The upcoming NCAA season may only seem like a distant ship's smoke on the horizon during these long summer days, but that doesn't mean it's too early to start speculating about the 2017-18 season. But to start speculating, we'll need some information first. Just the basic facts.

To get a better idea of what we might see next season, we took a look back at the 2017 NCAA Wrestling Championships. We compared all the Division I programs by how many team points were earned by their underclassmen to see who will be returning the most firepower for the 2018 tournament.

But you get it. You don't need to be taught that any more. So, hey, teachers? Leave these readers alone.

Teams 11-20 | No. 10 Virginia Tech | No. 9 Lehigh | No. 8 Iowa | No. 7 Minnesota | No. 6 Arizona State | No. 5 Missouri | No. 4 Michigan | No. 3 Oklahoma State | No. 2 Ohio State

No. 1 Penn State Nittany Lions:  144.5 Points

We all knew Penn State would be the number one team on this list. The only question was just how many points they would return. 

You have to go back to Oklahoma State's vaunted 2005 team just to find an NCAA champion that scored more points at the tournament than head coach Cael Sanderson gets back for next season. The Cowboys won with 153 points from five champions. Five, is, incidentally, the number of NCAA individual champions that return to Penn State's lineup. 

So should expectations for the 2017-18 Nittany Lions be not at just an NCAA title, but at an NCAA record?

We'll leave that up to the Penn State faithful. In the meantime, we can take a look at who scored points in St. Louis that return to the blue and white lineup.

WT	NAME	PTS
133	Corey Keener	2.5
149	Zain Retherford	28
157	Jason Nolf	27
165	Vincenzo Joseph	23
174	Mark Hall	22.5
184	Bo Nickal	27.5
197	Matt McCutcheon	4
285	Nick Nevills	10

Absent from this list is 125 pounder Nick Suriano, who earned the No. 3 seed at the tournament but was too injured to compete. 

Rising senior Corey Keener transferred to State College, PA from Central Michigan, where he earned two and a half points for the Chippewas at the last tournament. 

Rising junior Jered Cortez missed most of last season with an injury, but will be the favorite to grab the starting nod next year at 141.

The next five weights are all defending national champions. Zain Retherford and Jason Nolf both bonused their way through the entire NCAAs. Vincenzo Joseph pinned a two-time national champion in the finals. Mark Hall won as freshman. Bo Nickal beat the Hodge Trophy favorite in the finals. 

Those five don't need any additional hype, so I'll leave it at that. 

Matt McCutcheon was "only" a round of 12 finisher in 2017 and will be pushed next year by Anthony Cassar, if the latter is finally healthy. Nick Nevills will be a favorite to achieve All-American status for the second time at heavyweight in Cleveland. 

Of five individual champions last year, Vincenzo Joseph was perhaps the unlikeliest. You can see his dramatic pin of Isiah Martinez of Illinois in the finals in the video below. 


 
That does it for the top 20 D1 wrestling teams as ranked by returning 2017 NCAA points. Thanks for reading the countdown. We'll see you all on the dark side of the moon!