NCAA announces “pre” weight allocations for 2022 Nationals

Photo: Little Caesars Arena in Detroit will play host to the 2022 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, March 17-19, two weeks after most of the 330-wrestler field will be determined. The final 43 at-large spots will be announced March 8.

From the NCAA

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.

2022DIWR_RPI_Feb24

2022DIWR_CoachRank_Feb24

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.

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.