Wrestling fans have high expectations for their teams heading into the NCAA tournament each year. How each team's wrestlers are seeded plays a major role in setting those lofty hopes.

For this series, we're analyzing the team performances of all the top contenders at the 2017 tournament to see who stepped up last month in St. Louis and who came up short.

Now Up: The Minnesota Golden Gophers

We tried to keep things as simple as possible. We ignored bonus points (but if an analysis of bonus points is what you're after, have no fear, we got you covered!). We also simplified the advancement points for ease of calculation. The actual advancement points may vary ever so slightly from the number we used depending on the round in which the wrestler entered the consolation bracket. We also ignored any projected advancement points for unseeded wrestlers, and, in order to balance that out, we also ignored any actual points form wrestlers that didn't advance passed the round of 24.

Also, if analysis isn't you're thing and you just want to stare at the team results, you can do that too!

But for those interested in the stats, here is a chart showing all of Minnesota's qualifiers, where they were seeded, and what their results were at the 2017 NCAA tournament.



Nine Gophers spent their spring break in St Louis, an admirable accomplishment in and of itself.

Seven of those qualifiers received seeds, four of them in the top eight, also commendable, but only one Minnesotan was projected to finish in the top four, so the Gophers had plenty of opportunities to outperform expectations.

In a season rife with tumult, suspensions, and coaching changes, Minnesota came through at the end of the year with better outcomes than all but the rosiest of prognostications.

So just how well did Minnesota do? We calculated the difference between the Gophers' actual (simplified) scores to their projected scores to find out.

Minnesota's Seed vs. Reality Score: +9.5

Nine and a half points to the positive is the highest score among our list of contenders, except for Penn State, whose score we adjusted due to Nick Suriano's last-minute scratch.

Only one of Minnesota's nine qualifiers failed to at least wrestle up to seed, and it was a minor miss at that. Three others came in where their seeds projected them to before the tournament.

A whopping five Gophers outperformed their expectations. With three bloodround losses, the Minnesota faithful can be forgiven if it did not feel like it had one of the best tournaments of any team in St. Louis, but when compared to seeding expectations, the Gophers did extremely well for themselves.

So How'd They Do It?

We can dispense with the negative news first. Jake Short lost in the round of 12 in a topsy-turvy 157-pound weight class, one match shy of the podium where he was seeded to finish on the eighth-place step. He was upset in the championship first round by one of the toughest unseeded wrestlers in the tournament, 2015 All-American BJ Clagon of Rider. Short then battled back to the bloodround, only to meet the No. 5 seed, Oklahoma State's Joe Smith, and lose a tight 3-2 match, costing his team 3.5 placement points.

Minnesota's two unseeded wrestlers ended their tournament in the first match of wrestlebacks. Senior Brett Pfarr made it to the finals, avenging his Big Ten Tournament loss to Ohio State's Kollin Moore in the semifinals before falling to Missouri superstar J'den Cox.

The Gophers saw small gains of half a point from Nick Wanzek and Mitch McKee, who made it to the round of 12, one match beyond their round of 16 expectations.

Senior Michael Kroells climbed one podium spot higher than his seed when he vanquished Appalachian State's Denzel Dejournette by technical superiority in the seventh-place match, picking up one team point in the process.

Tommy Thorn navigated an incredibly difficult 141-pound division, upsetting No. 9 seed Colton McCrystal of Nebraska in the bloodround to earn All-American honors and four extra team points.

Finally, Ethan Lizak took full advantage of the third-seeded Suriano's absence from his quarter of the bracket and advanced to the NCAA finals before being felled by Lehigh's Darian Cruz. Lizak's second-place finish was four places higher than his seed and worth seven team points.

Conclusions

Minnesota benefited from random occurrences in the brackets, but it was victim of unlucky breaks as well. As with any team in the NCAA finals, it helps to make your own luck, which the Gophers did by putting themselves in position to score points by having nine competitors in the tournament.

The team also benefited from two senior All-Americans upholding their end of the bargain in Kroells and Pfarr. Their determination and consistency were perfect examples for the seven other qualifiers, all of whom return for next season.

Three wrestlers falling one match short of earning All-American honors is going to sting, but when those results are tempered with what was expected from the team going into the tournament, and indeed, going into the season, the 2017 NCAA tournament must be considered a tremendous success for the Golden Gophers.

Below, please enjoy what is probably the most satisfying win of Brett Pfarr's collegiate career: his victory over Kollin Moore in the 2017 NCAA championship semifinals.


Just watch out for Moore next year!