Final notes from the NCAA wrestling competiton

With all Penn wrestlers eliminated from the tournament, I won’t be providing any bout summaries for the finals. However here are some interesting stats from the tournament surrounding the Penn team.

First, I’d like to provide an analysis of Penn’s record vs. the various conferences. Of the 74 teams here, Penn has faced wrestlers from a total of 19 teams. These teams, with Penn's results against them: Duquense (W), Northwestern (L),

Ohio St (W

), North Dakota State (W), Old Dominion (L), Michigan (L), Ohio (L), Nebraska (0-2), Stanford (W), Central Michigan (L), Oklahoma. St (1-2), American (L), Illinois (1-2), Pittsburgh (W), Minnesota (L), Iowa St. (L), Liberty (W), Virginia (L) and Army (L).

These 19 teams represent eight conferences, plus three (ND St., Liberty and Duquense) are independent. Penn's record by conference: Big 10: 2-5, Big 12: 1-5, Pac-10: 1-0, EIWA: 0-2, Indepenents: 3-0, CAA: 0-1, MAC: 0-2, EWL: 1-0, ACC: 0-1.

So overall, Quaker wrestlers were 8-16.

But of those eight wins, three came from Big 10 and Big 12 schools. That's impressive since the Big 10 and Big 12 have dominated this tournament (just like they do every year). Looking at the team results you can see this. Of the top 16 teams coming into the finals, 13 were from these two conferences. (Cornell, at nine, was one of the three others). Looking at the individual results you can see this. Of the 10 weightclasses, the Big 10 has a wrestler in the finals of every single one, and four of the finals are All-Big 10 matches. And in the remaining six matches, two involve a Big 10 vs Big 12 wrestler. And looking at the fan base you can see this. Of all the fans here, the largest and most vocal sections are (in no particular order) Iowa, Ohio State, Missouri, Oklahoma St, Minnesota and Iowa St. Cornell, again proving an exception, has a large one as well. (As for the Penn cheering section, this weekend has given them little to cheer about, so I actually didn't know it existed until Penn Coach Zeke Jones told me they were in section 120.)

So for Penn to earn three wins against the two best conferences in America is pretty good (of course, they also had 10 losses to the two conferences).

In other news, Jordan Leen from Cornell won the 157 pound championship. He was the only EIWA wrestler in the finals.