NCAA Allocations for Dummies

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bdhof

Well-known member
Probably a week from Sunday the NCAA will come out w/ allocations for the NCAAs. If you don't know what NCAA wrestling allocations are, then this might not make any sense to you. But here goes...

In a nutshell
Each bracket at NCAAs has 33 wrestlers in it. You earn a berth by placing in your conference tourney. And they have a few wild cards for guys that were ranked somewhat high but didn't place well enough at their conference tourney to qualify.
 
 
Well, what do you have to place in your tourney?
Here's where allocations come into place. Each weight of each conference is given a set number of allocations based on the strength of that conference at that weight. For example, last year B10s got 9 spots (allocations) at 125 but only 6 at 149 b/c 125 was a stronger B10 weight than 149 last year. Up to 29 spots are given out to the 8 conferences, w/ at least 1 spot guaranteed to each conference per weight. So, wrestlers actually don't earn spots for themselves during the season. They earn spots for their conference.
 
How do they determine the top 29 wrestlers?
There are 3 factors that establish whether or not an allocation will be given - Coaches' Rank (CR) must be 30 or better, RPI must be 30 or better, & Winning Percentage (WP) must be >70% vs DI. A wrestler must meet 2 of these 3 to qualify a spot. If less than 29 wrestlers meet this criteria, then less than 29 spots will be allocated (meaning more wildcards). If more than 29 meet this criteria, then they change the CR to 29, the RPI to 29 and the WP to 71% (and will keep increasing it until only 29 meet it).
 
So, the conference tourney determines the guys, right?
Well, for the allocated spots, yes. Then the wildcards determine the rest. They pick the top ranked guys that didn't earn a conference placement that was automatically qualified
 
So, normally the top 33 guys get in, right?
No. As mentioned above, all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight, meaning they get an automatic qualifier for their champs at each weight even if that conference did not have a top 33 guy. In theory, that lops off the #33 wrestler in the country. Last year there were 24 single allocations in the 8 conferences (meaning a weight class had only the champ as an automatic qualifier). I don't know how many of those were earned by rank or were given per "all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight." But each of those lopped off a top 33 guy if they weren't a top 33. And, of course, there are upsets. For every upset where a guy not in the top 33 gets an auto bid, another top 33 guy gets lopped off. And there are a few guys out there who have not wrestled enough to get ranked, Kolodzik, for example. He likely will be getting someone's top 33 spot. At some weights, several top 33 spots can get eliminated.
 
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Anything else I should know?
Yeah, they re-rank everybody after the conferences. So, maybe a #20 guy has a horrible conference tourney and they re-rank him to 30. And there's a couple automatic slots in there for conference champs (taking top 33 spots), and a few upsets to boot (taking more top 33 spots). Now he's sitting home.
 
How are the Buckeyes looking right now?
141, 149, 165, 174, 184, 197 & 285 are all safe bets to lock an allocation spot for B10s. And all, w/ the possible exception of 285, would likely get a wildcard if they messed up at B10s. 133 is borderline on qualifying a spot, and would likely have to earn that spot to NQ (maybe top 7 at B10s). 125 & 157 will likely have to steal a spot from a higher ranked guy at B10s to NQ. That might be a top 8 spot at 125 and a top 6 spot at 157.
 
bdhof said:
So, normally the top 33 guys get in, right?
No. As mentioned above, all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight, meaning they get an automatic qualifier for their champs at each weight even if that conference did not have a top 33 guy. In theory, that lops off the #33 wrestler in the country. Last year there were 24 single allocations in the 8 conferences (meaning a weight class had only the champ as an automatic qualifier). I don't know how many of those were earned by rank or were given per "all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight." But each of those lopped off a top 33 guy if they weren't a top 33. And, of course, there are upsets. For every upset where a guy not in the top 33 gets an auto bid, another top 33 guy gets lopped off. And there are a few guys out there who have not wrestled enough to get ranked, Kolodzik, for example. He likely will be getting someone's top 33 spot. At some weights, several top 33 spots can get eliminated.
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This is an important part, glad you brought it up. There is a minimum amount of matches needed to wrestle to get an allocation spot, and there are usually some big names that don't have that. Sebastian Rivera, Brady Berge, Shakur Rasheed, Matt Kolodzik, and others are names with less than the required number of matches who could "steal" a spot- something to watch out for come conferences
 
I just checked the most recent rankings and I only found one weight where a conference (SoCon @ 197) didn't have a ranked guy. The EWL merged w/ the MAC this year. The MAC was always decent but the EWL not so much. So, there's likely to be very few auto spots given to conferences that don't have a ranked guy.
 
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Speaking of the MAC, that tournament is going to be very fun this year with all the old EWL teams. And 197 is an absolute mess for them. You have Bulsak (Clarion) who lost to Braun (Northern Illinois), Braun lost to Koelling (Missouri), Koelling lost to Smith (Cleveland St.), Smith lost to McCraken (Kent St.), McCraken lost to Pelham (Central Michigan), and Laird (Rider), Pelham and Schuyler (Buffalo) were all in the coaches panel at one point this year. And that's just the top 8 at 197! That weight is going to be fun from the quarters on, and the rest of the MAC will be interesting as well
 
bdhof said:
So, normally the top 33 guys get in, right?
No. As mentioned above, all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight, meaning they get an automatic qualifier for their champs at each weight even if that conference did not have a top 33 guy. In theory, that lops off the #33 wrestler in the country. Last year there were 24 single allocations in the 8 conferences (meaning a weight class had only the champ as an automatic qualifier). I don't know how many of those were earned by rank or were given per "all conferences have at least one spot qualified for every weight." But each of those lopped off a top 33 guy if they weren't a top 33. And, of course, there are upsets. For every upset where a guy not in the top 33 gets an auto bid, another top 33 guy gets lopped off. And there are a few guys out there who have not wrestled enough to get ranked, Kolodzik, for example. He likely will be getting someone's top 33 spot. At some weights, several top 33 spots can get eliminated.
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I have a headache!
 
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