Toughest NCAA Division 1 Wrestling tournament of all-time

[Fadzaev2]

Looking at all 10 wt. classes, depth of field, 1-8, 1-6, top 4.  Thoughts on toughest Championship of all time.

[Jimmy Cinnabon]

2015

[nhs67]

Due to the extra Covid years and all this it has to be this, next, or last year right?  Maybe year before last?  22, 23, 24, 25 will be the deepest seasons.

[ionel]

1 hour ago, Fadzaev2 said:

Looking at all 10 wt. classes, depth of field, 1-8, 1-6, top 4.  Thoughts on toughest Championship of all time.

Do you mean which years have AAs finished in the top 8 in every weight class?  

BTW:  believe Wkn has a table on this but he may show up late today as he was up late last night celebrating yesterday's pinfall success. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by ionel

[nhs67]

1 hour ago, ionel said:

Do you mean which years have AAs finished in the top 8 in every weight class?  

BTW:  believe Wkn has a table on this but he may show up late today as he was up late last night celebrating yesterday's pinfall success. 

I thought it was officially called 'penfellered' now?

Please confirm @Maxwell Smart.

[nhs67]

I am so waiting for the table on this one.  Those are good shit.

[Gus]

When my dad and I were looking over NCAA brackets last year we were a bit struck at the depth in each weight class. Might be recency bias but there were a lot of hammers last year. 

[D3 for LU]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

Do you mean which years have AAs finished in the top 8 in every weight class?  

BTW:  believe Wkn has a table on this but he may show up late today as he was up late last night celebrating yesterday's pinfall success. 

Again...

D3

[Wrestleknownothing]

4 hours ago, ionel said:

Do you mean which years have AAs finished in the top 8 in every weight class?  

BTW:  believe Wkn has a table on this but he may show up late today as he was up late last night celebrating yesterday's pinfall success. 

 

1 hour ago, nhs67 said:

I am so waiting for the table on this one.  Those are good shit.

Sorry, gentlemen, but I am travelling unexpectedly without my laptop this week. If I can get something done Mon or Tues I will, but after that I will be gone for a week learning all there is to know about Nikola Tesla's resting place.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, D3 for LU said:

Again...

D3

You're welcome?

[nhs67]

1 minute ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

 

Sorry, gentlemen, but I am travelling unexpectedly without my laptop this week. If I can get something done Mon or Tues I will, but after that I will be gone for a week learning all there is to know about Nikola Tesla's resting place.

Bummer (for us).  Appreciate the time you took to even respond, then.

Safe travels, mate.

[ionel]

1 minute ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

 

Sorry, gentlemen, but I am travelling unexpectedly without my laptop this week. If I can get something done Mon or Tues I will, but after that I will be gone for a week learning all there is to know about Nikola Tesla's resting place.

If I overnight my sliderule can you have it by first thing Monday morning?  

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, nhs67 said:

Bummer (for us).  Appreciate the time you took to even respond, then.

Safe travels, mate.

Cooling heels in an airport waiting out the inevitable Friday evening delays. A welcome distraction.

[Fadzaev2]

On 9/8/2023 at 8:14 AM, Fadzaev2 said:

Looking at all 10 wt. classes, depth of field, 1-8, 1-6, top 4.  Thoughts on toughest Championship of all time.

 

On 9/8/2023 at 9:23 AM, ionel said:

Do you mean which years have AAs finished in the top 8 in every weight class?  

BTW:  believe Wkn has a table on this but he may show up late today as he was up late last night celebrating yesterday's pinfall success. 

I just mean which year had the toughest 10 wt. classes....some wt's. may be great 1-8, some may be great only 1-4....but the most great weight classes.

[Fadzaev2]

Here's a year, just for starters....

Edited September 9, 2023 by Fadzaev2

[Phantom]

Kevin Darkus was phenomenal.. an absolute wizard.  Great choice of year.  This field is amazing. 

[11986]

8 hours ago, Fadzaev2 said:

Here's a year, just for starters....

109 points gets you 3rd in team race? How many other times has 3rd place team gotten 100+?
 

[11986]

81-82 was my first wrestling season, so this bracket is special. Lots of the early heroes. 

[Fadzaev2]

9 hours ago, Fadzaev2 said:

Here's a year, just for starters....

A lot of World and Olympic Champions and Medalists here.

Edited September 9, 2023 by Fadzaev2

[11986]

11 minutes ago, Fadzaev2 said:

A lot of World and Olympic Champions and Medalists here.

I counted 14 different guys who won medals in freestyle at world championship and/or Olympics. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by 11986

[Fadzaev2]

 

13 minutes ago, 11986 said:

I counted 14 different guys who won medals in freestyle at world championship and/or Olympics. 

I count 15 different guys.....Davis, Darkus, Weaver, McFarland, Metzger, Carr, Monday, Martinez, D. Schultz, M. Schultz, Ed Banach, Jim Scherr, Bill Scherr, Baumgartner and Lou Banach.

 

[11986]

3 minutes ago, Fadzaev2 said:

 

I count 15 different guys.....Davis, Darkus, Weaver, McFarland, Metzger, Carr, Monday, Martinez, D. Schultz, M. Schultz, Ed Banach, Jim Scherr, Bill Scherr, Baumgartner and Lou Banach.

 

I only counted free - Martinez got a Greco medal though right?

[Fadzaev2]

3 hours ago, 11986 said:

I only counted free - Martinez got a Greco medal though right?

I figured that...... he has two bronze (a World and Olympic)....he counts...lol

Edited September 10, 2023 by Fadzaev2

[Wrestleknownothing]

I played around with a few ideas yesterday while trying to avoid watching my Chicago Bears.

My definition of toughest tournament probably does not match what @Fadzaev2 is looking for, but that is because my data also doesn't match his definition. Instead I decided to go with what I can say given the data I have. To that end, I dug up some of the things I had done a while back and gave them a light refresh.

When I was working on my definition of the eras in collegiate wrestling (some of you will recognize this from the old board) I settled on the idea of splitting the years into eras based on a combination of:

     1.) how much of the team race emphasis was placed on individual first place points,
     2.) the number of All-American places, and
     3.) the number of weight classes.

With that criteria I came up with this:

 

The other idea I had a while back was that the many changes in scoring over the years/eras makes if very difficult to compare first place scores, or the level of dominance of the first place team, from one era to another without making some sort of adjustment. For example, probably the most dominant team of the first era, E.C. Gallagher's 1935 Oklahoma State squad, scored a modest 36 points on their way to the title, though that was double what the runner-up scored. Meanwhile, Dan Gable's 1997 Iowa squad lapped the field with 170 points (only" 49.8% more than the runner-up).

Comparing those two scores straight up is meaningless given the scoring rule changes.

In an attempt account for the scoring rule changes (i.e. normalize the data) I came up with the idea of converting the total team score by dividing it by the maximum total points a team could have scored using the scoring rules at that time. If all 10 (or 7, or 8, or 11) wrestlers won all of their matches by pinfall, that would lead to a maximum team score. (I also attempted to account for the variable bracket sizes in this metric, here things may get slippery, but it also typically contributes the least to the total).

Dividing the actual team score by the maximum possible team score gives us the percentage of the maximum a team  scored. Using that metric 1997 Iowa, at 56.7% of max total points, still outpaces 1935 Oklahoma State, at 47.4% of max total points.

With this new metric one way to look at how "difficult" a bracket is would be to sort by the champs who won with the lowest % of max points.

The result is not very satisfactory. The top 10 "toughest" years by this measure are mostly in the 1930's and 1950's, with none more recent than 1974. And while that may be accurate and true, it just does not pass the sniff test. As wrestling grew it had to have gotten "tougher" to win, whatever that means.

So next I looked at all of the podium positions, rather than just the top of the heap. The idea here would be the opposite of above. High % of max points for second, third and fourth place teams would be an indication of toughness. But where do you draw the line and which place do you look at? There are no strictly correct choices, but perhaps some are better than others.

I finally landed on the idea of looking at the spread across the podium. At first I just looked at the difference between the % of max points for fourth place versus first place (Top 4 Spread below). Fine, but still not really scratching my itch.

I finally, settled on the standard deviation of these four measures (I know, I know, just four, but whadda ya gonna do?)

Of course, this measure satisfies me the most because it has years years from each of the four eras I identified above. I mean, who doesn't love a little self-congratulatory, self-referential, ego-boosting confirmation of prior ideas?

NOTE ON SCORING RECORD

While Iowa's 1997 total of 170 points is recognized as the scoring record, I have my doubts.

Based on % of max points it is only the sixth best total. I am not sure if it matters given that the five above it are also Dan Gable coached Iowa teams.

The reason 1997 does not rank at the top of the % of max points is because in 1995 bonus points for a pinfall were increased from 1 to 2 points. This significantly impacts my max points estimate. The other bonus point categories also saw major overhauls. I have not rescored any of the top 5 years using 1997 bonus point rules. Perhaps someone would be interested in doing that.

Hint. Hint.

[Wrestleknownothing]

Just found this old one using % max points through time: