Moline's Musings

Big Ten Wrestling Championships

Posted by: Brian Moline

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:12 PM

Penn State hosts this weekend's Big Ten Wrestling Championships at the Bryce Jordan Center, and Mark Johnson's Illini look to once again have a good chance of finishing in the top four of the conference, after last season's fourth place finish.  The Big Ten Championships not only determine conference bragging rights, but they also determine which wrestlers will qualify for the NCAA Championships in St. Louis in two weeks.  However, this year's qualifying process is a bit different than in past years.  I will try to briefly sum up the changes below.

Last season, the Big Ten was alotted 70 qualifying spots (seven in each of the ten weight classes), plus two wildcard spots that were voted on by the league's coaches at the conclusion of the Big Ten Championships.  Those spots were alotted based on the Big Ten's performance at the previous season's NCAA Championships.

This year, qualifying spots for the NCAA Championships are being alotted based on each league's performance in each weight class this season.  So, the Big Ten differing numbers of qualifying spots in each weight class.  Here are the qualifying spots this season for each conference:

Conference                            125  133  141 149 157 165 174 184 197 285 Total
Atlantic Coast Conference    2       3       5     3      3      1     1      2     4      3     27
Big Ten Conference            7       6       7     5      7      8     6      6     4      5     61
Big 12 Conference                 3       3       3     2      4      5     3      4      5     5     37
Colonial Athletic Assoc.        2       1       1      1     2       2    4      2      4     1     20
East Regional                         1       1       1      1     1      1     1      1      1     1     10
E. I. W.A.                             3       4       2      6     4       3     6      4      2     4     38
Eastern Wrestling League    3      2       1      3     3      3      1      1      1     4     22
Mid-American Conference    2       3      2       2     1      1     2      3       1    2     19
Pacific-10 Conference           3       3      3       2     2      1     1      1      2     2     20
Southern Conference            1       1      2       1     1      1      1     1      1      1     11
West Regional                        1       1      1       2     1      1      1     2      2      1     13
TOTAL QUALIFIERS             28    28    28    28   29    27   27   27    27   29    278

On first glance, it appears the new qualifying system may hurt the Big Ten, as the conference has only been alotted 61 automatic qualifying spots this season.  However, there are still 52 wildcard spots to be awarded once all conference championships are completed, making a total of 33 spots at each weight.  How are these qualifying spots determined?  The NCAA has a very informative video that explains the process pretty well, but it will require about 15 minutes of your time.  I'll attempt to be more concise below.

The NCAA has measured wrestlers on the following three criteria:  winning percentage against Division I college competition (minimum .725), coaches rankings (top 28 in each weight class) and RPI (top 28 at each weight).  Wrestlers that meet at least two of those three criteria earned an automatic qualifying spot at their weight for their conference.  As for the wildcard spots, any wrestler who meets one of those three criteria is put into a pool for consideration by the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee.  The committee will vote on those wildcard qualifiers based on the following criteria:  head-to-head competition; qualifying event placement; quality wins; results against common opponents; winning percentage; RPI; coaches ranking and the number of matches contested at
that weight class.  For a more detailed explanation, you can check out the complete release in PDF format.

Now that I've made your eyes roll back in your head with all of these statistics, here's something that's a bit easier to understand.  The Big Ten today released the preliminary seeds for the Big Ten Championshps.  All ten Illinois starters earned a top eight seed for this weekend, led by Mike Poeta, the top seed at 157 pounds.  The other Illini seeds are Jimmy Kennedy at #3 (133 lb), Roger Smith-Bergsrud (165), Jordan Blanton (184) and John Wise (Hwt) at #4, John Dergo (174) and Patrick Bond (197) at #5, Ryan Prater (141) at #7 and B.J. Futrell (125) and Eric Terrazas (149) at #8.  If all the Illini were to place at their seed, the Illini would qualify seven wrestlers (Kennedy, Prater, Poeta, Smith-Bergsrud, Dergo, Blanton, Wise) for the NCAA championships.  Of course, all ten Illini placing at their seed is not likely, as the Big Tens are notoriously unpredictable.

Some Illini wrestlers who I think have the potential to outwrestle their seeds this weekend include Futrell, Terrazas and Bond.  Futrell and Bond simply need to outwrestle their seeds by one place this weekend to earn an automatic qualifying spot, which appears to be doable.  Terrazas' road is more difficult, as he would need to finish fifth to earn a spot, or three places higher than his seed.  I can easily see Terrazas finishing as high as sixth, as he dropped close decisions to Northwestern's Andrew Nadhir and Indiana's Nick Walpole, the two wrestlers just ahead of him in the seedings.  However, Purdue's Jake Patacsil is the #5 seed, and he is a very tough matchup for Terrazas, as he has been ranked in the top ten for much of the season.  

As far as the Illini qualifying for wildcard consideration, it's hard to predict who would even be in the pool, let alone which Illini could be selected if they fall short in the Big Tens.  Prater, Terrazas and Bond all have overall records right around .500, which won't impress the selection committee.  Prater does have an impressive win over Minnesota's Mike Thorn from a tournament earlier this season, but didn't beat any of the Big Ten's ranked wrestlers during the conference season.  Bond, Futrell and Terrazas are all lacking quality wins on their resumes this season.  My opinion is that the above Illini need to earn their way in this weekend.

Mark Johnson will be live in the studio with Steve Kelly on Sportstalk tonight, and he may bring a special guest with him.  That program will be available for download on the Sportstalk podcast page later this evening.

Also, if you'd like to talk Big Ten wrestling, I'll be hosting an online chat here at IlliniHQ this Friday at 11 am.  We had some great questions when we did this in January, and I hope you can join me again this week.

bmoline@wdws.com

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