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NCAA Division I qualifiers with Indiana ties


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Updated list of qualifiers and at-large possibilities:

 

Qualifiers from Indiana high schools:

 

Brock Hudkins of Northern Illinois (125)

Stevan Micic of Michigan (133)

Alex Griffin of Purdue (149)

Drew Hughes of Michigan St (165)

Bobby Steveson of Minnesota (184)

 

Other qualifiers from in-state schools:

 

Oliver of IU (125)

Danishek of IU (157)

Skatzka of IU (174)

Jackson of IU (184)

 

Morrissey of Purdue (174)

Brunner of Purdue (197)

 

Very good at-large résumés that provide a strong possibility of still getting a bid:

 

Luke Welch of Purdue (133)

Bryce Martin of IU (165)

Mitch Sliga of Northwestern (184)

 

Outside chance at an at-large bid:

 

Kyle Ayersman of Purdue (141)

Dylan Lydy of Purdue (165)

 

Thornton of Purdue (125)

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With today being the day that NCAA D1 at-large bids come out, here is some analysis.

 

Published requirements for being in the at-large pool are meeting at least 2 of these 5 criteria:

-.700 win%

-finishing one spot from qualification at your conference tournament

-owning a season win over an automatic qualifier

-Top 33 RPI calculation

-Top 33 Coaches' Panel ranking (CR)

 

Published selection committee decision-making weighted criteria:

-head-to-head (H2H) results (25%)

-quality wins (20%)

-CR (15%)

-common opponent results, RPI, win%, qualifying placement (10% each)

 

Prospectus for the 3 guys above with the best chance to get at-large bids:

 

Luke Welch-133 (#30 CR, #23 RPI)

--4 spots available

--probably behind these guys:

Stickley-Wisconsin (H2H,CR, qualifying placement)

Hall-Iowa St (CR,RPI,Win%)

Devoy-Drexel (CR, RPI...injury defaulted at semi's of qualifying)

Smith-App St. (CR, RPI, qualifying placement)

Kelly-Ohio (CR, RPI)

Gomez-Rivera of American (2 bad losses at qualifier, but higher CR and RPI)

Schram-Stanford (CR, qualifying placement)

--possibly behind:

Cefelo-Rider (Cefelo better CR by a couple spots, Welch better RPI by a couple spots, Cefelo possibly evaluated as better qualification placement)

 

Thoughts: It's not looking as good for Welch as I thought when I looked at his CR and RPI numbers. A LOT of good guys are here who got upset and fell just one spot out of qualifying or were injured. The one ace up Welch's sleeve is a couple of nice wins against guys with higher CR and RPI numbers than most guys listed here. It unfortunately seems doubtful his couple quality wins alone will trump everything else on all these guys' resumes, though.

 

Bryce Martin-165 (#25 CR, #28 RPI)

--7 spots available

--probably behind these guys:

Gunther-Iowa

Fogarty-ND St

Mejias-Oklahoma

Subjeck-Stanford

 

--possibly behind 

Burcher-Ohio St (tossup)

Williams-Nebraska (Martin maybe slight edge)

Walter-Lehigh (lean toward Walter)

Daniels-Navy (Martin the edge)

Wright-Old Dominion (tossup)

Marinelli of Gardner-Webb (Martin the edge)

 

Thoughts: He's got a real shot. Most likely in the 6-8 range with 7 spots available, so I'd give him a better than 50-50 shot. That two-and-out at Big 10s doesn't look good, but both were to top 20 guys, so he shouldn't be penalized too much.

 

Mitch Sliga-184 (#21 CR, #21 RPI)

--5 spots available

--probably behind: nobody

--possibly behind: Corba-Cleveland St. (Sliga better CR; Corba better RPI...edge to Sliga)

 

Thoughts: This one is a slam dunk. Every qualifying tournament went virtually exactly according to rankings and seeding at 184. At Big 10s, Sliga is the 9th seed and gets 10th while the 10-seed Steveson takes the auto bid instead, meaning Sliga will clearly be viewed as a "just missed" type of guy. He is clearly the top candidate available by every criterion, with only one guy in the country having a slight argument over him--and there are 5 slots to give.

Edited by maligned
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Sliga gets a bid as expected, but on-the-fence Martin of IU and long-shot Welch miss out. There were 7 spots available at 165 and all 4 of the guys I said were probably ahead of Martin, plus the one I said had a slight edge and the two I said were tossups against his resume all got in. I'm guessing he was literally THE next guy in line. In Welch's case, 4 of the guys I mentioned as being probably ahead of him got the spots.

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Here's the final list with first round pairings and some potential later match-ups:

 

Brock Hudkins (Danville HS) of Northern Illinois (125)

vs. #5 Lambert of Nebraska

 

Elijah Oliver of IU (125)

vs. #8 Piccininni of Oklahoma St.

 

#5 Stevan Micic (Hanover Central HS) of Michigan (133)

vs. Chris Debien (17-9) of Chattanooga; possibly #12 Alber of N. Illinois 2nd round; potential monster quarter vs. #4 Clark of Iowa and semi vs. #1 Tomasello of Ohio St.

 

Alex Griffin (McCutcheon HS) of Purdue (157)

vs. #5 Smith of Oklahoma St.

 

Jake Danishek of IU (157)

vs. #2 Kemerer of Iowa

 

#15 Drew Hughes (Lowell HS) of Michigan St (165)

vs. Keilan Torres (28-14) of N. Colorado; probably vs. #2 Massa of Michigan 2nd round

 

Devin Skatzka of IU (174)

vs. #2 Realbuto of Cornell

 

Jacob Morrissey of Purdue (174)

vs. #10 Brunson of Illinois

 

#9 Nate Jackson of IU (184)

vs. DeCiantis (21-12) of Drexel; possibly #8 Dechow of Old Dominion 2nd round

 

Bobby Steveson (Merrillville HS/Apple Valley HS) of Minnesota (184)

(rat-tail) vs. Nick Corba (23-8) Cleveland St.; winner gets #12 Foster of N. Illinois

 

Mitch Sliga (Fishers HS) of Northwestern (184)

vs. #2 Nickal of Penn St.

 

Christian Brunner of Purdue (197)

vs. #5 McCutcheon of Penn St.

Edited by maligned
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Not the best draws overall here, in my opinion. For unseeded guys, only 2 out of every 17 get put in a rat-tail and have to win an extra match--and we've got 3 of 9 in rat-tails in this list.

 

For the seeded guys:

--Micic was seeded exactly where all the head-to-heads suggest he should be

--Jackson unfortunately falls from #6 to a #9 seed after holding serve over #11, losing to #3, and taking defaults vs #4 and in a second meeting with #11. I don't understand how those defaults should drop you 3 spots, but I'm not on the committee. He'll now need to do something miraculous against the unbeatable Gabe Dean if he reaches the quarterfinals and hopes to make a run at the semi's or finals.

--Hughes gets the nice honor of a #15 seed as a true freshman, but it's a bit of a non-blessing in disguise, in my view. The path of least resistance to getting an All-American spot is to advance to the quarterfinals where you've got 2 shots to be an AA. Unfortunately, he'll have to beat #2 Massa to do that and could be wondering if he might have been better off taking his chances in the random draw as an unseeded guy.

 

On the positive side, only 3 of the 12 listed here have to beat a Top 4 seed to reach the quarterfinals, which, as I mentioned above with Hughes' situation, is the path of least resistance in getting a podium spot.

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The above list is now edited to include the re-draw at 157 (#10 seed Murphy of Michigan withdraws, moving up other seeds, bringing unseeded CMU kid to #16, bringing a new unseeded dude into the bracket, and causing a need for re-draw so that all unseeded guys are truly random rather than "placed" as the new addition would have been.)

 

It's nice for Griffin and Danishek not to have to wrestle in the rat-tail, but the re-draw moves them out of the 8/9-seed section that could have given them a puncher's chance to reach the quarters and moves them into very difficult matches against #5 Smith and #2 Kemerer.

Edited by maligned
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