Big Ten Wrestling Standings: One Week Out

By bscaff Feb 21, 2018, 7:12am EST

We’re still one week away from Big Tens. Official bid allocations will be released over the next few days. Until then, here come our projections.

125 LBS

We’re projecting 10 bids here at 125 lbs, which means all 14 wrestlers will be seeded into the bracket, as shown above.
The top 4 at this weight are pretty clear: Suriano, Lee, Tomasello, and Rivera. Mattin could be 6th, behind Minnesota’s Lizak - but Mattin also owns a head-to-head win over Lizak.
Indiana’s Oliver is the last guy bringing a bid to B1Gs. Our guy Carson Kuhn will likely be the 14-seed, owing to zero conference wins. Carson will need to place 10th or better to make NCAAs.
How does Carson place 10th or better? Win 2 matches. Whole bunch of ways to win 2 matches, but that’s what it all boils down to.

TL;DR - Corey’s highly likely to get one last shot at the NCAA podium.
Somehow, some way, it looks like the B1G could bring 9 bids. Micic, Pletcher, McKee, Duncan, Delvecchio, Keener, and Thornton are all locks. That makes 7. Renteria now has enough matches for a Coaches’ Rank, and likely the win% - that should bring a bid. The last one is probably Valdiviez (JNW) - if his RPI holds up, he’ll make it 9. It would take more than one bad round for Corey to miss that number.
On the other hand - let’s all hope for zero bad rounds at B1Gs. Once the autobids get sucked up, all of this “who gets a bid” math gets tossed out the window, more or less. And the criteria for receiving an “at large” invitation is completely different - and largely driven by “quality wins” - i.e., how many of the guys who got autobids at their conference tournaments have you, the at large candidate, beaten? And frankly, that’s not as pretty of a picture for Corey as of now.
In any event, because we’re counting 9 (as of now), we’ve seeded the entire bracket. But if it turns out to be just 8, then pull out #’s 9 - 14 and the two BYEs from the bracket above. They’ll be randomly assigned just prior to the start of the tournament.

From here on out, everyone’s headed to NCAAs, so long as they step on the mat at B1Gs. That makes the write ups a lot easier.
We’re counting 8 bids, and thus, we’ve only seeded the top 8 spots in the bracket.
If the bracket looks like this one above, you have to like Nick Lee’s chances of making a run to the final.

Wisconsin’s Andrew Crone lost twice in conference in the last 10 days, and accomplished two things: 1) Jason Nolf’s no lower than the 2-seed; and 2) seeds 3 - 6 are a big mess. To wit:
Crone: didn’t wrestle Kemerer/Nolf/Jordan; wins over Pantaleo, Berger; losses to Van Brill and Parriott;
Pantaleo: didn’t wrestle Kemerer; wins over Jordan (x2), Berger (x2); lost to Crone and Nolf;
Mickey Jordan: didn’t wrestle Nolf/Crone/Berger; wins over none of the above; losses to Pantaleo (x2) and Kemerer
Berger: didn’t wrestle Kem/Nolf/Jordan; wins over none of the above; losses to Crone (by MD) and Pantaleo (x2)
Good luck, seeding committee. Yinz are gonna need it.
Nolf Facts: multiple eyewitnesses testified to seeing Jason jog / hop in place at the dual vs. Bufffalo.
Nolf Rumors and Innuendo: Jason wanted to wrestle vs. Buffalo, but was held out. Jason wants to wrestle at B1Gs, but no decision yet made. Could be 0 matches, could 2 matches and MFF the rest, could bonus everyone in the field. Stay tuned for more details.

IMar is 1, Marinelli is 2, Cenzo is 3. All other opinions are absurd.
From the quarterfinals on, this bracket is as difficult as NCAAs. Crazy, crazy deep weight class.

We count 8 bids. Mark’s the top seed, and has already bonused everyone on his half of the bracket.
That portends good things.

We again count 8 bids. Bo’s the top seed. But he’ll have his work cut out for him to bonus his way to the final.
Abounader’s a past B1G champ. We pegged him as the 4-seed. Emory Parker got the 3-seed via his (10-1) conference mark - though Parker didn’t wrestle Bo, MyMar, or Abounader (through no fault of his own). That’s just the simple beauty of unbalanced schedules.

Cael still wasn’t 100% definitive post Buffalo dual, but it certainly seems like we’re rolling with Sugar Shak.
Shak has a truncated B1G mark, but...you tell him he’s not the 1-seed.
Only 6 bids by our counting. We don’t think returning AA Kevin Beazley (MICH) brings one. Not without an RPI (which could change), and not with that win%.
Surprisingly difficult weight to seed. Ritter beat Beazley and Shultz - and just lost to Christian Brunner, for his 1st L in conference duals. He also lost to Moore and Beazley in early season tournaments. Cash Wilcke won Midlands, but beat no one in conference.
In other words, we’re solid on the top 2, and not much after that. Plenty of arguments to be made.

Two years ago, the Big Ten had 10 or 11 bids here at 285. This year it’s just 7.
Off the six wrestlers who will be randomly drawn into the bracket, Nick probably bonuses five of them. So let’s hope for a good first round match up.