Long read, I really went down a rabbit hole of numbers and just kept getting more curious thinking about this.
Sorry if this has been posted already but this was the first I read/heard this from an article that was posted on August 18. And obviously things change from week to week. The article was on HawkCentral where I was reading the Morningstar statement:
Holman has told coaches that a 2021 national tournament won’t feature the full 330 qualifiers in order for the NCAA to safely manage and run the championships. In an interview with Trackwrestling, he said a shortened season would also mean modifying the selection criteria for the NCAA Championships.
By total coincidence, even though it is DIII, their management council recommended a 75% cap for spring and winter championships. 75% of 330 ould be 240.75. I hate lessening the field obviously but my first thought was 24 per weight makes for an even wrestling bracket from an aesthetic point of view (even if everything else about it would stink).
If you don't care about numbers the way I do then the rest of this message you probably won't care about.
No idea if this plan has any merit as I am just an outsider looking in. I got to thinking about how 24 qualifiers could be fairly distributed since RPI will be useless if schools only wrestle conference competition and immediately thought of the old system were each conference had the same auto qualifiers at each weight and wildcards were distributed after the tournament. There were no wild cards in my math below, you either make it or don't.
I used allocation and qualifier totals for the 2018, 19, and 20 seasons since there has been no major conference shakeups. For 2018, 19 I combined EWL and MAC data since they were the same teams but just combined for 2020. I just used conference totals since I feel conference strength is more consistent than weight by weight strength in a given conference.
Average pre-allocated qualifiers (auto-bids) over previous three years
ACC: 35.33
Big 12: 50.67
Big Ten: 79
EIWA: 46
MAC: 41.67
Pac-12: 18.3
SoCon: 13
That is 284 qualifiers average. Multiply that by 85% to get the field to around 24 (some rounding up or down) and you would have the following field
ACC: 3 per weight (30)
Big 12: 4
Big 10: 7
EIWA: 4
MAC: 3
Pac-12: 2
So-Con: 1 (For some reason I feel like they would give each conference at least two but just a feeling which would put the Big 10 down to 6)
Average total qualifiers (33, auto-bids play at-larges) over three years
ACC: 40
Big 12: 57.33
Big Ten: 89.67
EIWA: 55
MAC: 51.33
Pac-12: 20.67
SoCon: 16
Using a 72.7% conversion to go from 33 to 24 you get
ACC: 3 per weight
Big 12: 4
Big Ten: 7
EIWA: 4
MAC: 4
Pac-12: 2
SoCon: 1 (Big 10 would be most likely to drop to six if they did want to give the SoCon two bids per weight.) I also did median data for these above by weight and nothing significant changed.
Allocating only 24 bids using current system (coaches rank, RPI, and win% to get the weights down to 24 instead of 29)
ACC: 27 (3 per weight average)
Big 12: 49 (5 per weight)
Big Ten: 72 (7 per weight)
EIWA: 34 (3 per weight)
MAC: 30 (3 per weight)
Pac-12: 13 (1 per weight)
SoCon: 14 (1 per weight) Either EIWA or SoCon would likely get a boost to round out field to 24.
Conclusion (ranges of qualifiers per weight using the 5 different methods (Average allocations, median allocations, average qualifiers, median qualifiers, top 24 from 2020). I got the following ranges. I keep each conference the same at each weight since conference strength is more consistant then weight class strength annually.
ACC: 3 in each system per weight
Big 12: 4 qualifiers each time
Big Ten: 6-7 (7 happened 4/5 simulations)
EIWA: 3-4 (4 happened in 4/5 scenarios)
MAC 3-4 (3 happend in 3/5 scenarios)
Pac-12: 1-2 qualifiers (2 happened in 4/5 scenarios)
SoCon: 1 qualifier in each system (but it they get 2 that likely comes from Big Ten based on averages)
Sorry if this has been posted already but this was the first I read/heard this from an article that was posted on August 18. And obviously things change from week to week. The article was on HawkCentral where I was reading the Morningstar statement:
Holman has told coaches that a 2021 national tournament won’t feature the full 330 qualifiers in order for the NCAA to safely manage and run the championships. In an interview with Trackwrestling, he said a shortened season would also mean modifying the selection criteria for the NCAA Championships.
By total coincidence, even though it is DIII, their management council recommended a 75% cap for spring and winter championships. 75% of 330 ould be 240.75. I hate lessening the field obviously but my first thought was 24 per weight makes for an even wrestling bracket from an aesthetic point of view (even if everything else about it would stink).
If you don't care about numbers the way I do then the rest of this message you probably won't care about.
No idea if this plan has any merit as I am just an outsider looking in. I got to thinking about how 24 qualifiers could be fairly distributed since RPI will be useless if schools only wrestle conference competition and immediately thought of the old system were each conference had the same auto qualifiers at each weight and wildcards were distributed after the tournament. There were no wild cards in my math below, you either make it or don't.
I used allocation and qualifier totals for the 2018, 19, and 20 seasons since there has been no major conference shakeups. For 2018, 19 I combined EWL and MAC data since they were the same teams but just combined for 2020. I just used conference totals since I feel conference strength is more consistent than weight by weight strength in a given conference.
Average pre-allocated qualifiers (auto-bids) over previous three years
ACC: 35.33
Big 12: 50.67
Big Ten: 79
EIWA: 46
MAC: 41.67
Pac-12: 18.3
SoCon: 13
That is 284 qualifiers average. Multiply that by 85% to get the field to around 24 (some rounding up or down) and you would have the following field
ACC: 3 per weight (30)
Big 12: 4
Big 10: 7
EIWA: 4
MAC: 3
Pac-12: 2
So-Con: 1 (For some reason I feel like they would give each conference at least two but just a feeling which would put the Big 10 down to 6)
Average total qualifiers (33, auto-bids play at-larges) over three years
ACC: 40
Big 12: 57.33
Big Ten: 89.67
EIWA: 55
MAC: 51.33
Pac-12: 20.67
SoCon: 16
Using a 72.7% conversion to go from 33 to 24 you get
ACC: 3 per weight
Big 12: 4
Big Ten: 7
EIWA: 4
MAC: 4
Pac-12: 2
SoCon: 1 (Big 10 would be most likely to drop to six if they did want to give the SoCon two bids per weight.) I also did median data for these above by weight and nothing significant changed.
Allocating only 24 bids using current system (coaches rank, RPI, and win% to get the weights down to 24 instead of 29)
ACC: 27 (3 per weight average)
Big 12: 49 (5 per weight)
Big Ten: 72 (7 per weight)
EIWA: 34 (3 per weight)
MAC: 30 (3 per weight)
Pac-12: 13 (1 per weight)
SoCon: 14 (1 per weight) Either EIWA or SoCon would likely get a boost to round out field to 24.
Conclusion (ranges of qualifiers per weight using the 5 different methods (Average allocations, median allocations, average qualifiers, median qualifiers, top 24 from 2020). I got the following ranges. I keep each conference the same at each weight since conference strength is more consistant then weight class strength annually.
ACC: 3 in each system per weight
Big 12: 4 qualifiers each time
Big Ten: 6-7 (7 happened 4/5 simulations)
EIWA: 3-4 (4 happened in 4/5 scenarios)
MAC 3-4 (3 happend in 3/5 scenarios)
Pac-12: 1-2 qualifiers (2 happened in 4/5 scenarios)
SoCon: 1 qualifier in each system (but it they get 2 that likely comes from Big Ten based on averages)
