The NCAA Championship brackets are out! And thanks to the tournament committee's decision to assign seeds to all 33 entrants per weight class, we can now project how the team race will play out in Detroit!

We calculated the team score from the NCAA seeds in the same manner as we do for our Team Tournament Rankings; by assigning advancement and placement points as if each wrestler finished the tournament in the same position as their seed or ranking. Potential bonus points are not factored in.

The results are below. 

Not much different from Flo's team rankings. Let's see exactly how different by comparing the two sets of points. 

Arizona State, North Carolina State, Oklahoma State, and Pittsburgh were seeded a bit higher than we have them ranked. However, it's also worth remembering that getting ranked or seeded between 9 and 12 gets you the same number of points (from advancing to the round of 12), while the difference between a 1 and a 2 seed is four points. So the differences are amplified the further up the rankings/seeds you go. 

Conversely, we ranked Nebraska, North Carolina, and Purdue higher than they were seeded. And naturally, there will be bonus points in Detroit so most teams will likely outperform either set of projected point totals. 

For the most part, though, not a lot of surprises from the team race perspective. Penn State remains the favorite. Michigan battled their way into the team title race thanks to an inspiring performance at the Big Ten Championships. And Iowa is still in the conversation though a lot depends on how healthy they are a week from now. 

The contest for fourth place and the final team trophy is very interesting, with as many as a dozen or so teams all with realistic chances at climbing the podium. All the more reason to tune in next weekend to see what actually happens!