After winning the ACC championship in Blacksburg, Va. this past weekend, the Terrapin wrestling team secured four automatic berths to the NCAA championship in St. Louis starting on March 19.
The four automatic qualifiers were ACC individual champions Brendan Byrne, 125-pound weight class, Steven Bell, 133, and Alex Krom, 141. Hudson Taylor, who was runner up at 197, will also be representing the Terps. The ACC was allotted 27 automatic qualifiers this season, more than every before.
Maryland was hoping to grab one or two NCAA wild card berths. Coach Kerry McCoy felt that Brian Letters at 165 and heavyweight Patrick Gilmore would be in the best position to grab berths.
Unfortunately for Maryland, the NCAA announced the 52 at-large berths on Wednesday without any Terps. The ACC got five total at-large berths.
The NCAA determines at-large berths according to, “head-to-head competition, qualifying event placement, quality wins, results against common opponents, winning percentage, rating percentage index, coaches ranking and number of matches contested at that weight class.”
NCAA Qualifiers by ACC School:
Virgina: 8
North Carolina: 7
Virginia Tech: 7
Maryland: 4
NC State: 4
Duke: 2
This just goes to show that winning conference championships in the ACC or other conferences is more than just individual performance, as the Terps rank in the bottom half of the NCAA qualifiers, despite winning the team championship.
Last season when the Terps won the ACC championship, they sent six wrestlers to the NCAA tournament. Five of those were automatic and one was a wild card berth.
The 54 at-large selections will join the other 278 wrestlers that qualified automatically in St. Louis for the tournament from March 19 to 21.
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