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The Nittany Lions are poised to qualify 10 wrestlers for Nationals for the first time since 2014.
The NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee has announced the pre- allocation spots for the 2024 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships as listed in the chart below:
If you’re interested in which wrestlers earned the Pre-Allocation spots above, Wrestling by Pirate has shared a weight-by-weight listing of them.
The Big Ten Conference Tourney is being held in two weeks, on March 9 & 10th, in College Park, MD. The National Tournament is being held two weeks after that on March 21, 22 & 23rd, in Kansas City, MO.
The B1G Tourney doubles as a qualification contest for the National Tourney. The Pre-Allocation spots (and the final allocation spots that will arrive sometime next week after any roster changes shake out), serve as placement markers at conference tourneys to auto-qualify for Nationals in their weight. This is one way to qualify for Nationals: finish the conference tourney in a placement that equals the allocation spot.
The other, if a wrestler fails to place as high as the allocation spot for that weight in that conference, is to qualify for an At-Large bid. To qualify for an At-Large bid, a wrestler must:
- Participate in at least two matches in the conference tournament. Participate does not include Medical Forfeits, but does include Injury Defaults. This rule has been updated since last year, from one required match to two. AND;
- Meet or exceed any TWO of the following criteria:
- .700 Win%
- Top 33 RPI
- Top 33 Coaches Ranking
- One win against a wrestler receiving automatic qualification via an earned position (pre-allocated)
- Qualifying event placement one below automatic qualification
Also released today were the third Coaches’ ranking and the second RPI. Both fit into considerations for At-Large bids and Nationals seeding after the tourney qualifiers are finalized.
Following are the Big Ten’s weight-by-weight Pre-Allocation Spots, At-large spots, RPI ranking and Coaches’ Ranking. Pre-seeds (from which we can build speculative brackets) are likely to come out Monday, and we have not put in the work to guess at a seeding order in a 8-dual conference schedule in a season in which the flu did heavy damage to multiple teams’ participation. So each table’s order is for now borrowed from our friend RoarLions over at BWI in a seed prediction thread he did a week ago. We hid the ordinal number column for now to de-emphasize the seeding order and focus on today’s new data.
125: Braeden Davis
- Allocation spots: 9
- At-large spots: 6
133: Aaron Nagao
- Allocation spots: 7
- At-large spots: 5
141: Beau Bartlett
- Allocation spots: 11
- At-large spots: 6
149: Tyler Kasak
- Allocation spots: 9
- At-large spots: 4
157: Levi Haines
- Allocation spots: 9
- At-large spots: 4
165: Mitchell Mesenbrink
- Allocation spots: 10
- At-large spots: 5
174: Carter Starocci
- Allocation spots: 8
- At-large spots: 4
184: Bernie Truax
- Allocation spots: 8
- At-large spots: 5
197: Aaron Brooks
- Allocation spots: 7
- At-large spots: 4
285: Greg Kerkvliet
- Allocation spots: 7
- At-large spots: 4
Executive Summary & Takery
As we might have guessed by watching this year’s lineup terrorize opponents in the dual season, Penn State is in great shape here. The emergence of Braeden Davis at 125 and the resilience and talent of the other true freshman, Tyler Kasak, stepping in for the injured Shayne Van Ness has positioned the Lions nicely to qualify 10 wrestlers for Nationals for the first time since 2014! For discussion’s sake, that lineup featured: Nico Megaluis, Jimmy Gulibon, Zain Retherford, All-American James English, Dylan Alton, David Taylor, Matt Brown, Ed Ruth, Morgan McIntosh and Jon Gingrich, and finished with 7 All-Americans and 2 Champs.
Every one of this year’s 10 has qualified one of these allocation spots for the conference. And if, god forbid, any of them succumb to every team’s most feared opponent, injury, they have each already qualified for an At-Large bid.
For Carter Starocci’s unknown injury situation, we have two examples we can use to set the poles of the spectrum: 2017 Nick Suriano and 2018 Jason Nolf.
In 2017, Suriano injured his foot on February 19. At Big Tens, he toed the line for the quick-whistled INJ DEF at 0:01 and MFF’d out of the tourney, failing to land in one of the conference’s allocated spots. His 16-3 record (along with other qualifying criteria of the time) earned him an At-Large bid and a 3-seed at Nationals. He tried valiantly to train through the injury, even evoking Cael’s now-famous quote: ‘yeah, he’s down in the room wrestling right now.’ But when the time came to compete at Nationals, Cael didn’t allow him to compete, and Suriano grumbled through the summer and transferred out that Fall.
In 2018, Nolf injured his knee, a month earlier than both Suriano & Starocci, on January 28. With a month to rest, heal & train to get used to his new mobility, he entered Big Tens as the 2-seed. His first round match was against 19-17 Jake Tucker of MSU, whom he pinned in 2:34. He wrestled a second bout, a 15-2 Major over Minnesota 7-seed Jake Short, and that was the end of his tourney. He MFF’d the Consolation Semifinals and shared the 6th-placed podium step with Michael Kemerer who had done similarly (Pin, Major, MFF). Two weeks later at Nationals in Cleveland, Nolf went 5-0 for his second National Championship.
So where along that line will Starocci land? We can probably guess that we’ll see very little of him at B1Gs in College Park. If he competes anywhere beyond two consecutive Injury Defaults, we might better guess what he’ll attempt at Nationals in KC.
If he doesn’t, the guessing game will continue.
Whatever the case, we all wish him well.
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By: Jp Pearson
Title: Wrestling Nationals Allocations & 3rd Coaches Ranking Released
Sourced From: www.blackshoediaries.com/2024/2/29/24086947/wrestling-nationals-allocations-3rd-coaches-ranking-released
Published Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:09:30 +0000
