By Nathaniel Maund
Okay everybody, the NCAA qualifier allocations were announced. The release packs a ton of information into one page, so if you’re interested in MAC wrestling, you’ll probably want to check it out.
All the rankings, both official and unofficial, all come down to this. As of now it doesn’t matter where any wrestler was ranked on Intermat or Wrestling Report or any other site. It doesn’t even matter where they fell in the NCAA Division I Wrestling Coaches Panel Rankings, the official poll of the NCAA throughout the season. The whole point of those polls was to figure out how many bids to the national tournament each conference tournament should receive at each weight. And now that the qualifier allocations have been announced, along with the final coaches panel rankings and RPI, we know the lowest place each wrestler can finish in the MAC Championships and still receive an automatic bid to the national tournament.
First, let’s break down the final coaches panel rankings. Among Ohio’s best three wrestlers (Germane Lindsey, Erik Schuth and Nick Purdue) there aren’t any surprises. G is 20th at 141. Schuth and Purdue were both 18th at 197 and 174. The surprise is that Gabe Ramos was ranked at 125 pounds, albeit barely (32nd out of 33 wrestlers). Also, fun fact of the day: Jeremy Johnson is the only ranked Jeremy in the poll. And he’s ranked 22nd, ahead of the MAC heavyweight he just beat, Eastern Michigan’s David Wade.
Onto the bids. As you can see, the amount of bids that the MAC was allotted (18) pales in comparison to conferences like, say, the Big Ten, which received far more bids than any other conference (64). The noteworthy weights are as follows:
125 pounds – 1 bid. This will make it difficult for redshirt sophomore Gabe Ramos to get in the tournament. One bid means he has to win the MAC title in order to go to Nationals. If he doesn’t win the tourney, maybe he’ll have garnered enough attention to earn an at-large bid from the NCAA, but maybe not. The MAC wrestler who earned the bid for the MAC, Nicholas Bedelyon of Kent State, pinned Ramos a couple weeks ago. So unless Ramos learned enough from that match to beat Bedelyon, he’ll have to hope for an extra bid.
141 pounds – 1 bid. As usual, G (Lindsey) is stuck in a weak weight division. Of course, as an All-American, there’s no reason to think G won’t win the MAC title. But considering that last year he was knocked out in the second round by a wrestler from Northern Illinois, it’s not a guarantee. G would probably earn an at-large bid, like last year, if he didn’t win the title. But it’s better not to take that chance.
174 pounds – 2 bids. Though there are three MAC wrestlers ranked at 174, it appears that Purdue and Ben Bennett accounted for the conference’s two bids. For those who haven’t been paying attention to Ohio wrestling, Purdue upset CMU’s Ben Bennett, a former All-American and the No. 5 174-pounder in the country, for a pin that gave Ohio a stunning victory over the Chippewas’ and later a share of the regular-season MAC title. As long as Purdue gets to the finals, he’ll make the national tournament.
197 pounds – 2 bids. Same situation as 174. There are three MAC wrestlers ranked at 197, but only two, Schuth and Kent State’s Dustin Kilgore, are in the top-25. Kilgore is Schuth’s biggest obstacle to a second consecutive MAC title. He didn’t have to go by him last season because Kilgore was at 184, so this year Schuth will have a real challenge. Schuth lost to Kilgore when Ohio wrestled Kent State. But even if Schuth loses to Kilgore in the finals, he’ll still make Nationals.
285 pounds - 4 bids. This is one of the most stacked weights in the conference. CMU’s Jarod Trice is one of the best heavyweights in the nation (currently No. 2 on Intermat). Next is Kent State’s Brandon Barlow, then Johnson. The fourth wrestler to earn a bid was Wade. So as long as Johnson finishes fourth or better, and it looks like he’ll finish at least third, he’ll be in Philadelphia at the end of March.
