EIWA Wrestling Tournament Begins Saturday

[ngineer]

At Lehigh's Stabler Arena, the 106th edition of college wrestling's oldest tournament. Cornell will be favored to win it's fourth straight with only Lehigh, Rutgers and Navy having any reasonable shots at upsetting things. A bracket or two will need to be broken if someone other than the Big Red wins the tourney, although Lehigh has very good team balance, only one Mountain Hawk will be seeded #1, whereas Cornell is expecting 5 champions. Matches begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

[dbackjon]

How big of a crowd is expected?

[kardplayer]

5 Champions? Bah.

[MrTitleist]

Go Lehigh!

[ngineer]

How big of a crowd is expected?

I would suspect Saturday's crowd should be in the 2500-3000 range. Sunday will be two sessions with separate admissions. I would suspect some fall off on the first session, but about 3,500 for Sunday's finals, and if a real team race develops, maybe more.

[ngineer]

Disappointing weekend for Lehigh as they finished third, just getting edged by Penn 113-109.5 as both were left in the dust by Cornell, as many predicted. Big Red crowned 5 champs. Lehigh had one champ (Rey at 285) and automatically qualified 5, with two waiting until Wednesday to see if they get wild cards from the NCAA (Ciasulli at 141 and Kennedy at 197). Other qualifiers were Fisk (2nd at 133), Craig (3rd at 184, with a tremendous 5 point reversal in the last 10 seconds to win 8-5), Hatchett (2nd at 165) and Hamlin (4th at 174).
Big disappointments at 125, 149 and 157 with zero points getting earned. All three made some major mistakes and paid dearly...two kids pinned while leading..smh, smh....

[MrTitleist]

So how does NCAA qualifying work in the EIWA? For the WWC, only tournament champions move on to the NCAAs, then they have the possibility of at-larges.. doesn't seem like the EIWA runs by the same rules as the WWC.

[kardplayer]

So how does NCAA qualifying work in the EIWA? For the WWC, only tournament champions move on to the NCAAs, then they have the possibility of at-larges.. doesn't seem like the EIWA runs by the same rules as the WWC.

There's a complex formula taking into consideration how many wrestlers are ranked in the conference and some other items. Essentially, wrestlers earn autoqualifiers for their conference, and then the conference tournaments determine which wrestlers from the conference actually get the bids. There are then at larges that are used at a national level to fill out the brackets.

As a result, the EIWA typically gets anywhere from 3-6 wrestlers (out of 13 teams) per weight class in as automatics. Not sure why the WWC only gets one, but I would suspect that may fluctuate over time, with a minimum of one per class. The Big "12" - which is actually 5 teams - gets everyone in automatically I think (at least they used to)

Here's a link that explains how they ran it last year - I think its the same now.
http://www.themat.com/section.php?secti ... leID=19777" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ngineer]

The NCAA qualifiers are determined by a formula that is adjusted each year depending on how well your conference representatives do. This year the EIWA got 41 AQs--usually the top 4 in each class, with exceptions for 141 and 285 (only 3), but 5 at 133 and 6 at 197. It also depends on the strength of the records with a combination of the NWCA coaches' poll and an RPI index that tries to gauge the strength of individual records. A kid from the EIWA could have a 'modest' 16-10 record, but most of his losses could have come against others ranked in the top 15, plus a vew wins against some top 10 wrestlers (i.e. Kennedy). At the same time someone from another section of the country might be 24-4, but hasn't wrestled much top 20 talent; hence the need to schedule top 20 schools and get into some dual tourneys where the Top 20 will be.

Every year, after the NCAA dust settles from the tournament, the committee will meet and adjust the number of AQs, and this gets continually massaged as the year goes along and people see where the strong versus thin weight classes are.This year, the Big 10 has 57 AQs, the EIWA has the second largest # at 41; however the "Big 12" (really only the Big 5) gets about 27, which per capita is more than the EIWA which has 14 schools.

From the EIWA program of March 6: " On March 8, after all qualifying tournaments have been held, wrestlers in each weight class will receive an updated winning percentage and RPI. Wrestlers that meet or exceed ANY ONE of the following criteria will be labeled "Bronze Standard": .700 winning percentage; Top-33 RPI; Top 33 Coaches' ranking, one win against a wrestler receiving automatic qualification, or qualifying tournament placement one below automatic qualification."

The RPI is defined as :"winning percentage times opponents' winning percentage times opponents' opponents' winning percentage." In other words, get out your calculator...

[MrTitleist]

So in theory, since the WWC isn't considered a "strong" conference, they wouldn't get as many slots.. so to be competitive in the NCAA championships, a team (like Wyoming) would have to win 5-6 of their weight classes in the WWC tournament. I'm surprised the WWC/Pac10 haven't tried to merge, or even WWC/Big12, to start fighting w/ the OSUs and Iowa's of the world.

[kardplayer]

So in theory, since the WWC isn't considered a "strong" conference, they wouldn't get as many slots.. so to be competitive in the NCAA championships, a team (like Wyoming) would have to win 5-6 of their weight classes in the WWC tournament. I'm surprised the WWC/Pac10 haven't tried to merge, or even WWC/Big12, to start fighting w/ the OSUs and Iowa's of the world.

I haven't done all the math, but it seems that the champion (and others) typically are sending all 10 wrestlers. A few years ago when Lehigh finished in the top 5, they sent I think 8 (ngineer will know better than I).

[ngineer]

So in theory, since the WWC isn't considered a "strong" conference, they wouldn't get as many slots.. so to be competitive in the NCAA championships, a team (like Wyoming) would have to win 5-6 of their weight classes in the WWC tournament. I'm surprised the WWC/Pac10 haven't tried to merge, or even WWC/Big12, to start fighting w/ the OSUs and Iowa's of the world.

I haven't done all the math, but it seems that the champion (and others) typically are sending all 10 wrestlers. A few years ago, when Lehigh finished in the top 5, they sent I think 8 (ngineer will know better than I).

Generally, you are correct. The more you can send, the better shot at getting more team points. However, there have been many exceptions over the years. In 2004, Lehigh sent 8 and we finished 3rd. In 2007, we sent 7 and finished 38th. Conversely, in 1999, Lehigh sent only 3, but placed in the Top 20 at #19! All three men were All-Americans. In 1979, Lehigh sent only 5, but finished 3rd (with two NCAA Champions-Burley and Lieberman). The 1965 team sent 6 and finished 3rd, with two NCAA Champions and a second. The 'big boys' almost always send at least 8 and with at least half of them being seeded, stand a better than even chance of getting AA's and a lot of points. The EIWA, about 10 years ago was losing the # of qualifiers, but a major turnaround has occured with resurrgent Lehigh, Cornell, Penn, and Bucknell. Harvard has also periodically had some AA's and Rutgers has made a recent commitment shown by cracking the Top 25 this year, although their finish at EIWA was disappointing from expectations.