The NCAA announced the first coaches’ ranking for the 2024 NCAA Championships on Monday. Nine Cyclones were ranked in the initial rankings.
The rankings are as follows:
125: No. 25 Kysen Terukina
133: No. 5 Evan Frost
141: No. 9 Anthony Echemendia
157: No. 10 Cody Chittum
165: No. 2 David Carr
174: No. 21 MJ Gaitan
184: No. 7 Will Feldkamp
197: No. 27 Julien Broderson
285: No. 2 Yonger Bastida
Check out the full rankings here.
How these rankings are determined
The coaches’ rankings are determined by a vote of 14 coaches in each weight class with two head coaches from each of the seven conferences.
For an athlete to be considered they had to have been designated as a starter at a respective weight class, and have eight DI matches in the weight class to be considered with at least one within the last 30 days.
Submissions were due to the NCAA on Thursday, Jan. 18 so it did not include this weekend’s competition.
The coaches’ ranking is one of several criteria that is used by the NCAA committee to evaluate the at-large selection and seeding process. Other deciding factors are head-to-head competition, quality wins, Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), conference tournament placement, results versus common opponents and overall win percentage.
Why Casey Swiderski is not ranked
Swiderski has been out of the lineup with a knee injury and has not wrestled a match since Dec. 2. That makes him ineligible for the initial set of rankings despite an 8-2 record over D1 opponents.
Kevin Dresser shared a few weeks ago that Swiderski could be back for the team trip to Oklahoma to take on both No. 19 Oklahoma and No. 5 Oklahoma State this upcoming weekend.