The Badgers have several wrestlers who should qualify for the NCAA Championships, but first they head to Lincoln for conference glory.
The Big Ten Wrestling Championships are on March 5-6 in Lincoln, Neb. and the conference released the preliminary seeds on Monday. The pre-seeds, as voted on by the conference’s coaches, rank 14 starters in all 10 weight classes. The Badgers don’t have any top-ranked wrestlers this year, while Penn State leads the conference with four and Ohio State has a pair.
Wisconsin’s top-ranked wrestler is Austin Gomez at 149 who is No. 2 behind Ohio State’s Sammy Sasso.
Full list:
#⃣3⃣ Eric Barnett, 125
#⃣1⃣1⃣ Kyle Burwick, 133
#⃣8⃣ Joe Zargo, 141
#⃣2⃣ Austin Gomez, 149
#⃣7⃣ Garrett Model, 157
#⃣3⃣ Dean Hamiti, 165
#⃣1⃣1⃣ Andrew McNally, 174
#⃣1⃣1⃣ Chris Weiler, 184
#⃣8⃣ Braxton Amos, 197
#⃣7⃣ Trent Hillger, 285https://t.co/rFtsMJ9dzH— Wisconsin Wrestling (@BadgerWrestling) February 28, 2022
If you can’t read the embedded tweet, here are Wisconsin’s individual rankings:
No. 3 Eric Barnett, 125
No. 11 Kyle Burwick, 133
No. 8 Joe Zargo, 141
No. 2 Austin Gomez, 149
No. 7 Garrett Model, 157
No. 3 Dean Hamiti, 165
No. 11 Andrew McNally, 174
No. 11 Chris Weiler, 184
No. 8 Braxton Amos, 197
No. 7 Trent Hillger, 285
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As far as the pre-allocation spots for the 2022 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships go, the Big Ten gets a lot of them. For those of you who didn’t know what these were or how they are calculated, allow me to drop this explainer for you (and definitely not me):
Each qualifying tournament was awarded pre-allocations to the national tournament based on regular season performance by conference wrestlers through February 20. The pre-allocations are determined using a sliding scale of a .700 winning percentage, top 30 coaches’ rank and top 30 ratings percentage index (RPI) with a maximum of 29 pre-allocations per weight class.
For each wrestler that reached the threshold in at least two of the three categories, his conference tournament was awarded a qualifying spot in that weight class. Each conference was awarded a minimum of one automatic bid per weight class, which will go to the tournament champion, even if they did not have any wrestlers reach at least two of the three thresholds. NCAA championship spots for each qualifying event will be awarded at conference tournaments based solely on place-finish.
After all the conference tournaments have concluded, the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee will meet in-person to select the remaining 43 at-large qualifiers, which will be announced on March 8, while brackets and seeding will be announced on NCAA.com at 6 p.m. on March 9. All weight classes will consist of 33 wrestlers.
The Big Ten has the most pre-allocations of any conference by far. Of the 287 total, 88 wrestlers will come from the best conference in the land. They get 10 wrestlers at 125 and 133, seven each at 141, 149, 157 and 165, eight at 174, 12 at 184, 11 at 197 and nine at 285.
The link above also has all of the coaches rankings and RPI rankings for each weight class.
March Madness isn’t just for basketball, folks. Let’s grapple!