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 Nebraska Cornhuskers

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 Nebraska's qualifiers, where they were seeded, and what their results were at the 2017 NCAA tournament.



The Cornhuskers qualified seven wrestlers to the tournament, and every one of them received a top 16 seed. Ultimate glory remained elusive for the Huskers though. The team has not has a national champion since Jordan Burroughs' senior campaign in 2011, and that trended continued in 2017. 

Nebraska also added two more blood-round victims to its growing list of agonizing round-of-12 losses.

Head coach Mark Manning and the Huskers faithful may have been hoping for a more consistent performance across the board, though four All-Americans is enough to make most coaches envious. Nebraska was also projected to finish seventh, and while it slipped to ninth, it's still a top 10 finish, with a mere four points separating the Huskers from sixth place.

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

Nebraska's Seed vs. Reality Score: +1

Three Huskers finished higher than expected, while three failed to advance to their projected seeds. A seventh wrestler ended up right on target. So when the hits and misses are netted out, it's basically a wash. There was plenty to be proud of but also an unmistakable feeling that points left on the mat.

So How'd They Do It?

Nebraska was led by senior 184-pounder TJ Dudley, a four-time qualifier, three-time All-American, and a 2016 national finalist. The 184 weight class was insanely tough this year, as evidenced by Dudley's No. 7 seed. But Dudley proved his doubters and the seeding committee wrong, with one of the best performances by a non-finalist at the tournaments. Dudley fell in the quarterfinals to No. 2 seed and eventual champ Bo Nickal but then tore through the consolation bracket, beating the No. 3 and 4 seeds along with the way to earning third place. Dudley closed out an incredible career in Lincoln, Nebraska, scoring seven more team points than expected.

The Huskers had a senior-dominated lineup, with four other wrestlers also wrapping up their collegiate careers in St. Louis. Eric Montoya and Aaron Studebaker both finished on a high note, earning All-American honors in their final years of eligibility. They both also outperformed their seeds, scoring 2.5 and 3.5 more points than expected, respectively. 

On the flip side of that equation were the senior bookends, Tim Lambert at 125 and Collin Jensen at 285. Both wrestlers were of a group of just seven qualifiers making their fourth trip to the NCAAs who had not yet earned All-American honors. Both would fall heartbreaking short for the fourth time in a row. 

Lambert was upset in the round of 16 by the No. 12 seed, Sean Fausz of North Carolina State. Lambert would battle back to the consolation round of 12 before being eliminated by the No. 2 seed, Joey Dance of Virginia Tech, losing out on eight expected team points in the process. 

Jensen suffered an upset defeat in the first round, won his first match in the consolations, and was then eliminated by the No. 14 seed, Thomas Haines of Lock Haven. Jensen cost the Huskers 1.5 team points. 

Sophomore Tyler Berger was the only non-senior to make it to the podium. He placed one spot below his seed, dropping two and a half team points. Junior Colton McCrystal made it to the blood round, right where his ninth seed predicted he would. 

Conclusions

You have to be really good to be disappointed with four All-Americans, so if folks in Lincoln are unsatisfied, the silver lining is that they were able to set such a high bar to begin with this season. 

The question for Nebraska now is how will it replace the seven seniors it sent to the Big Ten tournament? Luckily for Huskers fans, they had a pretty excellent recruiting class and some big-time recruits will be coming off redshirt, such as Beau Breske and Chad Red. The examples set by Nebraska's outstanding senior class will have hopefully rubbed off on the young guns, and the Huskers should be ready to transition to a new season when fall rolls around. 

In the meantime, why not relive one of the best matches in recent memory for Nebraska fans, as TJ Dudley pins longtime Big Ten rival Sam Brooks in the video below. Dudley's third-place finish was higher than his No 7 seed and better than his fourth-place finish at the Big Ten tournament.


184 pounds was so incredibly beastly this year.