NCAA Field Expanded to 180

1. They should have changed it to top 4 wrestlers qualify at each weight. The Iowa conference alone can have 3-4 All Americans from each weight. How does this compare to the setup with DII and their regional qualifier?

2. DII has 4 Super Regionals, with the top 4 wrestlers from each weight class qualifying for nationals.

   Eliminating the politics from Wildcards should be an improvement for DIII.

3. Not quite, Ryan P. Iowa Conference had 16 All-Americans in 2012, a far cry from 3-4 per weight.

4. I think this makes the qualifiers more equitable and fair across the board. It eliminates an easy path to nationals for some. I don’t see a slouch Regional in the works.

5. Each region should have the same number of teams ….this is clearly an effort by swenson (former augsburg coach) to ensure the west teams continue to bring more to nationals. the east regions are getting the short end of the stick and should not accept anything less than fairness across the board. Way to take a chance to improve our great sport and contort it to your advantage. I urge all east coaches to fight these line ups tooth and nail or we will only continue to see more programs lost.

6. Agreed! Each region should deffinately have at least close to the same number of teams…lets do the right thing here!

7. Andy,

   Don;t forget about Mt. Saint Vincent being added at the East.

   I agree, the numbers of teams should be a lot closer then they are. East/Northeast have 18 teams compared to 11 in Central and 12 in the other west regionals.
   I’m seeing a lot more quality PA/NY kids deciding to go D3. The tides are changing.

8. it is based off the number of all-americans so each qualifier has equal strength. To say there needs to be equal number of teams would be fine, but some of the worse east coast schools would have to come and travel west. The right thing is to have equal strength, that way the best wrestlers make it to nationals.

9. it is based off the number of all-americans so each qualifier has equal strength. To say there needs to be equal number of teams woul

10. Divide the teams up like you have, separating traditionally strong programs, but goodness sake, make the numbers even. Anything else is manipulation.

11. I thought the whole idea was to get away from historical data! This system would defeat that purpose would it not. Moreover, the empire conference had held one of the highest (if not the highest ) percentages of all americans in the last four years.

12. Bob, I think I agree with you that the proposal as presented has some major flaws. I do think, however, there needs to be some reasonable way to divide it up based on strength of program. There probably HAS to be some kind of formula involving historical results. The major beef I have is that you are going to have regional tournaments with 18 man brackets and some with 11 man brackets. Any way you slice that, it’s wrong. This proposal reeks of some people intent on getting ‘their guys’ to nationals. How else can you explain some of the regions with half the number of competitors?

13. I’ll take the 4th place finishers from the west or central region to shutout the 4th place finishers from the East, Northeast, or Middleeast in a dual format. Equal number of teams without major traveling is impossible. If east coast teams have a problem with this format then do better at nationals and you would deserve more qualifiers. The tides are not changing, 1.Wartburg 2.Augsburg 3.Coe 4.Lacrosse does not seem like much of a shift to me.

14. The Central is basically the Iowa Conference which will be by far the toughest and now they are adding Augustana and Knox who are getting the short end of this. That conference had 16 All-Americans out of a possible of around 30 which is better than 50% of them placed. A lot of good wrestlers will not be able to advance with this talent.

15. If travel is a major factor, then Augsburg and Wartburg ought to be in the same region, right?

16. A few points worth making:

    IIAC had 16 AA (out of 32 qualifiers), continuing a downward trend of 20 (2009), 19 (2010), 17 (2011), 16 (2012). The conference is not what it once was, outside of the top two, and Coe graduated 4 out of 6 All-Americans. Calling the Central region “by far the toughest” shows a lack of understanding of the current structure of DIII wrestling.

    In the West region, there are zero weight classes with more than three returning wrestlers who appeared in the final d3wrestle.com top 26 rankings. This is not true of any other region.

    The Midwest region appears to be the toughest. It will be very difficult for a single team to qualify a large number of athletes through that region, as there is a very high percentage of very good teams.

17. Im pretty sure the empire conference had 10 out of 16 all americans this year with even an altenate all-american to speak of. Thats a rate of 62.5% if my math is correct. Take all of the political manipulation out of this system by making things TRULY FAIR across the board. Our wrestlers deserve nothing less.

18. Andy,
    What can we do to make sure our opinions are voiced in this matter…Who can we contact…Unless we want to again deal with several years of a lop-sided qualifying system, We need to take a stand now! I simply refuse to beleive that more coaches aren’t up in arms over this!

19. Amen, “what to do?”. To place half the number of teams in a regional tournament as there are in another is flat out stacking the deck. If you are dividing up the entire Div. III wrestling inventory, you MUST do it evenly by numbers too. How on earth can anyone look you straight in the eye and say it’s fair to have 11 in one region and 18 in another? Let’s not be played for fools here.

20. I think having the regional is a great idea! More qualifiers the better! However, the way that they are lopsided has to change.
    I agree with AV, the midwest region seems to be the toughest all around “in the West”
    The East seems to be loaded also.
    We talked about this at the last D3 convention. In order for other teams to join a smaller regional in the West means they would have to have the budget to travel to compete against those teams.

21. Split the regionals to where each one has the same amount of teams! The reason they have it so lop-sided currently is because Wartburg and Augsburg don’t want to share the national title with anyone. I’m not saying they are not legit programs but c’mon…if the path to nationals is easier, of course you will bring more to the show. 11 vs 18…gimme a freakin break and coaches get your heads out of your butts and take a firm stand against this! Too many awesome wrestlers in the east are being left home and this will continue to happen unless east coaches band together and grow a set! I guess fairness doesn’t matter that much in a sport fighting for survival. Any wrestler who was the victim of a dropped program could always trace it back to greedy and sellfish administrators. This will be what they will be saying about anyone supporting this debacle! Enough is enough!

22. I totally agree that the Midwest is the toughest top to bottom. There are 4 Top 10 teams from this past NCAA Championships in there along with Olivet who was ranked top 10 most of the season and several other solid teams. I think Swenson was definitely looking out for Augsburg and the other Minnesota schools with the way the West is set up. They will dominate that region. He has pretty much assured Augsburg getting 8-10 qualifiers every year out of that group. It does not seem like it was split up evenly as far as geography goes when you look at the West and Midwest. Some of the WI schools in the West are closer to the Midwest schools than some of the other WI that are actually in the Midwest region. Definitely looks like that was all done with a purpose as the Minnesota schools will have a much easier time getting a large number out, while the Midwest is going to be a bear to get out of.

23. Who is on the committee deciding this? We need to reach them before a lop-sided alignment gets so far along that it can’t be changed. The regional tournament concept is OK, but it has to be fair. If the powers-that-be are reading this, you guys had better think twice about what you are thinking about doing. When you start manipulating the system, you risk losing programs. No AAs and less chance of winning and being successful could weaken programs. Can we really afford that?

24. Seriously, who divided up the Wisconsin conference for these regions? The two strongest programs are in the Midwest and the two weakest are in the west and the other two are split–and it’s not even vaguely along geographic boundaries!Talk about rigging the system-the west has only Augsburg to dominate==shouldn’t Lacrosse be in that same regional?

25. I also agree with the easterners that the current divisions are unfair. At least make the regionals close in size.

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27. Why not let teams choose their own region each year?

    Presumably, the best teams would split up, and no conference would ever get too loaded. This approach would avoid most of the fairness issues raised on this thread.

28. AV, you make it sound like 16 out of 32 All-Americans is a big downward trend for the Iowa Conference. That is still pretty amazing when you think many that finished 4th or lower did not even make it to the dance. At 125 lbs. alone, prior to the conference tournament, they had 5-6 of the guys ranked in the top ten. 6 of their 16 All Americans made the finals. Wartburg does tip the scales the way they have completely dominated the entire Division III the last three years. You are basically fighting for 2nd place. My point was that Augustana got the short end of the stick here.

29. Just a shame more West Coast teams won’t add wrestling, so we can actually have a true West region instead of a Midwest region + Pacific.

30. Many of the above comments along with numerous other comments related to this general topic use the assumption that equality is determined by giving equal weight to every individual. This assumption thus minimizes the factors such as talent, skill, past performance, etc. which are closely linked to the potential one has to place/win at the National Tournament (best level). The old system may have put too much emphasis on past years results in it’s attempt to fairly distribute qualifying spots but be very careful arguing that “fairness” simply means an even number of teams in each qualifier. That mindset can turn into a very slippery slope.

31. That ‘Midwest’ region has gotta go! Way to many top ten teams crammed into that. Make Augsburg face some real competition…

32. If you ask me, it’s already on the slippery slope. I think it stinks of favoritism.

33. Calling them regions is very misleading. They should really just be called pools, because that is exactly what they are.

34. “Make Augsburg face some real competition…” There’s a reason the Great Lakes Regional and IIAC have had the most qualifiers in the last 10 years. Because they have produced the most All-Americans. Two years ago, Augsburg had the toughest regional and only sent 5 wrestlers to national and still got second in the nation. Putting Wartburg, Augsburg, or Lacrosse in an unfairly loaded regional isn’t going to stop them from being the best teams in the nation, it’s only going to qualify guys that don’t deserve to be in the tournament in other regionals that don’y have as many quality wrestlers.

35. But unfairly loading the Midwest and making the West so easy is not right either. I have no problem with them sending LaCrosse to the Midwest because they want to keep them and Augsburg out of the same regional because of power. That I understand, but there is no reason that Whitewater and Stevens Point needed to go to the Midwest with them. Concordia and MSOE are closer to the schools from that region and they should have been the ones to head to the Midwest, instead of loading that region up. LaCrosse, Elmhurst, Olivet, North Central, Wabash in one region and Augsburg, St.Johns, Whitewater, Concordia-MN, Stevens Pt in the other seems much more balanced than the way it ended up.

36. Let Williams, Case, John Hopkins, NYU and Trinity travel to the Central region. They are all large rich schools who can afford to travel. They will not do so, because they want to be in weaker divisions to jave more qualifiers. The problem of higher rated teams in the west is not limited to wrestlinh, in most d 3 sports weak east coast teams benefit ftom the regional system. Without the regional system williams could not win the leaderfield cup.

37. One possible solution is to consider 8 regionals of 11 teams each with the top 4 from each weight class. This would provide a true 32 man bracket in the nationals and a better, wider reach to provide the opportunity to prove who is the best individual wrestler from each weight class. Just a thought.

38. I think the only way to make this fair is to have a 7th regional called ATLANTIC.
    this regional would take teams away from the EAST, NORTHEAST and MIDEAST regionals thereby evening out the teams. So you have 21 wrestlers at Nationals. so the latter 3 regionals are split among 4 regionals to even it out. I think that would be fair. Or top 4 from just 3 east regionals is fair as well.

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