By Jason Bryant, W.I.N. Columnist

On some conference seeding meetings, head to head means just about everything. In others, it’s about your entire body of work. Yet, there’s also the complications that arise when Wrestler A beats Wrestler B and Wrestler C beats Wrestler A.

It makes everything a big, fat, stinking mess. Coaches will jockey for position, play politics, try to point out each little transitive and distributive property-based argument they can think of to get that better seed.

It’s human nature, a code of the coach, if you will. The coach is going to make sure his athlete’s best interest is in mind with the objective of winning.

But what happens when there’s a situation that disrupts the entire balance of the seeding process. A situation that’s somewhat cataclysmic to one group of wrestlers and a relief to another.

That situation occurred in Las Vegas at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational and it had to do with skin checks. The NCAA Wrestling Committee notified participants of the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Wrestling Invitational, held Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, that results will not be considered for seeding and NCAA Championships-selection purposes because the tournament did not conduct required medical examinations.

According to the NCAA Wrestling Committee:

“Members cited Rule 3.9.1 in the 2007-08 NCAA Wrestling Rules and Interpretations, which states that ‘A physician or a certified athletic trainer shall examine all contestants for communicable skin diseases before all tournaments and meets.’ Rule 3.9.3 also requires the medical checks to be conducted on each day at the site.”
— NCAA News, 1/23/2008

Monitoring skin checks is potentially one of the most overlooked requirements that are part of any wrestling tournament. Perhaps the fever of getting one of the nation’s biggest tournaments up and running had folks ready to hit the mats. Everyone’s sure it wasn’t intentional. Regardless of what the reason might have been, the CKLV results were essentially washed away on Jan. 23.

So now what? The various rankings outlets had already done seven sets of weekly rankings since Las Vegas, each based on the previous week’s ranking and the results that followed. If the national media outlets that compile college rankings had to go back and throw out Las Vegas, it would have been a logistical nightmare trying to re-create the week-by-week process that each particular outlet has.

But what happens now is the NCAA Division I Seeding Committee had to rifle through 330 individual season record forms. What would most notably be missing were any and all results from Las Vegas, where many of this year’s NCAA participants also competed.

Sure, the matches “still count” in terms of wins and losses for record-keeping purposes, according to Mark Bedics of the NCAA, but they can’t be used for NCAA seeding.

So what’s going to be the issue in case of seedings come the NCAAs? Let’s see exactly what the Vegas decision wiped away.

125 Pounds: Penn’s Rollie Peterkin had two wins over Hofstra’s Dave Tomasette stricken from the record. Tomasette beat Peterkin later on in a dual meet, but that’s two good wins that will have a detrimental effect on Peterkin’s potential seed at the NCAAs. Brandon Zoetewey and Anthony Robles both beat Old Dominon’s James Nicholson in Vegas, then Robles’ loss to Joey Boone of Navy was also thrown out. Peterkin again lost out with his win over Illinois’ Gabe Flores.

133 pounds: Wisconsin’s Zach Tanelli can breathe a sigh of relief as his loss to UNC Greensboro’s Jeff Hedges was tossed, as was the loss to Lou Ruggirello, the Hofstra sophomore, who got an ugly defeat by Filip Novachkov of Cal Poly washed away as well as an overtime fall against Ohio State’s Reece Humphrey nixed. Kenny Jordan of Nebraska found his championship in Vegas pretty much a wash, since wins over Kyle Hutter, Rick Rappo, Novachkov, Humphrey and T.J. Dillashaw account for basically nothing. Jimmy Kennedy’s upset loss to Raymond Dunning of Division II Adams State? Adios.

141 pounds: This is the tournament that vaulted Michigan freshman Kellen Russell after beating three All-Americans: Drew Headlee of Pitt, Charles Griffin of Hofstra and J Jaggers of Ohio State. All them are now gone. Wisconsin’s Kyle Ruschell and Jaggers split, but Jaggers got the fall in Vegas. Now, it’s 1-0 in favor of Ruschell, who earned a decision in Columbus. N.C. State’s Joe Caramanica got the loss to Oregon State’s Heinrich Barnes off his resume, but also lost his win over Ruschell.

149 pounds: Darrion Caldwell has to be hating this. The N.C. State sophomore will not get credit for victories over Cesar Grajales of Penn, Josh Churella of Michigan, and J.P. O’Connor of Harvard. O’Connor loses a win over Palmer, who loses a win over Nebraska’s Jordan Burroughs. He also loses a loss, while Churella has another loss — to Burroughs — zapped.

157 pounds: Gregor Gillespie’s loss to Mike Poeta said sayanara, as did Poeta’s win over Craig Henning of Wisconsin. Michael Chandler lost a win from Stanford’s Josh Zupancic and two losses from Boise State’s Tyler Sherfey, which really could come into play with one of the two potentially a No. 12 seed.

165 pounds: Michigan’s Eric Tannenbaum lost his head-to-head with Missouri’s Nick Marable, while Jarrod King of Edinboro lost his head-to-head over Pat Pitsch of Arizona State. Pitsch lost his win over Keegan Mueller of North Carolina, who in turn, lost his victory over King. Pitsch’s win over Stephen Dwyer of Nebraska went away, as did Dwyer’s win over King.

174 pounds: Top-ranked Keith Gavin of Pitt lost his tie-breaker win over Michigan’s Steve Luke, but the Wolverine lost his triumph over Matt Stolpinski of Navy. Brandon Browne of Nebraska benefitted by losing his loss to John Dergo, but also lost a win over Stolpinski. Phil Moricone of Edinboro gets no love for finishing fourth, including a win over Dergo.

184 pounds: Michigan’s Tyrel Todd’s overtime fall over Buckey Mike Pucillo went away, giving the Pucillo a 1-0 season advantage, rather than a 1-1 split. Raymond Jordan’s loss to Pucillo vanished, as did Vince Jones’ fall over NC State’s Ryan Goodman and Jones’ loss against now-injured Louis Caputo. Doug Umbehauer’s wins over Badger Trevor Brandvold and Caputo are wiped away, as is Lior Zamir’s win over Ian Murphy.

197 pounds: Max Askren benefits here, as the Missouri sophomore sheds his loss by fall to Wisconsin’s Dallas Herbst, who also lost a pin against Jared Villers of West Virginia. Daren Burns’ first-round upset loss to Michigan’s Anthony Biondo disappeared, but the UNC Greensboro senior lost out on wins over Logan Brown of Purdue, Biondo again, Patrick Bond of Illinois and Villers. Bond’s loss to Askren dropped as well.

HWT: Ohio State’s J.D. Bergman’s win over Cal State-Fullerton’s Wade Sauer would have mattered, but Sauer’s injury preventing him from wrestling in the Pac-10s made any significant win for him irrelevant. Ed Prendergast of Navy got rid of his Sauer loss and his loss to Missouri’s Mark Ellis.

The ruling blew away Wisconsin’s Kyle Massey’s loss to Tervel Dlagnev of Division II Nebraska-Kearney and Boise’s Nick Smith lost his win over Pittsburgh’s Zach Sheaffer. Oregon State’s Travis Gardner rid himself of an ugly tournament, suffering losses to Mark Ellis (whom he later beat) and John Wise of Illinois.

Personally, I’m ethically torn in this situation. On one side, this sport is and has always been about the combatants, not the politics. On the other, there’s the safety of the wrestlers. And while MRSA and other staph-like infections have plagued the sport and have caused death around the country and the world, the “what-if scenario” exists.

What if Johnny All-American wrestler got staph or had it prior to wrestling and it was somehow transmitted to Jerry Benchwarmer who ended up hospitalized or worse? Yes, it’s an extreme scenario and playing that slippery slope isn’t the best way to prove or disprove a point, but the extreme scenario can occur, and at what risk?

In the end, I’m not sure how many, or even if any, wrestlers came away from the CKLV with any variety of “the funk,” but that’s the reassuring part. Thankfully.

In reality, the argument over what counts and what doesn’t count as it relates to this event can have one of two extremes. Why punish the kids by taking away their matches … or why punish the kids by allowing them to miss a skin check and subject them to harmful bacteria and infection?

Fans will argue over the validity of the Las Vegas statistics. At least somebody didn’t become one.

(Jason Bryant is the lead writer/webmaster for InterMat and the 2007 W.I.N. Magazine Wrestling Journalist of the Year. The views expressed in his column are not necessarily the views of W.I.N. Magazine or Bryant’s parent company, the National Wrestling Coaches Association. He can be reached at jbryant@intermatwrestle.com )