2020 NCAA Qualifiers Breakdown & Heatmaps
2020 NCAA Qualifiers Breakdown & Heatmaps
A data-driven deep dive of the 2020 NCAA National Wrestling Championship qualifiers
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The NCAA announced the final at-large bids, completing the set of 330 wrestlers that will be in Minneapolis for the 2020 NCAA Championships. We've already broken down the number of qualifiers each school earned; now we're breaking down the data even further, no matter if or when this tournament takes place.
Special thanks to Earl Smith at the Open Mat for compiling the hometowns for each qualifier. Thanks to the Earl's hard work, we can map the hometowns of all the 2020 qualifiers, which you can see below.
That's actually not quite everyone. We can't forget about our European qualifiers: Jere Heino of Campbell by way of Finland, and Yaraslau Slavikouski of Harvard by way of Belarus.
The numbers broken down by state (and a foreign country) are as follows.
STATE | QUALIFIERS |
Pennsylvania | 48 |
Ohio | 31 |
Illinois | 28 |
New Jersey | 23 |
California | 19 |
New York | 17 |
Michigan | 17 |
Minnesota | 16 |
Iowa | 13 |
Indiana | 13 |
Virginia | 10 |
Georgia | 9 |
Colorado | 9 |
Missouri | 8 |
Oklahoma | 7 |
Florida | 6 |
Texas | 5 |
North Carolina | 5 |
Maryland | 5 |
Utah | 4 |
Oregon | 4 |
Wisconsin | 3 |
Idaho | 3 |
Arizona | 3 |
West Virginia | 2 |
Washington | 2 |
North Dakota | 2 |
Montana | 2 |
Massachusetts | 2 |
Kansas | 2 |
Wyoming | 1 |
Tennessee | 1 |
South Dakota | 1 |
South Carolina | 1 |
Rhode Island | 1 |
New Mexico | 1 |
Nebraska | 1 |
Maine | 1 |
Finland | 1 |
Connecticut | 1 |
Belarus | 1 |
Alabama | 1 |
Assigning projected tournament points based on the latest NCAA rankings, we can create the wonderful visual aid that we all know and love, the heatmap.
Now that's what I call an excellent display of the relative geographic strength of wrestling in the United States of America! We've also produced a table of projected NCAA points by state.
STATE | PROJECTED POINTS |
Pennsylvania | 254 |
Ohio | 152 |
Illinois | 139 |
New Jersey | 104.5 |
Minnesota | 95.5 |
Indiana | 91.5 |
Michigan | 66 |
New York | 62 |
California | 48.5 |
Virginia | 41.5 |
Iowa | 41.5 |
Georgia | 35 |
Colorado | 34 |
Florida | 31 |
Arizona | 29.5 |
West Virginia | 27 |
Oklahoma | 24.5 |
Missouri | 23.5 |
Texas | 20.5 |
Oregon | 15 |
Maryland | 14.5 |
Idaho | 14 |
Massachusetts | 12.5 |
North Carolina | 12 |
Utah | 7.5 |
Belarus | 6.5 |
Wisconsin | 4 |
Washington | 4 |
Montana | 4 |
Kansas | 3.5 |
North Dakota | 3 |
New Mexico | 3 |
Connecticut | 3 |
Tennessee | 2.5 |
South Dakota | 2.5 |
Finland | 1.5 |
Wyoming | 1 |
South Carolina | 1 |
Rhode Island | 1 |
Nebraska | 1 |
Maine | 1 |
Alabama | 1 |
Now let's create a heatmap using the metropolitan areas according to the US Census Bureau.
Another masterpiece! New York City and Chicago are essentially tied for the most qualifiers in their respective metropolitan areas (both in the mid 20s depending on where you draw your boundaries). However, Pittsburgh would have the most qualifiers if adjusted per capita.
Now how about a heatmap of U.S. counties based on projected NCAA points?
Perhaps that is too granular. Oh well, they aren't all going to be gems.
Before we call it a day, let's check out qualifiers and projected points by conference.
Qualifiers by conference:
CONFERENCE | QUALIFIERS |
Big Ten | 92 |
Big 12 | 60 |
EIWA | 56 |
MAC | 50 |
ACC | 38 |
SoCon | 17 |
Pac-12 | 17 |
Projected points by conference:
CONFERENCE | QUALIFIERS |
Big Ten | 642 |
Big 12 | 222.5 |
EIWA | 192 |
ACC | 166.5 |
MAC | 115 |
Pac 12 | 67 |
SoCon | 35 |
And finally, because I don't think it's worthy of its own article but I already did the work, here are all the wrestlers who were ranked in the last coaches' poll (which was released before the conference tournaments) but did not earn bids to the NCAA tournament.
WT | NAME | RANK | SCHOOL | CONF |
125 | Daniel Vega | 23 | South Dakota St. | Big 12 |
125 | Logan Treaster | 26 | Navy | EIWA |
125 | Eric Barnett | 27 | Wisconsin | Big Ten |
125 | Sean Carter | 28 | Appalachian St. | SoCon |
125 | Bryce West | 33 | Northern Ill. | MAC |
133 | Jordan Decatur | 31 | Ohio St. | Big Ten |
133 | Darren Miller | 33 | Bucknell | EIWA |
141 | Peter Lipari | 30 | Rider | MAC |
149 | Requir van der Merwe | 29 | Stanford | Pac 12 |
149 | Jaron Jensen | 30 | Wyoming | Big 12 |
149 | Gerard Angelo | 32 | Rutgers | Big Ten |
149 | AJ Leitten | 33 | NC State | ACC |
157 | Ryan Thomas | 31 | Minnesota | Big Ten |
157 | Elijah Cleary | 33 | Ohio St. | Big Ten |
165 | Randy Meneweather II | 26 | Air Force | Big 12 |
165 | Nick Kiussis | 30 | West Virginia | Big 12 |
165 | Brett Donner | 32 | Rutgers | Big Ten |
165 | Dazjon Casto | 33 | The Citadel | SoCon |
174 | Sage Heller | 33 | Hofstra | EIWA |
184 | Colt Doyle | 32 | Oregon St. | Pac 12 |
184 | George Walton | 33 | Rider | MAC |
197 | Tanner Orndorff | 21 | Utah Valley | Big 12 |
197 | Jacob Koser | 28 | Navy | EIWA |
197 | Joel Shapiro | 30 | Iowa St. | Big 12 |
197 | Jaron Smith | 33 | Maryland | Big Ten |
285 | Seth Nevills | 16 | Penn St. | Big Ten |
285 | Colton McKiernan | 29 | SIUE | MAC |
That's all for now. Brackets will be out soon, then, even more analysis!
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