The 'Qualifier' Question
Some schools want NCAA to install regional tourneys
Flawed might be the only word that accurately describes the qualifying procedures for the NCAA wrestling tournament. The current arrangement is a bit like playing a high-stakes poker game amongst friends. Each conference is playing against other conferences to get the most qualifiers possible with powerhouse conferences claiming the majority of the chips.
There are currently 11 qualifying tournaments and each conference is given a certain amount of qualifiers based on performance at previous NCAA tournaments. In order to get more chips to play with, the wrestlers from each conference must collectively perform well at the NCAA tournament to get a bigger share of the pot. The current pot sits at meager 330 qualifiers.
Conferences like the Big 10 and Big 12 have consistently proven that they deserve the high number of qualifiers they send to the NCAA tournament each year. Since 2000, 83 percent of the schools represented in the top ten have come from these two conferences alone. Still — because of the high level of competition — these two conferences often leave several high-quality wrestlers at home.
“What some people lose sight of is that this is the national tournament,” said Jack Spates. “At the national tournament, the best people are supposed to be competing. I wouldn’t argue against representation because in a lot of sports you do have representation like in your weaker conferences the champion will go.
“I think the (qualification) system we have right now is just out of hand. We’re the only sport with a cap regardless of the strength of the conference. We’ve had kids consistently be ranked top seven, top eight in the nation and they may have four All-Americans ahead of them in the conference and they don’t go. There’s no excuse for that.
“I’ve had people ask me how many do you want. My philosophical question is if all 50 wrestlers in the Big 12 are ranked in the top five, should not all 50 wrestlers go? The answer is yes. Or if it was in the Big 10, I don’t care what conference. In any other sport people at that level virtually (always) go.”
But there is a mistaken notion that parity currently exists in college wrestling. Only three different conferences have been represented in the top ten during five of the past six seasons and the other year there were four. However, from 1986 through 1999, there were only two occasions where only three conferences were represented in the top ten and on seven occasions there were five or more conferences amongst the top ten.
Under the current qualification system there is little hope for a team — let alone multiple teams — from a conference like the CAA or ACC to place high at the NCAA tournament because they have so few qualifiers. Part of this is due to recent poor performances at the NCAA tournament. But a larger part is the lack of opportunity they have been given. How can the ACC be expected to dethrone the mighty Big 10 and Big 12 and move up the ladder with only 14 qualifiers?
Presently, five of the six schools in the ACC are fully funded and coaches like Pat Santoro at Maryland and Tom Brands at Virginia Tech are unabashed in their desire to win an NCAA team title. But the prospects of doing so from this conference are daunting. Essentially, one of the six schools in the ACC has to make a clean sweep of nearly all of the available qualification spots to have a chance at a trophy.
So the fundamental question regarding the current qualification procedures for wrestling is this: How do you provide the traditionally weaker conferences a better opportunity to earn more qualifiers and place high at the NCAA tournament while giving the Big 10 and Big 12 the additional qualifying spots they deserve?
Several ACC administrators feel they might have an equitable solution.
Their idea hinges on switching qualification procedures from a conference format to a regional one. A rough outline of the plan entails splitting the 88 Division I schools that carry wrestling into four separate regions. Each region would be determined on a yearly basis so that top teams won’t be lumped together. This places an emphasis on how well a team performs during the year instead of what happened at previous NCAA tournaments.
Each region might send the top six wrestlers from each weight class to the national tournament. This accounts for 240 of the 330 available spots. An additional 90 wildcards would be selected from all the teams’ wrestlers so that high-quality participants who performed well throughout the year still have a chance to participate. This allows every team an opportunity to earn their way to the NCAAs while giving the Big 10 and Big 12 an enhanced opportunity to take more wrestlers to the NCAA tournament.
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