Big Ten Seeding Review (Roar's guess!!)
The Big Ten Tournament is not the ultimate prize, but it is important. Performance there can affect NCAA seeding, confidence, and momentum...both individual and team...heading into the National Championships.
We want our wrestlers to do well, not get injured, and bring back another Big Ten title, but the real goal is to earn one's way to Nationals.
This review is my work only. The basis is ALL Big Ten head-to-head competition, whether it's in a dual, Midlands, the Scuffle or the National Duals. Complicating matters this year, for the first time, is the size of the conference. At 14 teams, even an increase to 9 Big Ten Conference matches doesn't come close to getting me or anyone else enough data to prevent using the transitive property or making assumptions. There's more likelihood than ever that a guy will miss a lot of the top-end, or a lot of the low-end competition, so using their won-loss record alone just doesn't work. Some will take the easy way out and do this…but not me!! So enjoy this read, then throw it out with the dinner scraps!! The Big Ten will do their own thing, and I'm just hoping, probably beyond hope, that I'll be close!!
My lists consist of a different number of wrestlers at each weight class. It's not necessarily the number of allocation slots, but close.
125
#1 Thomas Gilman
#2 Jesse Delgado
#3 Nathan Tomasello
#4 Tim Lambert
#5 Jordan Conaway
#6 Conor Youtsey
The question I hear most often for 125 at B1G's is where to seed Delgado. He's gone 3, 1, 1 the last 3 Big Ten Tournaments, but only has 3 conference duals this year, and none against the other top 6. At his best, he's a number 1 seed, but it's the year you're wrestling in that matters and one could argue he's not earned a high seed. But, lo and behold, I'm giving him the number 2 seed. The conference does have latitude to place wrestlers, then the coaches get a chance to discuss (argue) it. My logic is not complicated. It's unfair to randomly place him in the brackets, and with 3 Big Ten victories AND his history (yes, I broke down and violated my own rule), this seed gives all others a fair shot at becoming an auto-qualifier. With only 5 likely slots, the #6 guy is the guy that should work to earn their way. Gilman, at #1, beat Tomasello, who's #3. Lambert beat Conaway HTH (as did Gilman and Tomasello), so he's #4, with Conaway #5 and Youtsey, who Jordan beat HTH rounding out the top 6. This was the fewest seeds I took on for any weight class, due to it being the weight class with the fewest allotted qualifier slots.
This seeding, assuming they hold, gives Jordan a shot at beating Lambert, who won 8-5 at the Scuffle, in the quarterfinals. I like Jordan in a rematch.
133
#1 Chris Dardanes
#2 Ryan Taylor
#3 Jimmy Gulibon
#4 Cory Clark
#5 Zane Richards
#6 Johnni DiJulius
#7 Sanny Sabatello
#8 Scott DelVecchio
#9 Rossi Bruno
#10 Geoff Alexander
Here we go. The first of the nine remaining weight classes, all which will likely have more than 8 allocation slots. So these weight classes will be seeded all the way to #14. The B1G has their work cut out for them, with 2 new teams this year. Chris Dardanes was my easy #1. He beat Clark, Richards, Gulibon, and Bruno, and did not lose a Big Ten dual. My #2 is Ryan Taylor, who's been on an absolute tear, TF'ing Richards, beating Sabatello by 12 and DelVecchio by 13. Gulibon goes #3, with big wins over 5 of my seeded guys (including Clark), though he does have the 3-2 loss to Dardanes. I could see these two flip, with Jimmy #2 and Ryan #3. Here's where it gets tough. No one stands out as the obvious #4…or #5, #6, etc., for that matter. I went with Clark (#4) on a close call between him and Richards (#5), because Clark beat Richards HTH. #6 is DiJulius, who has a victory over Clark, but an unexpectedly bad loss to DelVecchio 7-1. #7 Sabatello beat Gulibon and Richards, but also was pinned by Clark, lost big to Taylor, and lost HTH to DiJulius. #8 is DelVecchio, with a good win against DiJulius, but not enough to be seeded higher. #9 Bruno, and #10 Alexander have no wins against my top-10 seeds, and round out my picks.
141
#1 Logan Stieber
#2 Nick Dardanes
#3 Anthony Abidin
#4 Steven Rodriguez
#5 Josh Dziewa
#6 Anthony Ashnault
#7 Shyheim Brown
#8 Nick Lawrence
#9 Kade Moss
#10 George Fisher
#11 Jameson Oster
#12 Javier Gasca
#13 Jesse Thielke
No question in my mind, Logie Bear is the best p4p wrestler in college today. Yes, I know he won 10-9 vs Dardanes, and was even gassing at the end. Even on a bad day, he's the best going, imo. #2 is Nick Dardanes, winning the remainder of his Big Ten duals. I placed Abidin #3, as he went 7-0 vs the guys on the list above, but did not wrestle either Stieber or Dardanes. Rodriguez goes #4, with wins HTH against Dziewa and Ashnault. He lost to Dardanes and Abidin, and split with Dziewa, winning at Midlands but losing in the dual. My #5 is Ashnault, with no bad losses, and a HTH win over #6 Dwieza (pronounced Jeva). Here's where there's a logjam. None of the remaining 7 guys stand out. I went #7 Brown, not because he had any great wins, but because he had the fewest losses to the guys 7 through 13, losing only to Oster. #8 is Oster, beating #9 Lawrence HTH, with no bad losses. Lawrence has wins over Moss, Fisher and Thielke, but losses to Oster and Gasca, plus 3 losses to 3 of the top-4 seeds. Moss is #10, on the strength of his win over #11 Fisher (HTH), with no losses to anyone seeded below him. Gasca and Thielke round out my top-13.
149
#1 Brandon Sorenson - Iowa
#2 Jason Tsirtsis - Northwestern
#3 Hunter Stieber - Ohio St
#4 Zack Beitz - Penn St
#5 Alec Panaleo - Michigan
#6 Ken Theobold - Rutgers
#7 Justin Arthur - Nebraska
#8 Ryan Lubeck - Wisconsin
#9 Brandon Nelson - Purdue
#10 Jake Short - Minnesota
Sorenson is the easy #1 here. Wins over all the other top guys (Tsirtsis, Stieber, Pantaleo, Theobold, and Beitz) make this a no-brainer. #2 is just as easy, Tsirtsis from Northwestern, with wins over 4 guys listed above, and the lonely 3-2 loss to Sorenson. Here's where the sledding gets a little rough…what do you do with a 1-2 wrestler (1-1 in the B1G), whose lone win was over the guy that's about to be placed somewhere between 3 and 5 (Beitz)? I made Stieber #3. Question here is, will he wrestle, and will he be effective? I gave him the benefit. #4 is Beitz, giving him the nod over #5 Pantaleo because of Zack's 6-4 HTH win. Zack's loss to Theobold hurt, but I placed more weight on the HTH victory. # 6 is Theobold, who without the 7-1 loss to Arthur, would have been my #4. #7 is Arthur, despite the HTH victory against #6 Theobold, as he also has a loss to Theobold, and a loss to Lubeck. #8 Lubeck and #9 Nelson traded victories this year, each beating the other by 2 points, so I used the Lubeck win over the higher-seeded Arthur as my tiebreaker. Problem is, Lubeck also lost to Langendorfer, who's not even on my list, so the Big Ten could flip these two. Last is Short, who was 0-5 against the guys in the list above.
157
#1 Dylan Ness - Minnesota
#2 Isaiah Martinez - Illinois
#3 James Green - Nebraska
#4 Doug Welch - Purdue
#5 Josh Demas - Ohio St
#6 Brian Murphy - Michigan
#7 Mike Kelly - Iowa
#8 Anthony Perrotti - Rutgers
#9 Lou Mascola - Maryland
#10 Jarad Donar - Wisconsin
Another brutal weight class, with 7 of the top-11 nationally in the B1G. Tough call for #1, but I'm going with the senior, Ness, over #2 Martinez. There's also no doubt in my mind that Martinez can beat Ness. I'll go further and say the B1G will look hard here at their wins. Both beat Green, Ness has 2 falls against my list of 10, and Martinez has 2 majors and 2 tech falls. A hot #3 Green might get in the way, but I'll stick to Ness vs Martinez in the B1G Finals. After Green, this weight class is a mess. My #4 is Welch, based on a 5-4 win vs Green, and 3-1 vs Alton. Even so, he had 4 losses against the field, including getting pinned by Murphy and losing to Demas (3-2) and Mascola (6-2). #5 Demas beat Welch, Murphy, and Kelly, but lost to Ness, Alton, and Perrotti. The Perrotti loss cost him #4. #6 is Murphy, whose 2-1 HTH loss to Demas cost him a higher seed, despite his win over Welch. Next is #7 Kelly, who had no great wins, but a 4-0 HTH win put him in front of #8 Perrotti, who missed part of the year. He did have an 8-5 win vs Demas, but the 4-0 loss to Kelly keeps him here. #9 Mascola had some great wins (Welch and Kelly), but was 0-5 otherwise, with losses by fall (1), majors (2) and tech fall (1). #10 Donar, no wins against this field, and 4 losses,he's my #10. Read the seeding from #4 to #9 again, and you'll understand the challenges faced by folks that seed!! Frey is out of the money at this point (assuming he goes, though it's still somewhat undecided), and will have to earn his way to Nationals. I like his chances, as this weight class should take 9 from the Big Ten. And just to be clear, I'm not ruling ANYTHING out, as far as our representative at the Big Ten Championships.
165
#1 Isaac Jordan - Wisconsin
#2 Bo Jordan - Ohio St
#3 Taylor Walsh - Indiana
#4 Pierce Harger - Northwestern
#5 Jackson Morse - Illinois
#6 Taylor Massa - Michigan
#7 Nick Wanzek - Minnesota
#8 Garett Hammond - Penn State
#9 Nick Moore - Iowa
#10 Austin Wilson - Nebraska
Isaac gets the #1 nod over cousin, and #2 Bo. Both beat Walsh, but Isaac's pin of Harger and major (9-0) of Massa separate the two. #3 is Indiana's pinning machine, Walsh, who had a 15-0 tech fall loss to #4 Harger, but pinned him the other 2 times they faced each other!! Morse goes #5, and #6 is Massa, with the only thing separating them being Morse's 5-2 win over Moore. Here's where this weight class breaks down. Moore beats Harger, but loses to Hammond, Wanzek beats Hammond, but has 3 losses by major or fall. I placed more weight on the Harger win than the Hammond loss, and made Moore #7 and moved Hammond all the way to #9, with Wanzek as #8. The Big Ten could go straight HTH here, and go Wanzek, Hammond , Moore, but that's very unlikely given their body of work. Last, at #10, is Wilson, 0-4 against the field above.
174
#1 Robert Kokesh - Nebraska
#2 Matt Brown - Penn St
#3 Mike Evans - Iowa
#4 Logan Storley - Minnesota
#5 Zac Brunson - Illinois
#6 Mark Martin - Ohio St
#7 Nate Jackson - Indiana
#8 Jake Salazar - Michigan
#9 Chad Welch - Purdue
#10 Frank Cousins - Wisconsin
#11 Phil Bakuckas - Rutgers
Here we go again. This foursome has created some great moments the past 3 years, and this year's battles should entertain fans too, both at Big Ten's and Nationals. Matt won Big Ten's last year, with Evans second, Kokesh third, and a visibly ill Storley seventh, but throw them in a hat to pick the order this year. I'm going Kokesh #1, over #2 Brown, based on a 3-2 victory over Brown at the Scuffle. Brown has won against both Evans and Storley, so his #2 is unquestionable. #3 Evans beat #4 Storley HTH, so gets the nod. Brunson (#5) and Martin (#6) are near mirror images of each other. Both lost to the same 3 guys (Kokesh, Evans, and Storley), but Brunson has a couple more wins against the field. Here's where it gets interesting, as there appears to be separation between the top-4, then the next-2, then all others. #7 Jackson and #8 Salazar are neck-and-neck in my book, but the HTH win (Jackson over Salazar 8-3) settled it for me. Jackson has 2 bad losses, to Welch and Cousins, but it did not offset the HTH win. #9 Welch beat #10 Cousins HTH, and Cousins beat #11 Bakackus to round out the top 11.
184
#1 Sammy Brooks - Iowa
#2 Dominic Abounader - Michigan
#3 Brett Pfarr - Minnesota
#4 Kenny Courts - Ohio St
#5 Ricky Robertson - Wisconsin
#6 T.J. Dudley - Nebraska
#7 Matt McCutcheon - Penn Stata
#8 John Rizqallah - Michigan St
#9 Nikko Reyes - Illinois
#10 Patrick Kissel - Purdue
This was a difficult seed, top to bottom. Brooks only loss was to Abounader, but Abounader lost to Dudley and Rizqallah, despite beating the other 3 guys in the top-4. Courts and Pfarr each lost to all 3 of the other top-4 guys. I went Brooks #1, despite the HTH loss to #2 Abounader, as Abounader's losses to Dudley and Rizqallah are bad losses, imo. #3 Pfarr and #4 Courts split their 2 matches this year, but Pfarr's wins are ever-so-slightly better. Hate to make judgments when they didn't wrestle the same guys, but in this case, it's the only option. #5 Robertson beat #6 Dudley HTH, so gets the nod for a higher seed, with McCutcheon #7. Matt beat Dudley, and an argument could be made for a #6 seed, but Dudley beat Abounader 10-7, and Abounader pinned McCutcheon, moving him down. We'll see how the Big Ten views this next week. #8 Rizqallah has the great win against Abounader, but losses to every single other wrestler seeded above him. Neither #9 Reyes, nor #10 Kissel has a signature win, and plenty of losses. Not much record-wise separates them.
197 and 285 added later!!
This post was edited on 2/25 1:04 PM by RoarLions1
The Big Ten Tournament is not the ultimate prize, but it is important. Performance there can affect NCAA seeding, confidence, and momentum...both individual and team...heading into the National Championships.
We want our wrestlers to do well, not get injured, and bring back another Big Ten title, but the real goal is to earn one's way to Nationals.
This review is my work only. The basis is ALL Big Ten head-to-head competition, whether it's in a dual, Midlands, the Scuffle or the National Duals. Complicating matters this year, for the first time, is the size of the conference. At 14 teams, even an increase to 9 Big Ten Conference matches doesn't come close to getting me or anyone else enough data to prevent using the transitive property or making assumptions. There's more likelihood than ever that a guy will miss a lot of the top-end, or a lot of the low-end competition, so using their won-loss record alone just doesn't work. Some will take the easy way out and do this…but not me!! So enjoy this read, then throw it out with the dinner scraps!! The Big Ten will do their own thing, and I'm just hoping, probably beyond hope, that I'll be close!!
My lists consist of a different number of wrestlers at each weight class. It's not necessarily the number of allocation slots, but close.
125
#1 Thomas Gilman
#2 Jesse Delgado
#3 Nathan Tomasello
#4 Tim Lambert
#5 Jordan Conaway
#6 Conor Youtsey
The question I hear most often for 125 at B1G's is where to seed Delgado. He's gone 3, 1, 1 the last 3 Big Ten Tournaments, but only has 3 conference duals this year, and none against the other top 6. At his best, he's a number 1 seed, but it's the year you're wrestling in that matters and one could argue he's not earned a high seed. But, lo and behold, I'm giving him the number 2 seed. The conference does have latitude to place wrestlers, then the coaches get a chance to discuss (argue) it. My logic is not complicated. It's unfair to randomly place him in the brackets, and with 3 Big Ten victories AND his history (yes, I broke down and violated my own rule), this seed gives all others a fair shot at becoming an auto-qualifier. With only 5 likely slots, the #6 guy is the guy that should work to earn their way. Gilman, at #1, beat Tomasello, who's #3. Lambert beat Conaway HTH (as did Gilman and Tomasello), so he's #4, with Conaway #5 and Youtsey, who Jordan beat HTH rounding out the top 6. This was the fewest seeds I took on for any weight class, due to it being the weight class with the fewest allotted qualifier slots.
This seeding, assuming they hold, gives Jordan a shot at beating Lambert, who won 8-5 at the Scuffle, in the quarterfinals. I like Jordan in a rematch.
133
#1 Chris Dardanes
#2 Ryan Taylor
#3 Jimmy Gulibon
#4 Cory Clark
#5 Zane Richards
#6 Johnni DiJulius
#7 Sanny Sabatello
#8 Scott DelVecchio
#9 Rossi Bruno
#10 Geoff Alexander
Here we go. The first of the nine remaining weight classes, all which will likely have more than 8 allocation slots. So these weight classes will be seeded all the way to #14. The B1G has their work cut out for them, with 2 new teams this year. Chris Dardanes was my easy #1. He beat Clark, Richards, Gulibon, and Bruno, and did not lose a Big Ten dual. My #2 is Ryan Taylor, who's been on an absolute tear, TF'ing Richards, beating Sabatello by 12 and DelVecchio by 13. Gulibon goes #3, with big wins over 5 of my seeded guys (including Clark), though he does have the 3-2 loss to Dardanes. I could see these two flip, with Jimmy #2 and Ryan #3. Here's where it gets tough. No one stands out as the obvious #4…or #5, #6, etc., for that matter. I went with Clark (#4) on a close call between him and Richards (#5), because Clark beat Richards HTH. #6 is DiJulius, who has a victory over Clark, but an unexpectedly bad loss to DelVecchio 7-1. #7 Sabatello beat Gulibon and Richards, but also was pinned by Clark, lost big to Taylor, and lost HTH to DiJulius. #8 is DelVecchio, with a good win against DiJulius, but not enough to be seeded higher. #9 Bruno, and #10 Alexander have no wins against my top-10 seeds, and round out my picks.
141
#1 Logan Stieber
#2 Nick Dardanes
#3 Anthony Abidin
#4 Steven Rodriguez
#5 Josh Dziewa
#6 Anthony Ashnault
#7 Shyheim Brown
#8 Nick Lawrence
#9 Kade Moss
#10 George Fisher
#11 Jameson Oster
#12 Javier Gasca
#13 Jesse Thielke
No question in my mind, Logie Bear is the best p4p wrestler in college today. Yes, I know he won 10-9 vs Dardanes, and was even gassing at the end. Even on a bad day, he's the best going, imo. #2 is Nick Dardanes, winning the remainder of his Big Ten duals. I placed Abidin #3, as he went 7-0 vs the guys on the list above, but did not wrestle either Stieber or Dardanes. Rodriguez goes #4, with wins HTH against Dziewa and Ashnault. He lost to Dardanes and Abidin, and split with Dziewa, winning at Midlands but losing in the dual. My #5 is Ashnault, with no bad losses, and a HTH win over #6 Dwieza (pronounced Jeva). Here's where there's a logjam. None of the remaining 7 guys stand out. I went #7 Brown, not because he had any great wins, but because he had the fewest losses to the guys 7 through 13, losing only to Oster. #8 is Oster, beating #9 Lawrence HTH, with no bad losses. Lawrence has wins over Moss, Fisher and Thielke, but losses to Oster and Gasca, plus 3 losses to 3 of the top-4 seeds. Moss is #10, on the strength of his win over #11 Fisher (HTH), with no losses to anyone seeded below him. Gasca and Thielke round out my top-13.
149
#1 Brandon Sorenson - Iowa
#2 Jason Tsirtsis - Northwestern
#3 Hunter Stieber - Ohio St
#4 Zack Beitz - Penn St
#5 Alec Panaleo - Michigan
#6 Ken Theobold - Rutgers
#7 Justin Arthur - Nebraska
#8 Ryan Lubeck - Wisconsin
#9 Brandon Nelson - Purdue
#10 Jake Short - Minnesota
Sorenson is the easy #1 here. Wins over all the other top guys (Tsirtsis, Stieber, Pantaleo, Theobold, and Beitz) make this a no-brainer. #2 is just as easy, Tsirtsis from Northwestern, with wins over 4 guys listed above, and the lonely 3-2 loss to Sorenson. Here's where the sledding gets a little rough…what do you do with a 1-2 wrestler (1-1 in the B1G), whose lone win was over the guy that's about to be placed somewhere between 3 and 5 (Beitz)? I made Stieber #3. Question here is, will he wrestle, and will he be effective? I gave him the benefit. #4 is Beitz, giving him the nod over #5 Pantaleo because of Zack's 6-4 HTH win. Zack's loss to Theobold hurt, but I placed more weight on the HTH victory. # 6 is Theobold, who without the 7-1 loss to Arthur, would have been my #4. #7 is Arthur, despite the HTH victory against #6 Theobold, as he also has a loss to Theobold, and a loss to Lubeck. #8 Lubeck and #9 Nelson traded victories this year, each beating the other by 2 points, so I used the Lubeck win over the higher-seeded Arthur as my tiebreaker. Problem is, Lubeck also lost to Langendorfer, who's not even on my list, so the Big Ten could flip these two. Last is Short, who was 0-5 against the guys in the list above.
157
#1 Dylan Ness - Minnesota
#2 Isaiah Martinez - Illinois
#3 James Green - Nebraska
#4 Doug Welch - Purdue
#5 Josh Demas - Ohio St
#6 Brian Murphy - Michigan
#7 Mike Kelly - Iowa
#8 Anthony Perrotti - Rutgers
#9 Lou Mascola - Maryland
#10 Jarad Donar - Wisconsin
Another brutal weight class, with 7 of the top-11 nationally in the B1G. Tough call for #1, but I'm going with the senior, Ness, over #2 Martinez. There's also no doubt in my mind that Martinez can beat Ness. I'll go further and say the B1G will look hard here at their wins. Both beat Green, Ness has 2 falls against my list of 10, and Martinez has 2 majors and 2 tech falls. A hot #3 Green might get in the way, but I'll stick to Ness vs Martinez in the B1G Finals. After Green, this weight class is a mess. My #4 is Welch, based on a 5-4 win vs Green, and 3-1 vs Alton. Even so, he had 4 losses against the field, including getting pinned by Murphy and losing to Demas (3-2) and Mascola (6-2). #5 Demas beat Welch, Murphy, and Kelly, but lost to Ness, Alton, and Perrotti. The Perrotti loss cost him #4. #6 is Murphy, whose 2-1 HTH loss to Demas cost him a higher seed, despite his win over Welch. Next is #7 Kelly, who had no great wins, but a 4-0 HTH win put him in front of #8 Perrotti, who missed part of the year. He did have an 8-5 win vs Demas, but the 4-0 loss to Kelly keeps him here. #9 Mascola had some great wins (Welch and Kelly), but was 0-5 otherwise, with losses by fall (1), majors (2) and tech fall (1). #10 Donar, no wins against this field, and 4 losses,he's my #10. Read the seeding from #4 to #9 again, and you'll understand the challenges faced by folks that seed!! Frey is out of the money at this point (assuming he goes, though it's still somewhat undecided), and will have to earn his way to Nationals. I like his chances, as this weight class should take 9 from the Big Ten. And just to be clear, I'm not ruling ANYTHING out, as far as our representative at the Big Ten Championships.
165
#1 Isaac Jordan - Wisconsin
#2 Bo Jordan - Ohio St
#3 Taylor Walsh - Indiana
#4 Pierce Harger - Northwestern
#5 Jackson Morse - Illinois
#6 Taylor Massa - Michigan
#7 Nick Wanzek - Minnesota
#8 Garett Hammond - Penn State
#9 Nick Moore - Iowa
#10 Austin Wilson - Nebraska
Isaac gets the #1 nod over cousin, and #2 Bo. Both beat Walsh, but Isaac's pin of Harger and major (9-0) of Massa separate the two. #3 is Indiana's pinning machine, Walsh, who had a 15-0 tech fall loss to #4 Harger, but pinned him the other 2 times they faced each other!! Morse goes #5, and #6 is Massa, with the only thing separating them being Morse's 5-2 win over Moore. Here's where this weight class breaks down. Moore beats Harger, but loses to Hammond, Wanzek beats Hammond, but has 3 losses by major or fall. I placed more weight on the Harger win than the Hammond loss, and made Moore #7 and moved Hammond all the way to #9, with Wanzek as #8. The Big Ten could go straight HTH here, and go Wanzek, Hammond , Moore, but that's very unlikely given their body of work. Last, at #10, is Wilson, 0-4 against the field above.
174
#1 Robert Kokesh - Nebraska
#2 Matt Brown - Penn St
#3 Mike Evans - Iowa
#4 Logan Storley - Minnesota
#5 Zac Brunson - Illinois
#6 Mark Martin - Ohio St
#7 Nate Jackson - Indiana
#8 Jake Salazar - Michigan
#9 Chad Welch - Purdue
#10 Frank Cousins - Wisconsin
#11 Phil Bakuckas - Rutgers
Here we go again. This foursome has created some great moments the past 3 years, and this year's battles should entertain fans too, both at Big Ten's and Nationals. Matt won Big Ten's last year, with Evans second, Kokesh third, and a visibly ill Storley seventh, but throw them in a hat to pick the order this year. I'm going Kokesh #1, over #2 Brown, based on a 3-2 victory over Brown at the Scuffle. Brown has won against both Evans and Storley, so his #2 is unquestionable. #3 Evans beat #4 Storley HTH, so gets the nod. Brunson (#5) and Martin (#6) are near mirror images of each other. Both lost to the same 3 guys (Kokesh, Evans, and Storley), but Brunson has a couple more wins against the field. Here's where it gets interesting, as there appears to be separation between the top-4, then the next-2, then all others. #7 Jackson and #8 Salazar are neck-and-neck in my book, but the HTH win (Jackson over Salazar 8-3) settled it for me. Jackson has 2 bad losses, to Welch and Cousins, but it did not offset the HTH win. #9 Welch beat #10 Cousins HTH, and Cousins beat #11 Bakackus to round out the top 11.
184
#1 Sammy Brooks - Iowa
#2 Dominic Abounader - Michigan
#3 Brett Pfarr - Minnesota
#4 Kenny Courts - Ohio St
#5 Ricky Robertson - Wisconsin
#6 T.J. Dudley - Nebraska
#7 Matt McCutcheon - Penn Stata
#8 John Rizqallah - Michigan St
#9 Nikko Reyes - Illinois
#10 Patrick Kissel - Purdue
This was a difficult seed, top to bottom. Brooks only loss was to Abounader, but Abounader lost to Dudley and Rizqallah, despite beating the other 3 guys in the top-4. Courts and Pfarr each lost to all 3 of the other top-4 guys. I went Brooks #1, despite the HTH loss to #2 Abounader, as Abounader's losses to Dudley and Rizqallah are bad losses, imo. #3 Pfarr and #4 Courts split their 2 matches this year, but Pfarr's wins are ever-so-slightly better. Hate to make judgments when they didn't wrestle the same guys, but in this case, it's the only option. #5 Robertson beat #6 Dudley HTH, so gets the nod for a higher seed, with McCutcheon #7. Matt beat Dudley, and an argument could be made for a #6 seed, but Dudley beat Abounader 10-7, and Abounader pinned McCutcheon, moving him down. We'll see how the Big Ten views this next week. #8 Rizqallah has the great win against Abounader, but losses to every single other wrestler seeded above him. Neither #9 Reyes, nor #10 Kissel has a signature win, and plenty of losses. Not much record-wise separates them.
197 and 285 added later!!
This post was edited on 2/25 1:04 PM by RoarLions1
