Seedings, rankings, predictions and probabilities.

With March Madness in full swing, and the NCAA hockey tournament set to begin, talk of these tidbits of information are swirling around everywhere.

They are constantly thrown at people. They can make sports gamblers throw up. And most of the time they are so meaningless they can simply be thrown out.

This was clearly the case this past weekend at the NCAA Wrestling Championships. Twelve wrestlers in each weight class grabbed seeds for the tournament, with the rest of the participants competing without a number attached to their names.

Those rankings ended up being for show, though, as upsets ran wild. There were 29 matches in which an unranked wrestler defeated a ranked opponent. That number doesn't include the consolation bracket matches.

"There are always upsets at the national tournament," said Penn State assistant wrestling coach Dave Hart. "This year there seemed to be more than usual."

One reason, Hart said, is because the seeds are so close to each other. He said that wrestlers could be seeded at a good distance from each other but have defeated each other during the season.

There were 15 instances in this year's tournament where the lower-seeded wrestler won. Eight was the unlucky number for the weekend as six of the 10 eighth-seeded wrestlers fell into the consolation bracket in the first or second round.

Unlike other tournaments in which teams are seeded, wrestlers get the chance to bust the bracket through individual ability and a little bit of luck.

"That's how it goes," Penn State senior wrestler Nate Wachter said. "Guys have good tournaments."

The individuality allows for a wide-open, exciting style of wrestling. Three national champion wrestlers were seeded sixth or lower, including Michigan's No. 6 Ryan Bertin (157 pounds), Minnesota's No. 6 Damion Hahn (197) and Oklahoma State's No. 10 Jake Rosholt (184).

The top eight finishers in each weight class were named All-Americans. Of the 80 All-America wrestlers, seven were double-digit seeds and there were eight unranked honorees. Among the unranked were three from the 133-pound weight class and Pittsburgh's Carl Fronhofer, the national runner-up at 174 pounds.

Wachter said that a wrestler has to know going into the tournament that he is eventually going to have to wrestle someone who is going to be better than him. Along with that mindset, Hart said the wrestlers have to wrestle hard and leave no room for excuses.

"Basically, if you want to be a national champion," Hart said, "what we tell [the wrestlers] is you have to beat everyone in your weight class."