With all the talk of freshman studs possibly winning this year I thought I would take a look at the history of freshman at the NCAA tournament. But before we do that let’s look at this year’s crop of young guns.

Young Guns, Big Expectations

What exactly are the expectations for this year’s freshmen based on the latest rankings? There are fourteen freshman ranked among the top six at their respective weight. As mentioned, 133 leads the way with four, followed by three each at 149 and 157.

At the individual level their chances looks like this (filtered to top 6 ranks):

As a group the expectation is for 1.3 titlists:

That 1.3 expected champs breaks down as follows:

Based on that distribution zero to two is pretty likely with a shot at three. Where does it stand historically?

The Freshmen Eligible Era

Beginning with the 1969 season freshmen have been continuously eligible. While the tournament tends to be dominated by grizzled veterans the apple-cheeked kids have had their occasional moment in the sun.

So the bar is set at two. Three freshmen champions from this class will set it apart from all the rest. And we already know there is about a 1 in 10 chance of that happening with this crop.

But Wait There’s More

It turns out I played a little fast and loose with the definition of “freshmen eligible era”, as that term should be pluralized.

After WW2 there was a short period of time where freshmen were eligible. I have had a hard time confirming the exact years but I believe it started in 1946 and either ended in 1949 or 1950.

Since the original logic for not allowing freshmen to be eligible centered on their need to adjust to the rigors of academic life, I imagine this temporary change was made to reflect the fact that men returning from war were not going to be cowed by combining school with sport.

For three years (1943, 1944, 1945) no tournament was held due to the war. For a number of reasons, the 1946 tournament was sparsely attended, including that it was only decided six weeks prior to even hold the tournament. From a pre-war high of 131 wrestlers in 1935, attendance was down to 54 that year.

By 1947 things were returning to normal with 100 total participants. That was also the year things got very abnormal. In 1947 there were a whopping five freshman champions. And lest you think this was a case of old men disguised as freshmen picking on young men, only two of the five were returning GI’s.

With only eight weights in 1947 62.5% were won by freshmen.

Can seven 2026 freshmen take the titles and the title from this vaunted 1947 crew? We already know the chances are 0.000175% or about 1 in 6 million.

And we also already know what Lloyd Christmas has to say about that.