Some Ohio wrestlers have expressed their disappointment in how the NCAA Tournament bracket is set up.
As millions of Americans become frustrated with busted March Madness brackets this week, Ohio coach Joel Greenlee is aggravated with one of his own.
The NCAA Wrestling National Championships brackets, released last Wednesday, baffled wrestlers and fans alike.
Cody Walters, a 174-pound redshirt junior who went 30-1 this season, is a nine seed, though he has more wins than those seeded above him.
“I thought Cody was definitely under-seeded,” Greenlee said. “I’m still trying to figure out how a guy that he beat in the MAC finals gets seeded in the top four in the country, and we’re ninth.”
Ohio wrestlers also took to social media to voice their complaints with the selection committee.
“I can’t think of one weight class where they did even a mediocre job,” tweeted 133-pound junior Kagan Squire.
Greenlee and his wrestlers were in agreement that it was wrong not to seed Oklahoma State’s Josh Kindig and Illinois’ Jesse Delgado. Both wrestlers struggled with injuries this season, but have earned the respect of the NCAA wrestling community.
Delgado was the NCAA champion in 2013 and 2014 at 125-pounds.
Greenlee pinned the poor decision on the selection committee and its use of a mathematical formula in order to determine seeds.
“That doesn’t really make any sense to me,” Greenlee said of the process. “You can’t make a mathematical formula that works in that situation. Why do it?”
Even with his expressed disapproval of the bracket, Ohio knows that the seeds are what they are.
Walters said he made the mistake of looking too far ahead in the brackets last year, when he was bounced in the first round.
On the flipside, Greenlee is looking further ahead in the brackets at the possibility of an Ohio wrestler facing the number one seed earlier in the tournament. A match, he said, that would favor the Bobcats better than facing a number one seed in the championship match.
@efelderstein14
ef684013@ohio.edu
