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NCAA Wrestling Tournament: Seeding Discussion

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Andy Vance's picture
March 7, 2018 at 1:46pm
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We're almost week away from the NCAA Tournament in Cleveland, and a little more than four hours away from one of the most exciting moments of the year for wrestling fans: the release of the 2018 Division I Wrestling Championship brackets!

All 10 of Ohio State's starters earned their automatic bid fo the tournament during last weekend's Big Ten tournament, with four Buckeyes winning individual championships, nine finishing within the Top 3, and Te'Shan Campbell battling back from a brutal bracket to earn his way into 9th place and an automatic qualification.

The NCAA released its at-large selections yesterday, so now we know all 333 men who will compete for titles next week, and this afternoon we'll find out how they're seeded. You can watch the "Selection Show" live at NCAA.com at 6 p.m.; the top two seeds in each weight class will be released via the NCAA Wrestling on Twitter at 4 p.m.

So in the time we have between now and this festive occasion, where do you think the Buckeyes will be seeded for their run at an NCAA title?

Possible No. 1 seeds:

  • Nathan Tomasello
  • Joey McKenna
  • Kollin Moore
  • Kyle Snyder

All four won the Big Ten title, and the Big Ten is the toughest conference - and by extension the toughest tournament - in Division I wrestling. That said, I'd be surprised if more than two of these gentlemen earn the top seed. I think Snyder is a shoo-in with his win over Coon, but it won't shock me if they give it to Coon given that he has more NCAA matches under his belt, a win over Snyder, and enough matches to qualify for the RPI (minimum 17 matches).

NaTo would be the second most-likely candidate in my book, given his history and his recent Big Ten title... but, with Nick Suriano ducking Tomasello forfeiting the final day of the tournament due to injury, it's possible Tomasello leaps him to the top seed, but that's not a given.

Darian Cruz, the defending national champion at 125, is probably the most likely candidate for the top spot, with NaTo coming in at a 2 or 3 seed, depending on how the D1 Wrestling Committee feels about his decision not to wrestle in the semifinals or finals of the B1G tournament.

Joey McKenna, despite winning the Big Ten tournament without yielding a single point and having a pair of Pac-12 titles to his credit, gets no love from wrestling analysts. He's ranked fourth this week by both InterMat and FloWrestling, with standout wrestlers from Wyoming, Missouri and Cornell all ahead of him in the standings.

With his tournament win, McKenna has enough matches to qualify for the RPI, but it's unclear how much the committee will take that into consideration. He has just one loss on the season, to a ranked opponent, but only has five wins over ranked opponents to his credit, with only two of those versus Top 10 opponents, so the view is that he's had a relatively easy path to the NCAA tournament.

Kollin Moore, on the other hand, has faced a tougher schedule, with 10 ranked foes, but dropped two of his final three regular season matches, giving analysts reason to step off the Moore hype train. InterMat has him slotted at No. 3 and Flo has him at No. 5 in their pre-tournament rankings, so there's clearly reason to think he won't get a top seed.

Most of the Buckeyes should find themselves among the Top 5 seeds; Te'Shan Campbell is the only wrestler we would confidently place outside the Top 10 - he seems a likely 14-seed, although his crazy-high RPI (as high as No. 2 in recent weeks) is keeping him from falling lower than that given his string of losses in the final two months of the season.

What are your thoughts? Where do the Good Guys find themselves on this year's brackets, and how does that set the team up for a run at defending national champions Penn State, who will field at least two and possibly four No. 1 seeds?

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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