INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA has announced the pre-allocations and first coaches ranking for the 2021 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, with Little Rock's Paul Bianchi checking in at #26 at 133 pounds. Bianchi leads the team with an 8-3 record and topped off the regular season with a ranked win on his senior day.
View NCAA Division I Wrestling Coaches Rank
"We are incredibly excited for Paul," said head coach Neil Erisman. "We always felt like he deserved this and instead kind of got overlooked. Now there's no doubt, and he has definitely earned this. It's a great thing for him and this program."
The weight class conference champion in each qualifying tournament will earn an automatic qualifier to the national championships. Each conference was awarded additional pre-allocations 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 Little Rock Trojans will compete at the Pac-12 Championships in Corvallis, Oregon on Sunday, Feb. 28, where Bianchi will compete for an automatic bid. 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 5 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.
For the latest information on Little Rock Wrestling, make sure to check out LRTrojans.com. You can also find the team on social media at @LittleRockWRES on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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