This is an exciting week in sports. For most of us, email chains among college friends and co-workers are flooded with invitations to March Madness pools and before we know it, we’re all scouring the internet in a last-second attempt to identify the next emerging bracket buster ready to take out one of college basketball’s blue bloods.

But why should basketball get to have all the fun?

Wrestlers, it’s time to put YOUR prediction skills to the test.

With 10 weight classes and 10 champs, the NCAA wrestling championships allow us wrestlers to be a bit more nuanced than the single-elimination, 64-team bracket that is March Madness.

This is March MATNESS!

Each year, my NCAA pool includes my brothers and a group of our high school and college friends. It makes for some fun text chains throughout the tournament. In a non-Covid year, we might get together at someone’s place for the semis or finals for drinks and some in-person trash talk.

Maybe your pool is just about bragging rights among your closest group of wrestling buddies. Or, you can put your money where your mouth is and throw down 20 units a person…As long as it’s legal for you to gamble, of course ; )

Either way, an NCAA pool always adds another level of intrigue to your tournament watching experience.

There’s a bunch of different formats you can choose. In my group, we like to change it up.

Check out some of my favorite types of pools below and give one of them a try! Feel free to hit me up and let me know if there are any other styles/formats you and your friends like. I’m always up to try something new! @thescan_man.

1) Pick the Champs

This one is pretty basic. Pick the champs.

You can make picks before the tournament or even just before the finals.

If your plans include wrangling together a few of your friends on Saturday night to drink some beers, eat some wings and watch some wrestling - this is the one for you.

It’s not too complicated but always brings some fireworks.

Scoring:

The scoring is simple - Who got the most right?

You can use wildcards or pick the team trophy winners as a tiebreaker since - depending on the size of your group - a tie is definitely possible.

2) Fantasy Wrestling

If you’re a true fantasy player, you likely don’t need any tips from me. You’re already deep into the season and looking to make some last-minute trades and lineup changes with hopes of landing that championship squad.

But maybe you aren’t a full season die-hard. That’s fine. You can pick teams once the brackets are released.

If you’ve ever played fantasy football – it’s just like that. You draft a team of 10 guys. One wrestler at each weight. You decide on your style of draft. Snake Drafts are pretty common. I’m not as cynical as the Snake Draft-hater Bill Simmons, but you could also do an Auction Draft for a little more of a challenge. It’s all up to you. You can add a few of additional rounds in case you want to some lineup options if there’s a late scratch, or you want to package up a trade deal.

As I said earlier, there’s a lot of weights that feel up for grabs this year so be careful not to chase guys at weights like 149lbs or 197lbs unless you feel really, really good about them.

You’re the coach. Lock in that Lineup.

Scoring:

If you’re committing to a full draft, you better score this thing like the NCAA tournament. Yeah, that includes bonus points, team point deductions - EVERYTHING.

3) Survivor Pool

This one gets a little bit complicated but can be nice challenge.

One tip to begin - I recommend you pick just a few weights for this. Maybe three to five. If you try to do it for all 10 weights it might be a little overwhelming. Or, underwhelming, considering it will make it much more difficult. But hey, if you want to take on the challenge, no one is stopping you.

At your selected weights, select 2 wrestlers at each weight to win in the 1^st round (Round of 32). Then, select 1 wrestler to win in the 2^nd round (Round of 16). The wrestler you select in the second round CAN NOT be the same as one you selected in the first round.

Every player who remains after the first two rounds will then select 1 wrestler at each weight - who wasn’t previously selected - to win in the quarterfinals.

Next, you will select 1 wrestler at each of the weights to win the semifinals

Remember, once you pick a wrestler you can’t pick him again. So, you want to be careful not to snag all of the high seeds in the early rounds. It might be smart to save those guys for the quarters and semis.

Like I said, this one is tough.

Scoring:

It’s not so much about scoring as it is…surviving.

If one of your picks loses, you’re out. The Survivor Pool is a true gladiator event. Last man standing wins this one.

If more than one player survives all the way to the finals – transition to a Pick the Champs style format as a tiebreaker.

4) Confidence Pool

Confidence is key!

Rank your title picks at every weight class based on your confidence in them to win. The champ you have the most confidence in earns you 10 points. The champ you’re next “most confident” in is worth 9 points, and so on in descending order. Finally, you’re least confident champion pick will, obviously, earn 1 point. Any pick who does not win, he will earn you 0 points.

When it comes to strategy, you obviously have to start with the locks. This year is special in that, there aren’t very many of them. Missing from these brackets are a few of those Penn State guys like Nolf or Nickal you could basically pencil in for a first-place finish.

I’d imagine everyone’s top two picks will be Spencer or Gable. After that, it gets a lot more interesting.

It’s also important to consider which weight features the most parity. If you think there’s a weight where lot of guys have a chance to win, I’d recommend throwing that one near the bottom.

There is always a lot of variety in the last couple of picks but, in my opinion, there are two weights that will be the difference makers in every confidence pool this year– 141 & 165.

I expect there will be lots of Marinelli picks at 165lbs, but as usual in the NCAA tournament, his path is brutal.

141 is similar in that, there’s only a few guys that can realistically win it. Who it will be? That’s anyone’s guess. Sebastian Rivera and Nick Lee will likely run back what was the most exciting match of the entire season in a potential bottom side semi-final. You’d expect the winner to see the #1 seed Eierman - if he makes it. Then again, it’s NCAAs. There are no guarantees.

Scoring:

Easy. The person with the most points wins.

5) The Top 10 Test

This one might be my favorite. It also happens to be the one my brothers and I chose for our NCAA pool this year.

Here, your picks will include ten wrestlers all seeded 1 through 10. You must pick one person at each weight and one of each seed. So, you cannot pick anyone seeded 11-32. You also cannot pick the 2 seed at 141 and the 3 seed at 141, for example.

This takes some thought.

Similar to a fantasy draft, it’s all about value!

When picking lower seeds, you need to find the guys you think have the best chance to outplace their seed. So, draws are important.

I guess I can’t do all this talking without putting some picks in ink, huh?

I’ll give it a shot.

Check out my picks for the Top 10 Test below and let me know if you come up with something better!

It took everything in my power not to take Griffith as my #8 seed. I’ve been waving his flag for over a year as the next champ at this weight and I feel like a true fraud for not picking him. Instead, I was swayed by what can only be considered a dream draw for the freshman O’Toole who got the 6-seed opposite a crowded top side that includes Marinelli, Griffith, and Mekhi. I also can’t believe I’m taking Ferrari. But after that Big 12 final – what can I say…here we are. With the Van Brill pick, I’m obviously hoping he can catch fire for a second week in a row which seems hopeful, to say the least. With that said, I actually love his draw at the 10-seed.

Scoring:

You can commit to tournament scoring, if you’d like, but I like to make it a little easier with a scoring breakdown similar to the one below:

Champs = 10 pts

Runner up = 8 pts

3rd = 6 pts

4th = 4 pts

5th = 3pts

6th/8th = 2 pts

*Wildcards*

Last, but certainly not least, are wildcards.

Honestly, I think I like making wildcard picks more than regular picks.

It was a bit more fun before the NCAA began seeding the tournament 1 to 32 and you’d pick from the pool of unseeded wrestlers. For that reason, in our pool, we like to keep wildcards as the 17-seed or lower. If you want to do something like #11 and lower, go for it.

If one of your wildcard picks finishes as an All-American, you get 2 additional points added to your score.

Wildcards are best for the Confidence Pool and the Top 10 Test, but you can certainly find a way to make them work in the other pools, as well. Get creative.

One of my favorite wildcard moments in recent years was freshman Chad Red’s bloodround pin over Dean Heil back in 2018, which won me my pool that year.

This year, there are a few wildcards I’ve got my eye on.

An obvious pick is Real Woods at the 21-seed. His draw is definitely favorable but I’m not sure how I feel about betting on him after nearly an entire season off and pinfall loss in the Pac-12 final.

I know I picked O’Toole at 165lbs above, but I think there’s some value with Kennedy Monday at the 22-seed. The matchup is tough but if he can get past the freshman O’Toole, I love his path. I might do some hedging and snag him as my wildcard. I seem to remember him notching a big-time early round NCAA upset over a Missouri Tiger once before.

The Jersey fan in me likes Robbie Howard at the 23-seed. The kid lives for March and he definitely doesn’t have the worst draw, eyeing another matchup with Heinselman in the first round. 125lbs feels like a wrap with Lee as such a heavy favorite and ultimately, the rest of the weight is pretty wide-open.

Jarrett Degen at the 18-seed catches my eye, considering he was an All-American in 2019.

Nick Reenan was once in Final X and he now sits at the 28 seed in the 197lb bracket so…there’s that.

Pick your poison and have fun!

Who else can’t wait for Thursday?