RPI, whatever.) Make wrestlers wrestle during the wrestling season, but that appears to be an idea most coaches oppose, so ....
Are these bad yes. But they're PREseeds all done by an equation. The human element hasn't been implemented yet and will be Friday. Coaches will flip flop the head to heads within 15 points. Now some won't be allowed which sucks .
Wrestling was invented just ~16 years ago tho. It takes time to figure things out in a new sport like this. They’ll get there with an effective post-season tournament seeding system eventually.
We need to be patient. These are just common growing pains.
