As mentioned previously there is a lot of focus this year on the 133 bracket. And for good reason. There are a lot of experienced inexperienced wrestlers in that bracket to go along with the exceedingly experience (seven years anyone?). It will be very hard to seed this bracket. Every partisan will feel duty bound to disagree with what the seeding committee decides. And this bracket, this year seems like a perfect formula for upsets – which will re-enforce every opinion that the committee got it wrong.

In my limited inspection of seeds I get the sense that they do a very good job. But, I also like to think of the seeding process as second cousin to my expected points/AA’s/Finalists/Champions statistics – every one of them are wrong, but they are right on average.

This post is not meant to be a defense of the committee, though. Instead I want to explore and celebrate chaos.

Upsets, Upsets Everywhere But Not a Drop To Drink

With 25 upsets among its 64 matches the 149lb bracket in 2021 had a whopping 39% upsets. And in spite of that being the most upsets in the 33 seed era, we wound up with a #1 vs #2 final which, of course, ended in an upset when Austin O’Connor (UNC) won a 3-2 decision over Sammy Sasso (OhSt).

That was one of three upsets in the placement matches. In the third place match #25 Yahya Thomas (NW) said “yes, yes” to taking down #4 Boo “I Aint Scared” Lewallen (OkSt). And in the mildest of upsets #8 Jaden Abas (Stan) snuck past #7 Jonathan Milner (AppSt). Only #3 Brock Mauller (Mizz) was able to avoid the upset to #17 Kyle Parco (Fresno) [How did he get here? Oh, yeah.] in the fifth place match.

But the craziness was not contained to the placement matches alone. The non-placement consolation matches had more upsets than “chalk” results. Of the twenty-nine non-placement consolation matches fifteen (51.7%) were upsets.

As you might suspect, Yahya Thomas was also the leader in damage done. All six of his wins in the tournament were upsets. As the #25 he took out #8 and #9 on the front side before losing to #1. Then he did the deed to #13, #8 (again? that had to hurt), #3, and #4 to finish one of the all-time great hot streaks at the NCAA tournament.

Other notables in that bracket were Kyle Parco with four upset wins (#16, #9, #6, #7) and #27 Josh Finesilver with three upset wins (#25, #5, #20).

You’re Busted

Just because there are upsets doesn’t mean the bracket is busted. In the example above there was a lot of chaos along the way, but ultimately six of the top eight seeds finished among the top eight. That does not feel like a busted bracket.

To my way of thinking a completely busted bracket would have none of the top eight seeds standing on the podium Saturday night. And the royal flush of busted brackets would have all of the top eight seeds going 0-2 BBQ. While no bracket has ever been completely busted there have been eight occasions where five of the top eight seeds failed to make All-American.

These are our candidates for the most busted bracket of all-time:

While they each have only three of the top eight seeds finishing in the top eight, the first thing that jumps out to me is that five of them have the #1 seed winning the bracket. That seems too on the nose. So, let’s eliminate them from consideration.

Each of the remaining three still has a #1 seed somewhere on the podium, but something stands out about one of them. In 2005 the top three spots at 197 were occupied by the #2, #5, and #1 seeds. Meanwhile in 1981 the 190 bracket and in 2016 the 174 bracket have only two top eight seeds in the top three spots. For that reason, and by a thin margin, we will drop 2005 197 from consideration.

And then there were two.

With just two brackets remaining we have to dig deeper to determine a champion. This match is going to tie breakers. In the first tie breaker we will look at just how badly the top eight performed as a group. To do this we will look at the difference between their placement and their seed, in aggregate.

A note on method: For a wrestler who finished outside of the top eight, the mid-point of the range they finished in is their final position. In the blood round (9th-12th) that is 10.5, in the consolation round of 16 (13th – 16th) that is 14.5, and so on.

Without further ado we give you the winner…

Wait. What? Crap, it’s still a tie. Looks like we are going to the infamous, old school referee’s decision to break this tie.

Well, this ref has decided to call it for the 174 lb’ers of 2016. Like any bad TV mystery I have withheld information that you need to solve the puzzle. In 1981 not everyone qualified for the consolation bracket. Back then only wrestlers defeated by a semi-finalist qualified for the consolations. That meant that two of our defeated wrestlers went 0-1 and were never heard from again. And one went 1-1 on the front side, but still failed to make the consolation bracket.

For all three of these wrestlers I assumed the worst, that they would have also lost their next match in the consolation bracket had they been allowed. Of course, the odds of all three losing are not that high (I mean a little high given they already lost, but not THAT high). Let’s say one of them had won one more time. If so, then we are looking at a total deviation of less than -70.

So, on a probablistic basis (you know I love that) I grant the title of Most Busted Bracket of All Time to our 2016 174 lb group of 33. The judge’s decision is final.

The 2016 174lb bracket that was so busted:

As always you can email me at: wrestleknownothing@gmail.com
Or catch the occasional musing on Bluesky: wrestleknownothing.bsky.social