maligned Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 (edited) There aren't many ways to know for sure how our state stacks up against others in terms of the quality of wrestlers we're producing. You can count the number of kids we have ranked in national rankings, but that is subjective and our high school travel rules limit our exposure. Some people like to count NCAA D1 All-Americans, but there are so many socio-economic and just practical barriers and advantages in play, that it feels like a limited assessment tool. A broader post-High School evaluation might be this: How many "high quality" college wrestlers is our state producing? It's tough to take into account all redshirts, injuries, flunkies, etc., to create an evaluation like this. However, for the sake of simplicity, we could simply do a count of current-season Division I starters and D2, D3, and NAIA All-Americans (because AA's at those levels tend to perform at a D1 starter level). The cool part? That's exactly 1000 wrestlers in the country (76 D1 programs x 10 starters and 8 small-school AA's x 3 levels x 10 weights). It doesn't take a math degree to know that the average state would earn 20 of those slots in a given year. Indiana has 29 this year: 19 D1 starters and 10 small-school AA's I haven't done the research necessary to know how that stacks up exactly against others, but I know from past research I've done, that more than half of those 1000 "high-quality" college wrestlers would be taken up by only a few states. I'm guessing that 29 number for Indiana would put us in the 10-15 range when compared against other states--a similar spot to where other attempts for assessing our quality have landed. What's your feeling on the current quality of Indiana wrestling? Edited March 21, 2019 by maligned piscis1956, base, AJ and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FCFIGHTER170 Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 6 hours ago, maligned said: There aren't many ways to know for sure how our state stacks up against others in terms of the quality of wrestlers we're producing. You can count the number of kids we have ranked in national rankings, but that is subjective and our high school travel rules limit our exposure. Some people like to count NCAA D1 All-Americans, but there are so many socio-economic and just practical barriers and advantages in play, that it feels like a limited assessment tool. A broader post-High School evaluation might be this: How many "high quality" college wrestlers is our state producing? It's tough to take into account all redshirts, injuries, flunkies, etc., to create an evaluation like this. However, for the sake of simplicity, we could simply do a count of current-season Division I starters and D2, D3, and NAIA All-Americans (because AA's at those levels tend to perform at a D1 starter level). The cool part? That's exactly 1000 wrestlers in the country (76 D1 programs x 10 starters and 8 small-school AA's x 3 levels x 10 weights). It doesn't take a math degree to know that the average state would earn 20 of those slots in a given year. Indiana has 29 this year: 19 D1 starters and 10 small-school AA's I haven't done the research necessary to know how that stacks up exactly against others, but I know from past research I've done, that more than half of those 1000 "high-quality" college wrestlers would be taken up by only a few states. I'm guessing that 29 number for Indiana would put us in the 10-15 range when compared against other states--a similar spot to where other attempts for assessing our quality have landed. What's your feeling on the current quality of Indiana wrestling? I'm guessing we are in the 6-10 range..PA,NJ,OH have 100+ is my guess..I like this type of stuff and appreciate the research you dug up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grenadier2012 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Totally anecdotal, but I'd say there are six perennial power house states-PA,OH,IA,CA,IL and NJ. 7-12ish ,which I think includes IN, would be a toss up on any given year. Feel free to destroy my statement, I don't have any data to refute facts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 The quality of our best wrestlers is fantastic. Now we need to figure out a way to improve our average wrestlers. Without them, the sport is difficult to maintain long term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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