Campion wrote:There has been a whole lot of discussion on seeding wrestlers and specifically, how it can affect the Finals. Soooo, I thought I would look at this years WSAZ results… it is only one tournament and therefore only one data point but I found it pretty interesting. I had a minor in statistics to go along with my major in accounting.

I love to geek out on data and numbers…
The Finalists in the 14 weight classes comprised of:
11 #1 Seeds
7 #2 Seeds
5 #3 Seeds
1 #4 Seed
1 #5 Seed
1 #6 Seed
1 #11 Seed
1 Unseeded
28 total
The finals consisted of:
#1 vs #2 6 times
#1 vs #3 4 times
#3 vs #4 1 time
#1 vs #6 1 time
#2 vs #U 1 time
#11 vs # 5 1 time
14 Championship Final Matches
This is just data. Use it as you wish

1. This tells me that the seeding was pretty well spot on. #1 vs #2 @ 6 occurences = 6/14 = 42.86%
#1 vs #3 @ 4 occurences = 4/14 = 28.57%
42.86% + 28.57% = 71.43% 71.43% of the seeding data predicted the finals before the first match happened.
2. Usually the difference between the #2 and #3 seed is minimal. They always get to settle the difference in the semifinals unless there is an upset.
3. The other 4 occurences are outliers. This seed vs seed situation only happened once.
4. The WSAZ seeding crieria is not friendly toward Freshmen. Returning State Champion/Placer and Returning WSAZ Champion/Placer do not work for freshman. The #1 vs #6 was Kehler vs Bentley. Kehler is of course a Freshman.
5. At 106, we had a kid from out of state make the finals. His seed was low, we probably didn't have good enough seeding information on him. He also slammed the #1 seed and hurt him. If we are going to slam and hurt the #1 seed, then the #1 seed might not ever make the finals. Thus, data gets skewed.
6. In another weight class, we had a #1 seed walk off the mat and quit the tournament. Definitely an outlier. I have never seen that before.
7. At 138 the #1 seed got hurt and injury defaulted out.
The WSAZ is by far a bigger and more dynamic tournament than the state tournament. Your analysis supports seeding the state tournament versus not.
Great job!!!
The state tournament qualification process needs to be improved first and foremost.