The only reason I can think of the Michigan coach sitting Micic against Suriano, is that it probably assures him the #1 seed at the Big10 tourney, giving him a potentially much easier semi final.
Right Now the Big 10 133 seeds probably look like this :
1. Micic, 2 DeSanto, 3. Suriano, 4 .Lizak. (others are Roman Bravo Young, Ben Thornton, Luke Pletcher)
As far as the criteria goes for how the Big10 does the seeding, I found this from a few years ago, not sure if anything has changed :
“They [The Big Ten] send you each team’s record and each team is responsible for seeding each weight class and they poll them together and add up the points,” Sanderson said of the process.
If any of coaches think there is something wrong with the seeding, they will state their case at the meeting and revote if needed. But in most instances, the seeds are pretty much set and very few changes need to be made prior to the tournament.
There is an unwritten criteria for seeding that the Big Ten coaches normally follow.
Head to head matches in the Big Ten matters the most. Sanderson said that national rankings really do not play a factor in how coaches seed.
The rest of the coaches in the conference can see each other’s ballot. This is done in an attempt to prevent anyone from voting their entire team No. 1 seeds."
https://www.collegian.psu.edu/archives/article_ea0a5c0a-d600-50b5-bf1b-9f4dddabf2b6.html?mode=jqm
