Big Ten Wrestling Championship | 2018 NCAA Wrestling

Projecting The Automatic Qualifier Allocations For Every Conference

Projecting the automatic qualifier allocations from each conference for the 2018 NCAA tournament.

Feb 19, 2018 by Wrestling Nomad

Projecting The Automatic Qualifier Allocations For Every Conference

With the regular season now over, we turn our eyes toward the conference championships and try to figure out how many wrestlers each conference will send to nationals.

The NCAA uses a not-so-simple formula involving a ranking from coaches in each conference, the Rating Percentage Index (or RPI), and plain old winning percentage to determine the automatic qualifier allocations. To the best of our abilities, we tried to use those three criteria to determine how many spots are up for grabs at each conference tournament.

Remember, each weight is different for every conference, and each tournament will at least have its champion be an automatic qualifier. There are a minimum of four wild cards reserved for each weight, meaning 29 is the maximum number of allocations any one weight can have heading into the NCAA tournament.

The overwhelming majority of information for this article comes from page 13 of the "pre-championships manual," which is publicly available HERE.

On to our preliminary numbers, which you can and should double check when the NCAA releases the actual allocations on Thursday. We also posted last year's numbers.

125 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
125	Big Ten	10	7
125	EIWA	2	2
125	Big 12	6	4
125	ACC	2	3
125	MAC	2	5
125	EWL	2	3
125	Pac-12	4	1
125	SoCon	1	3

Commentary: As you will see throughout all the weights, the departure of Northern Iowa from the Big 12 to the MAC played a big part in the shifting of allocations from 2017 to 2018. One of the "last men in" was Nathan Tomasello, who wrestled his eighth match on Sunday, meaning he had enough matches to qualify his winning percentage.

133 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
133	Big Ten	7	9
133	EIWA	3	4
133	Big 12	4	4
133	ACC	5	2
133	MAC	4	6
133	EWL	3	2
133	Pac-12	2	1
133	SoCon	1	1

Commentary: How about the ACC? All-American Jack Mueller carries the torch, but the conference's depth is shown in Dom Forys, Tariq Wilson, Dennis Gustafson, and Zach Sherman. In the EIWA, Penn entering Gianni Ghione at 133 could mean that the conference gets a fourth wrestler into NCAAs, which could cost the EWL one of its spots.

141 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
141	Big Ten	9	9
141	EIWA	4	5
141	Big 12	3	4
141	ACC	4	3
141	MAC	3	2
141	EWL	4	2
141	Pac-12	1	3
141	SoCon	1	1

Commentary: We've talked about the Big Ten being "down" this year at 141, but, like the rest of this weight, it's just evenly distributed.

149 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
149	Big Ten	7	6
149	EIWA	3	3
149	Big 12	5	4
149	ACC	4	3
149	MAC	2	5
149	EWL	1	2
149	Pac-12	1	3
149	SoCon	1	1

Commentary: There is not a minimum number of automatic qualifiers, and 149 has the fewest of any weight in our projection. If our number of 24 holds, it will be the fewest for any weight since 125 had the same amount in 2015.

157 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
157	Big Ten	8	9
157	EIWA	5	3
157	Big 12	3	3
157	ACC	4	4
157	MAC	2	2
157	EWL	2	1
157	Pac-12	3	2
157	SoCon	1	2

Commentary: Jason Nolf is the reason wild cards exist. If Penn State elects to go the "Suriano route" like last year at 125, Nolf has to weigh in, step on the mat for one second and injury default. At that time, he can medically forfeit out and receive a wild card. The key is weighing in and stepping on the mat, as we learned at this weight last year with the Jordan Kutler situation.

165 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
165	Big Ten	10	7
165	EIWA	6	4
165	Big 12	6	5
165	ACC	2	2
165	MAC	1	3
165	EWL	2	2
165	Pac-12	1	2
165	SoCon	1	1

Commentary: There will be first-round matchups at Big Tens that will feature ranked guys. This is the deepest weight in any conference this year.

174 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
174	Big Ten	8	9
174	EIWA	6	6
174	Big 12	5	3
174	ACC	3	3
174	MAC	3	3
174	EWL	1	1
174	Pac-12	2	2
174	SoCon	1	1

Commentary: The main thing coming out of this weekend is, who will get the #1 seed: Mark Hall or Zahid Valencia?

184 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
184	Big Ten	8	9
184	EIWA	7	7
184	Big 12	3	2
184	ACC	3	2
184	MAC	2	3
184	EWL	3	1
184	Pac-12	1	1
184	SoCon	2	3

Commentary: The EIWA is sneaky good at 184, which means the seventh-place match is a must-watch.

197 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
197	Big Ten	6	7
197	EIWA	6	4
197	Big 12	3	5
197	ACC	3	2
197	MAC	3	4
197	EWL	1	1
197	Pac-12	4	3
197	SoCon	2	1

Commentary: Kollin Moore lost again, and one of the guys who beat him might not even wrestle in the conference tournament. If you tell us you know what's going to happen at 197, we're going to assume you're lying.

285 Pounds

Weight	Conference	Allocation	Last
285	Big Ten	7	5
285	EIWA	5	4
285	Big 12	3	4
285	ACC	5	5
285	MAC	3	3
285	EWL	2	2
285	Pac-12	3	3
285	SoCon	1	3

Commentary: Once again, the ACC shows off its heavyweight depth.

So there you have it, the 283 automatic qualifier allocations, arranged by conference and weight class. Now we just need to figure out who the 47 wild-card spots will go to.