Ranking | AAs | Finals | Champs |
1 | 18 | 12 | 5 |
2 | 20 | 14 | 11 |
3 | 13 | 8 | 7 |
4 | 11 | 5 | 4 |
5 | 11 | 5 | 2 |
6 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
7 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
8 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
9 | 14 | 8 | 7 |
10 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
I think Carter was
Small data set… but…more championships out of 3 and 9 too. But think about the 3 and 4 time champs that were ranked behind others that did well, but didn’t win as many.
That year had Lee, Fix, Yianni, Arujau, and Nick Lee. O'Connor was IIRC just outside the top 10 (or maybe he was another 9?).
Willie gave me his BB rankings from 2013 to 2023 (they diverge with Flo after the split). I did something with it, but cannot remember what. I will see if I can dig it up.
ZihuatanejoI did this in November 2023 using what I found on Flo, before Willie sent me his lists:
How Big Is The Big Board?
Flo has published, and maintain an archive online of, their Big Board since 2016. Their list contains the Top 100 PFP wrestlers for each HS graduating class. I was also able to piece together 66 of their top 100 for 2015 from their 2015 class ranking article. (The highest ranks I am missing in 2015 are 12 and 18).
I did this because a lot of team debates start with debates about who had the best recruits coming in. The general form of the argument is "our coaches are better because they did more with less", or some variant. And those arguments are generally supported by cherry-picking from PFP rankings. Of course, that assumes that the PFP rankings are accurate.
One possible explanation for the failure of a ranked wrestler to perform in college is that they were over-ranked (let's call that Willie's fault). Another is that they never progressed (coach's fault, the bum). And if a guy who never made the list does well it could be the fault of the list makers for over looking him. Or it could be a credit to great coaching once he hit the college room. Dealer's choice.
So, I thought I would look at how well these Big Boards are connected to the actual results as a first step.
But first some caveats. I had to pull data from a lot of different sources. And the data is a mess from every source. I spent time cleaning, but I am 100% certain that what I have still contains errors. Some are easier to find than others. For example, who knew that an apostrophe in a name had a direction? Well it does, and it matters when merging data. If you see something, say something. I will fix any errors as you, my collective editors, find them.
Big Board Overall Grade
Every year there are 80 All-Americans. Every year there are 100 (ish) wrestlers on the Big Board. And every year there are 4 (ish) classes competing. It would make sense that the vast majority of All-Americans come from these lists, especially higher up on these lists. Putting it all together you would expect that a given class would have 80 total All-Americans across their four (ish) years competing (80 slots multiplied by 4years divided by four classes).
For the four HS graduating classes that have effectively used up their eligibility the hit rate is around 75% (60 of 80). It goes to show that development is not complete in HS. Guys can come "out of nowhere" to AA.
The low number for 2015 is at least partly explained by the missing 34 wrestlers from my list.
Cream Rises?
It is fair to assume that these lists are more accurate at the top than the bottom. I am not sure how to quantify what I would expect, but certainly the pattern makes sense. The Top 10 do better than the next ten, and so forth down the list (mostly - keep reading, you can do it).
The key to happiness is to fill your room with Top 20 guys.
I know. Shocking insight.
Again, the 2015 data is skewed to the top of the list because the missing data is farther down the list.
The Outliers
If you look closely at the table above you will notice that the 8th decile wins a disproportionately large number of the AA spots given their final Big Board rating (71 - 80).
The distribution by final Big Board rating looks like this:
What is going on with those #74 and #78 guys?
This is the Money Ball stuff.
Coaches, target #74 and #78. This is a foolproof path to a title. (Or maybe just a bit of small data weirdness? Nah, the money ball thing. Definitely the money ball thing.)
For completeness:
Trivia (and a tease)
If you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town...
Bonus trivia: The next lowest ranked from one of those classes was #74. Name that...haha, just testing your reading comprehension.
- What wrestler in the 2015, 2016, 2017, or 2018 HS class won a title with the lowest final Big Board ranking (#97)?
It is as if you crawled through a pipe line full of shit to obtain these facts and prepare the stats. Thank you for your work.
You are a beast! A craven animal!And as a follow up to the post about individual success, I did this one at the team level:
Who Are The Big Boys Of The Big Board?
Now that we have established that the Big Board matters, lets take a look at who is optimizing the Big Board talent (haha, we know who it is).
- From 2015 to 2022 (2023 class has not competed yet) the race for the most Big Board Top 20 wrestlers is pretty tight.
- PSU has the edge over Ohio State 18 to 15.
- But PSU has gotten 27 AA finishes from those 18 wrestlers (1.5 per) while Ohio State has gotten "only" 18 from 15 (1.2).
- But where things get really crazy is that 23 of PSU's 27 AA finishes were first, second, or third (85%), while Ohio State had 7 top threes among their 18 AA finishes (39%).
- Iowa gets trashed a lot for under-performing, but the real issue is they under-recruit. They got commitments from only 9 Big Board Top 20 wrestlers. So, even though those wrestlers averaged 2 AA finishes per, there just were not enough of them.
- One caveat. The school where the wrestler committed gets credit for all the wrestlers AA finishes regardless of where they were achieved. This hurts Iowa with a lot of recent transfer AAs (DeSanto, Eierman, Woods) and PSU (Dean, Kerkvliet). My logic is this is a measure of high school recruiting rather than retention. For a fuller picture, you would want to look at retention too (independent study opportunity?).
It could be that PSU is just getting the best of the best leading to those best in class results.
- But, that is not completely the case. Ohio State has brought in slightly higher ranked wrestlers on average.
- ASU has also brought in higher ranked wrestlers on average, though significantly fewer of them.
And as a follow up to the post about individual success, I did this one at the team level:
Who Are The Big Boys Of The Big Board?
Now that we have established that the Big Board matters, lets take a look at who is optimizing the Big Board talent (haha, we know who it is).
- From 2015 to 2022 (2023 class has not competed yet) the race for the most Big Board Top 20 wrestlers is pretty tight.
- PSU has the edge over Ohio State 18 to 15.
- But PSU has gotten 27 AA finishes from those 18 wrestlers (1.5 per) while Ohio State has gotten "only" 18 from 15 (1.2).
- But where things get really crazy is that 23 of PSU's 27 AA finishes were first, second, or third (85%), while Ohio State had 7 top threes among their 18 AA finishes (39%).
- Iowa gets trashed a lot for under-performing, but the real issue is they under-recruit. They got commitments from only 9 Big Board Top 20 wrestlers. So, even though those wrestlers averaged 2 AA finishes per, there just were not enough of them.
- One caveat. The school where the wrestler committed gets credit for all the wrestlers AA finishes regardless of where they were achieved. This hurts Iowa with a lot of recent transfer AAs (DeSanto, Eierman, Woods) and PSU (Dean, Kerkvliet). My logic is this is a measure of high school recruiting rather than retention. For a fuller picture, you would want to look at retention too (independent study opportunity?).
It could be that PSU is just getting the best of the best leading to those best in class results.
- But, that is not completely the case. Ohio State has brought in slightly higher ranked wrestlers on average.
- ASU has also brought in higher ranked wrestlers on average, though significantly fewer of them.
wrestleknownothing at the end of the season:
