NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships pre-allocations released

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee has announced the pre-allocation spots for the 2022 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships as listed in the chart below.

Each qualifying tournament was awarded pre-allocations to the national tournament based on regular season performance by conference wrestlers through February 20. The pre-allocations are determined using a sliding scale of a .700 winning percentage, top 30 coaches’ rank and top 30 ratings percentage index (RPI) with a maximum of 29 pre-allocations per weight class.

For each wrestler that reached the threshold in at least two of the three categories, his conference tournament was awarded a qualifying spot in that weight class. Each conference was awarded a minimum of one automatic bid per weight class, which will go to the tournament champion, even if they did not have any wrestlers reach at least two of the three thresholds. NCAA championship spots for each qualifying event will be awarded at conference tournaments based solely on place-finish.

After all the conference tournaments have concluded, the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee will meet in-person to select the remaining 43 at-large qualifiers, which will be announced on March 8, while brackets and seeding will be announced on NCAA.com at 6 p.m. on March 9. All weight classes will consist of 33 wrestlers.

Conference	125	133	141	149	157	165	174	184	197	285	Total
Atlantic Coast Conference	3	5	4	4	5	3	4	5	3	3	39
Big 12 Conference	6	6	7	4	6	4	8	4	7	6	58
Big Ten Conference	10	10	7	7	7	7	8	12	11	9	88
EIWC	4	2	4	4	5	7	4	3	5	4	42
Mid-American Conference	1	1	3	5	2	3	2	2	1	2	22
Pacific-12 Conference	3	3	2	3	2	3	2	2	1	2	23
Southern Conference	2	2	1	2	1	2	1	1	1	2	15
Pre-Allocations	29	29	28	29	28	29	29	29	29	28	287
At-Large	4	4	5	4	5	4	4	4	4	5	43

The coaches’ rankings are determined by a vote of 14 coaches in each weight class with two head coaches from each of the seven conference. For ranking purposes, coaches may only consider a wrestler that has been designated as a starter at a respective weight class. Wrestlers must have five Division I matches in the weight class to be considered with at least one within the last 30 days.

The RPI is a calculation that consists of three factors: winning percentage, opponent winning percentage (strength of schedule) and opponent’s opponent winning percentage (opponent’s strength of schedule). Only matches against Division I opponents at the designated weight class count towards the RPI and a wrestler needs to have wrestled 15 matches to be ranked.

Updated Coaches Rankings and RPI Rankings

The NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee did determine it will not consider for championship selections, including conference pre-allocations, any results from extra matches that ended with injury defaults where the wrestlers did not wrestle.

The coaches’ ranking and RPI are two of several criteria that will be evaluated during the at-large selection and seeding process along with head-to-head competition, quality wins, conference tournament placement, results versus common opponents and win percentage.

In the coaches’ rank, 8-of-10 weights are topped by former national champions, led by the Penn State quartet of Roman Bravo-Young at 133 pounds, Nick Lee at 141 pounds, Carter Starocci at 174 pounds and Aaron Brooks at 184 pounds.

Two-time 141-pound national champion Yianni Diakomihalis of Cornell is back after winning titles in 2018 and 2019 and remains the top ranked wrestler by the coaches moving up to 149 pounds in 2022.

Other national champions leading their weight class according to the coaches are Michigan’s Nick Suriano at 125 pounds, Iowa State’s David Carr at 157 pounds and heavyweight Gable Steveson of Minnesota.

Evan Wick of Cal Poly at 165 pounds and Max Dean of Penn State at 197 pounds round out the top-ranked wrestlers by the coaches.

Diakomihalis and Dean are the only two wrestlers in the country to be No. 1 in the coaches’ rank and in the RPI.

Other top-ranked wrestlers in the RPI are Brandon Courtney of Arizona State (125 pounds), Lucas Byrd of Illinois (133), Dresden Simon of Central Michigan (141), Josh Humphreys of Lehigh (157), Peyton Hall of West Virginia (165), Dustin Plott of Oklahoma State (174), Parker Keckeisen of Northern Iowa (184) and Tony Cassioppi of Iowa (heavyweight).

A full description of the entire selection process for the 2022 Division I Wrestling Championships is available at ncaa.org.

The 2022 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships take place March 17-19 at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit as the event returns to Michigan for the first time since being held in Auburn Hills in 2007.