LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ – The Mid-American Conference has been allocated 35 NCAA Automatic Qualifiers, the NCAA today announced. The league received a high of four allocations at 133 lbs., along with three each at 125, 141, 149 and 157 lbs., where graduate student
Jesse Dellavecchia (Great River, NJ/East Islip [Binghamton]) currently tops the conference rankings. Two spots were awarded at 174, 184, 197 and 285 lbs., while one spot is ticketed for 165 lbs.
In addition, the NCAA announced its Coaches Rankings through Feb. 7. Dellavecchia leads Rider at the No. 3 ranking at 157 lbs. Fresh off his upset of Lehigh's Jordan Wood on Sunday,
Ethan Laird (Waterford, PA/General McLane) is ranked ninth at 285 lbs.
George Walton (Franklin, NJ/Bound Brook [Old Dominion]) is ranked 27
th at 184 lbs., while
Jonathan Tropea (Harrington Park, NJ/Saint Joseph (Montvale)) and
Angel Garcia (Philadelphia, PA/Mariana Bracetti Academy) are ranked 33
rd at 125 and 174 lbs., respectively.
The weight class conference champion in each qualifying tournament will earn an automatic qualifier to the national championships. Each conference was awarded additional preallocations based on the five-year average (2016-20) of pre-allocations earned by the conference in each weight class.
In recent years, pre-allocations have been determined by a formula measuring Division I winning percentage, ratings percentage index and coaches' ranking. A decrease in overall matches, and in particular non-conference matches, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, led the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee to transition to using the five-year historical average to determine pre-allocations for 2021. For any adjustments in conference alignment over the last five years, historical pre-allocations stayed with the conference where they were earned. The competition status of schools for 2021 also did not impact the calculation of pre-allocations.
"The committee knew that there wasn't going to be enough regular-season competition to utilize the existing process where wrestlers earned pre-allocations for their conference based on regular season performance," said Karen Langston, senior associate athletics director at California State University, Bakersfield and chair of the wrestling committee. "The option to utilize the five year historical average was an equitable alternative, and the way it worked out has opened more at-large spots this year for deserving wrestlers who don't qualify through their conference tournament."
After the conference tournaments have concluded, the Division I Wrestling Committee will meet in-person to select the remaining at-large qualifiers to fill out the 33-man bracket in each weight class, which will be announced March 9, while brackets and seeding will be announced on ncaa.com at 6 p.m. March 10.
The coaches' rankings are determined by a vote of 14 coaches in each weight class with two head coaches from each conference. For ranking purposes, coaches may only consider a wrestler that has been designated as a starter at a respective weight class. For the first ranking, wrestlers must have two Division I matches in the weight class to be considered with at least one within the last 30 days.
The Broncs close out the regular season tonight at 7 p.m. against Drexel, before playing host to the Mid-American Conference Championships at CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton on Feb. 26 and 27. NCAA Championships are scheduled for March 18-20 in St. Louis.
