2019 NCAA Tournament Automatic Qualifier Allocation Projections

2019 NCAA Tournament Automatic Qualifier Allocation Projections

Predicting the automatic qualifier allocations for the 2019 NCAA wrestling championships that will be awarded to each of the conference tournaments.

Feb 27, 2019 by Wrestling Nomad
2019 NCAA Tournament Automatic Qualifier Allocation Projections
One of the most important days on the NCAA wrestling calendar is when the automatic qualifier allocations are announced for the conference tournaments. Those will be released tomorrow, but today we bring you our predictions for how many each conference will automatically qualify at each weight.

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One of the most important days on the NCAA wrestling calendar is when the automatic qualifier allocations are announced for the conference tournaments. Those will be released tomorrow, but today we bring you our predictions for how many each conference will automatically qualify at each weight.

If you're new to this, it's pretty simple: once the regular season ends, a formula is used to determine how many spots each conference is granted, per weight, to send to the national tournament. This year's NCAA tournament is in Pittsburgh, and will feature 330 wrestlers, as always.

Some of those wrestlers will be granted "wildcard" selections, what's known as an at-large bid. We'll get to those in a later article, but right now we're focusing on auto qualifiers. Based on who teams enter in their respective conference tournaments, three metrics are used to determine how many spots are granted: Coaches Rank, RPI, and winning percentage.

It's a lot to explain in one article, but here are some helpful links to read if you'd like to know more about the process. But the long and short of it is that you have to meet two of the following criteria: be Top-33 in the coaches rank, Top-33 in the RPI, or have a winning percentage above .700 against Division 1 opponents, with some potential to slide those numbers up or down to fit the weight class.

Each weight class will have a maximum of 29 auto qualifiers spread across the eight conferences, but must have a minimum of at least 25. Looking at last year, no weight had fewer than 27, in 2017 there were two weights with 26, and in 2016 every weight had at least 28 auto qualifiers. If you win your conference, you are automatically granted a spot in NCAAs, which in some cases is the only spot guaranteed for your conference.

On to the predictions, which are based in large part on the last RPI and Coaches Rank from two weeks ago, along with current win percentage numbers as well as some old fashioned guess work.


125 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
125Big Ten9
125Big 126
125EIWA4
125ACC2
125MAC3
125Pac-122
125EWL1
125SoCon1


133 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
133Big Ten8
133Big 125
133EIWA4
133ACC5
133MAC3
133Pac-122
133EWL1
133SoCon1


141 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
141Big Ten8
141Big 126
141EIWA3
141ACC4
141MAC4
141Pac-121
141EWL1
141SoCon1


149 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
149Big Ten7
149Big 127
149EIWA3
149ACC4
149MAC1
149Pac-123
149EWL1
149SoCon2


157 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
157Big Ten9
157Big 121
157EIWA2
157ACC4
157MAC4
157Pac-123
157EWL1
157SoCon1


165 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
165Big Ten8
165Big 125
165EIWA4
165ACC4
165MAC2
165Pac-121
165EWL3
165SoCon1


174 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
174Big Ten7
174Big 125
174EIWA5
174ACC5
174MAC3
174Pac-121
174EWL1
174SoCon2


184 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
184Big Ten7
184Big 125
184EIWA7
184ACC5
184MAC1
184Pac-121
184EWL2
184SoCon1


197 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
197Big Ten6
197Big 126
197EIWA6
197ACC4
197MAC1
197Pac-122
197EWL1
197SoCon2


285 Pounds

WeightConferenceAllocation
285Big Ten7
285Big 126
285EIWA3
285ACC3
285MAC3
285Pac-122
285EWL2
285SoCon1