Wrestling up to your seeds
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John Fuller (TheMat.com)
03/07/2004
A major indicator of how a team performed at the end of a college wrestling season is to compare how seeded and unseeded wrestlers placed compared to where they were seeded. Of the 80 placewinners at the 2004 Big Ten Tournament, 54 placed at or above their seed entering the tournament. Only 34 placed below their seed. Eight seeded wrestlers did not place at all. Four of those eight were No. 8 seeds, two were No. 7 seeds and two were No. 6 seeds. Following is a breakdown of how each team's seeded wrestlers competed: School (total placewinners/at or above seed/below seed/seeded, and did not place) Illinois (8/6/4/2) Indiana (4/4/2/2) Iowa (10/6/4/0) Michigan (7/3/5/1) Michigan State (5/4/1/0) Minnesota (9/7/2/0) Northwestern (6/3/3/0) Ohio State (6/2/5/1) Penn State (8/6/4/2) Purdue (8/8/0/0) Wisconsin (9/5/4/0) From this record, Purdue may have had the best Big Ten Tournament of any other team. All eight of Purdue's placewinners wrestled at or above their seed, led by unseeded finalist Doug Withstandley at 141 lbs. The Boilermakers also entered the tournament with only nine wrestlers. Its other wrestler was unseeded as well.