Jump to content

Wrestlebacks and 2-class individual tournamnet - compare and contrast


Galagore

Recommended Posts

14 minutes ago, CadetCub43 said:

I'm for a single class tournament but would like to see wrestlebacks starting at regional.  Just curious for all the "traditionalists" are you ok with classed team state and why?  If we only have 1 class for individual then why not for team?

 

 

The biggest advantage large schools have is drawing from a much larger pool of athletes. This gives them a very definitive advantage when assembling a team.

 

Theoretically when determining the best individual at something, the size of school they attend doesn't matter. Realistically, there are some advantages that kids from large schools have over those from small schools. The debate is how big of an advantage do they have? Are there avenues that allow an individual to erase those advantages (i.e. elite wrestling clubs & access to them, and the means to attend off-season camps & tournaments)?

 

I like that Indiana crowns a single champ per weight class. I acknowledge that large school kids have advantages that some small school kids lack. But I believe that in most cases these advantages can be erased or at least significantly diminished. I believe that the number of small school champs & placers when compared to enrollment numbers bears out that small school kids are not at the big disadvantage that some small school supporters like to believe. As long as the percentage of champs & placers closely follows the enrollment percentages then it supports the idea that school size is not a huge advantage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably the best argument for class wrestling in the individual tournament is the idea of giving more small school kids the opportunity at success for success breeds more participation. It would help grow the sport in the smaller communities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wrestlebacks are an essential part of the wrestling process and is necessary in the  process to find the  true placing order.   Due to the fact that in Indiana,  the wrestllng rules and format are not controlled by the wrestling community, but is controlled by the IHSAA executive committee, we do not have wrestlebacks.   The executive board, in its effort to fit into the traditional IHSAA  tournament format, and  also trying to stay within the spirit of the core value that the ultmate goal of state tournaments is to find the true champion and secondary placement order is irrelevant, the wrestling community is denied the use of wrestlebacks in the state tournament.

 

Just for comparison sakes, see the list below of all states that do not utilize wrestlebacks.

 

States without  wrestlebacks

 

Indiana

 

States with wresltebacks

AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, Co, CT, DE,FL,GA, HI, ID, IL, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MN, MS, MI, MN

MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC NJ, NM, NY, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY, DC

 

 

 

Edited by Wrestling Scholar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Wrestling Scholar said:

Wrestlebacks are an essential part of the wrestling process and is necessary in the  process to find the  true placing order.   Due to the fact that in Indiana,  the wrestllng rules and format are not controlled by the wrestling community, but is controlled by the IHSAA executive committee, we do not have wrestlebacks.   The executive board, in its effort to fit into the traditional IHSAA  tournament format, and  also trying to stay within the spirit of the core value that the ultmate goal of state tournaments is to find the true champion secondary placement order is irrelevant, the wrestling community is denied the use of wrestlebacks in the state tournament.

 

Just for comparison sakes, see the list below of all states that do not utilize wrestlebacks.

 

States without  wrestlebacks

 

Indiana

 

States with wresltebacks

AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, Co, CT, DE,FL,GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MN, MS, MI, MN

MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC NJ, NM, NY, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY, DC

 

 

 

 

Now you have managed to confuse me. Does Indiana have wrestlebacks or not?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

Wrestlebacks are an essential part of the wrestling process and is necessary in the  process to find the  true placing order.   Due to the fact that in Indiana,  the wrestllng rules and format are not controlled by the wrestling community, but is controlled by the IHSAA executive committee, we do not have wrestlebacks.   The executive board, in its effort to fit into the traditional IHSAA  tournament format, and  also trying to stay within the spirit of the core value that the ultmate goal of state tournaments is to find the true champion and secondary placement order is irrelevant, the wrestling community is denied the use of wrestlebacks in the state tournament.

 

Just for comparison sakes, see the list below of all states that do not utilize wrestlebacks.

 

States without  wrestlebacks

 

Indiana

 

States with wresltebacks

AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, Co, CT, DE,FL,GA, HI, ID, IL,  IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MN, MS, MI, MN

MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC NJ, NM, NY, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY, DC

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Wrestling Scholar said:

Is that sarcasm?  Could I make it more clearer?   I said 3 times, IN doesnt have wrestlebacks?

 

It is sarcasm. You have IN listed under the states with wrestlebacks.

 

I highlighted it, but you have to expand the quote of your post in my post to see it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

It is sarcasm. You have IN listed under the states with wrestlebacks.

 

I highlighted it, but you have to expand the quote of your post in my post to see it.

I see,  i accidentally added to the list.  I was typing too much.  I just edited it.

 

Edited by Wrestling Scholar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

Ok, so you're saying that in some instances, small school kids get the best possible draw and make it through ,and they would lose that opportunity.   But the easy reply to that logic is,  as many times a small school kid gets a good draw, another small school kid gets a terrible draw.   Its the law of random averages of chance of getting a good or bad draw,  and similar to a coin flip.   So thats silly to say for that reason to say it would affect participation.  I think its more devastating when a small school kid gets a bad beat draw, because those opportunities are so few.    

 

On the flip side,   the big schools have a huge advantage in these sudden death  rounds.   1st is experience,  the coaches from the big schools have been there a lot more and they no how to psychologically prepare their kids  and wrestle better in a sudden death situation.  The expectations at big schools are different and they have more of a history of kids getting through.   I commonly see kids wrestle tight and less aggressive or make bad decisions because of the pressure these rounds.  Most of the time its the small school kids that get overwhelmed in the moment.     

 

 

What I'm saying simply is that most 4th placers are actually only the 5th, 6th, 7th best guys that didn't have any of their weight's top 4 in their bracket. Some of the 3rd placers are also only the 5th best or worse. These are calculated probability facts no matter what size school the guy is from.  If most of the small schools' state qualifiers then are kids that aren't in fact top 4 kids, it stands to reason that with wrestle backs, they'll lose a chunk of those qualifiers since their 5th-place or 7th-place level kids would have to get upsets that they don't always need right now to get bids.

 

Just because everyone gets the same number of lucky #6 die rolls right now doesn't mean there are lucky #6's available if you switch to a 5-sided die. Your "evening out" is only "even" in that everyone gets access to those lucky draws where the 5th or 7th best kid in the bracket is the best in his quarter.  More than half of the small school qualifiers the last two years from New Castle needed a lucky roll to have access at all to qualifying. That's gone with wrestle backs. There's no "evening" that out. It's a different proposition entirely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

Ok, so you're saying that in some instances, small school kids get the best possible draw and make it through ,and they would lose that opportunity.   But the easy reply to that logic is,  as many times a small school kid gets a good draw, another small school kid gets a terrible draw.   Its the law of random averages of chance of getting a good or bad draw,  and similar to a coin flip.   So thats silly to say for that reason to say it would affect participation.  I think its more devastating when a small school kid gets a bad beat draw, because those opportunities are so few.    

 

On the flip side,   the big schools have a huge advantage in these sudden death  rounds.   1st is experience,  the coaches from the big schools have been there a lot more and they no how to psychologically prepare their kids  and wrestle better in a sudden death situation.  The expectations at big schools are different and they have more of a history of kids getting through.   I commonly see kids wrestle tight and less aggressive or make bad decisions because of the pressure these rounds.  Most of the time its the small school kids that get overwhelmed in the moment.     

 

 

Just a different outlook - I am a proponent of wrestle backs. And of 2 class system. 
not saying it would always go that route , but those advantages you brought up are a factor as well. 
Im posing a question on the wrestle backs. Could it effect the small schools more ? Our kids who mad it over the past 4 or 5 years - would have made anyway I believe. 
Seems the death draw effects the larger schools more , but that could be because they have more kids there? So it would probably even out. As you say. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/14/2021 at 11:39 AM, Galagore said:

We could get a lot further in this conversation if we could have an actual real-time conversation with spoken words...I totally understand what many of you are saying about the fairness of wrestlebacks and the true goal of the tournament being who is the best.

 

However, how do wrestlebacks help this goal? If someone is an eventual champ, why would they get knocked out early in the tournament?

 

People also do not want a classed tournament due to all of the excitement around a single-class tournament. Wrestlebacks would take a lot of the edge off of that excitement if we didn't have so much riding on one round, one match.

 

Again - I love the ticket round. Love Friday night. Love the semi-finals. Heck, I even like that stupid spotlight, if I am being totally honest. It just doesn't seem right to defend a system on the grounds that I like watching it.

My opinion is I think it is hard to swallow for a lot of wrestlers, coaches and parents when you have a kid who is clearly one of the best wrestlers in the semi state, get put out in the ticket round because he drew the best kid in the semi state. We all know some regionals have weight classes that are deeper than others. If there were wrestle backs, it would be a lil more realistic as to who makes it vs who should have made it. In my particular case, I have a regional runner up draws the eventual semi-state champion. While the quarter bracket above his a kid who was JV makes it through, and the bracket above that a 4 (which I genuinely like the kid) makes it through. With all that being said, we knew going into it that hey, you got to beat this kid or your seasons over. For a senior that worked his tail off and lost to 8th ranked kid at regional by 2 and 5th ranked kid by 4, thats hard to swallow. On the flip side, I love the ticket round as much as I hate it. The suspense is a really awesome experience. Some of this depends on luck of the draw. Take luck out and it becomes more true. All that being said. If it stays the some, we are all used to this and are just happy to be here.

 

I hate the thought of classes though! There can only be one!! LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, maligned said:

What I'm saying simply is that most 4th placers are actually only the 5th, 6th, 7th best guys that didn't have any of their weight's top 4 in their bracket. Some of the 3rd placers are also only the 5th best or worse. These are calculated probability facts no matter what size school the guy is from.  If most of the small schools' state qualifiers then are kids that aren't in fact top 4 kids, it stands to reason that with wrestle backs, they'll lose a chunk of those qualifiers since their 5th-place or 7th-place level kids would have to get upsets that they don't always need right now to get bids.

 

Just because everyone gets the same number of lucky #6 die rolls right now doesn't mean there are lucky #6's available if you switch to a 5-sided die. Your "evening out" is only "even" in that everyone gets access to those lucky draws where the 5th or 7th best kid in the bracket is the best in his quarter.  More than half of the small school qualifiers the last two years from New Castle needed a lucky roll to have access at all to qualifying. That's gone with wrestle backs. There's no "evening" that out. It's a different proposition entirely.

 

But you aren't taking into account the small school kids who are top 4 but got a tough draw & eliminated when wrestlebacks would have pulled them back in. The 'evening out' comes into play because for every fortunate draw there has to be an unfortunate one.

 

In the long run small school kids get just as many unfortunate draws as fortunate ones.

 

So yes there are small school kids who are advancing under the current rules who would not advance with wrestlebacks. But there are also small school kids who are being eliminated that would advance with wrestlebacks. And the effect would be that now the correct small school kids are advancing & it could have a positive effect on the number of small school kids placing at state.

 

 

 

Edited by SIACfan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

In the long run small school kids get just as many unfortunate draws as fortunate ones.

 

 

 

Most 4th placers out of semi-state are 5th best or worse and didn't have a top 4 kid in their quarter. 

 

Using the New Castle example: Small schools had 6 of 13 state qualifiers as 4th placers the last two years. That's 46%. Big schools had 22 of 99 (22%) as 4th placers. In other words, more than double the rate of the small-school qualifiers are in the "likely not top 4" category  than the large-school counterparts. Those 46% mostly don't qualify for state with wrestle backs and are replaced by large-school kids at a 90% rate (the rate at which large-school kids take the top 3 spots).

 

I'll stop beating this dead horse now. I'm not sure of another way to say it. Sorry I'm not getting the job done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, maligned said:

What I'm saying simply is that most 4th placers are actually only the 5th, 6th, 7th best guys that didn't have any of their weight's top 4 in their bracket. Some of the 3rd placers are also only the 5th best or worse. These are calculated probability facts no matter what size school the guy is from.  If most of the small schools' state qualifiers then are kids that aren't in fact top 4 kids, it stands to reason that with wrestle backs, they'll lose a chunk of those qualifiers since their 5th-place or 7th-place level kids would have to get upsets that they don't always need right now to get bids.

 

Just because everyone gets the same number of lucky #6 die rolls right now doesn't mean there are lucky #6's available if you switch to a 5-sided die. Your "evening out" is only "even" in that everyone gets access to those lucky draws where the 5th or 7th best kid in the bracket is the best in his quarter.  More than half of the small school qualifiers the last two years from New Castle needed a lucky roll to have access at all to qualifying. That's gone with wrestle backs. There's no "evening" that out. It's a different proposition entirely.

I think im following you, but  i disagree.      I agree on  you're classification that the 4th place finisher,  a portion  of the time is the 5th best or even possibly 6th or 7th best  and is the beneficiary of a good draw.  Without wrestlebacks i agree with that this occurs, thus the biggest problem without wrestlebacks is  the top 4 best wrestlers dont get through.  Conversely, normally the 4th or even 3rd best wrestler doesn't get through when the 5th or 6th place guy goes.  Statistically, Im going to SWAG that the in Indiana brackets, the 5th best or lower ranked wrestler gets  through  roughly 50% of the time, so in Indiana the 5th-7th have a better statistical opportunity and the 3rd or 4th odds are diminished.   I agree on that.      

 

So for you're hypothesis to be true  that small schools benefit more from no wrestlebacks, this would mean that the small schools more often are the 5th-7th best wrestlers and the big schools are normally the 3rd or 4th ranked wrestlers.   I say in a proportional representation of the population,  the small school kids are equally distributed in the set of the( 3rd and 4ths) and the (5th-7ths).    My hypothesis is that small school kids benefit from good and bad draws in the same proportion as big school kids do.   I do appreciate the sample of  New Castle where than half of the small school qualifiers got a good draw.  But thats too small of a sample which you probably agree and somewhat subjectively difficult to  measure if the small school kids were really a 5-7.  

 

Also,  I looked at ECC in 2020.   13 of the 4th place finishers were from big schools, and one was from a small school.  By big school,  im saying youre 3A and 4A classificaiton.   Based on that small sample size, large schools are benefiting more from the 4th place no wrestleback bonus.

Edited by Wrestling Scholar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

 

So for you're hypothesis to be true  that small schools benefit more from no wrestlebacks, this would mean that the small schools more often are the 5th-7th best wrestlers and the big schools are normally the 3rd or 4th ranked wrestlers.  

This is where we're stuck. I'm saying a bigger percentage year in and year out of small school kid qualifiers are 3rd and 4th place kids than the percentage of big-school qualifiers that are 3rd and 4ths--meaning their rate of qualifying because of a good draw versus because of being truly a top 4 kid is assured to be higher also. Knowing this is true, we then know their qualifying rate goes down when there are wrestle backs--because wrestle backs eliminate the "good draw" possibility.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, maligned said:

Most 4th placers out of semi-state are 5th best or worse and didn't have a top 4 kid in their quarter. 

 

Using the New Castle example: Small schools had 6 of 13 state qualifiers as 4th placers the last two years. That's 46%. Big schools had 22 of 99 (22%) as 4th placers. In other words, more than double the rate of the small-school qualifiers are in the "likely not top 4" category  than the large-school counterparts. Those 46% mostly don't qualify for state with wrestle backs and are replaced by large-school kids at a 90% rate (the rate at which large-school kids take the top 3 spots).

 

I'll stop beating this dead horse now. I'm not sure of another way to say it. Sorry I'm not getting the job done.

 

But you still aren't taking into account the small school kids that got unfortunate draws. How many of the (22) big school 4th placers would be replaced with a small school kid with wrestlebacks?

 

Of those (6) small school 4th placers, a certain percentage would still get through. Say (2) of those (6) would still advance with wrestlebacks. Thus we are down to (4) small school kids that got a fortunate draw to advance. The law of averages suggests that (4) small school kids got unfortunate draws & were eliminated where wrestlebacks would pull them back in.

 

That is what your statistics are failing to account for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, maligned said:

This is where we're stuck. I'm saying a bigger percentage year in and year out of small school kid qualifiers are 3rd and 4th place kids than the percentage of big-school qualifiers that are 3rd and 4ths--meaning their rate of qualifying because of a good draw versus because of being truly a top 4 kid is assured to be higher also. Knowing this is true, we then know their qualifying rate goes down when there are wrestle backs--because wrestle backs eliminate the "good draw" possibility.

 

 

If you randomly put the theoretical top 4 into 4 regionals of 19 teams each, assume they don't lose to others, and assume the same random draw system at semi-state that we have--79% of the scenarios result in a quarter bracket without one of those top 4 kids. We know of course that upsets happen and that there are certain regionals that have more of the top kids, but this just illustrates what forms the base of what I'm saying: assuming better kids beat worse kids most the time, the 4th place kid mostly is not genuinely a top 4 kid. If many more of your placers are 4th placers than someone else's--more of your qualifiers are due to randomness than others'. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

But you still aren't taking into account the small school kids that got unfortunate draws. How many of the (22) big school 4th placers would be replaced with a small school kid with wrestlebacks?

 

Of those (6) small school 4th placers, a certain percentage would still get through. Say (2) of those (6) would still advance with wrestlebacks. Thus we are down to (4) small school kids that got a fortunate draw to advance. The law of averages suggests that (4) small school kids got unfortunate draws & were eliminated where wrestlebacks would pull them back in.

 

That is what your statistics are failing to account for.

I'll track with you. The rate of "lucky quarters" for 4th placers is about 79%. So take away 5 from the small schools and take away 17 from the big schools. Now redistribute those 22 we took away from everybody at the 91% big-school qualifier frequency rate we calculate from positions 1-3: that gives 2 spots back to small schools--for a grand total of 3 estimated deserved 4th placers from small schools. They lose 3 state qualifiers out of their 13 over the 2-year period if wrestle backs are in place.

Edited by maligned
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This years state finals is not even operating at 25% capacity.  Can you even imagine how much more terribly this weekend would have been handled if we would ever water down the greatest state finals championships in Indiana by having multiple classes.  If this ever happened I would only want to see 2 classes with the final 4 of each class wrestling on Saturday against each other.  Just my opinion, as a way to still have 1 champ. And definitely no wrestlebacks except the final 8.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, maligned said:

This is where we're stuck. I'm saying a bigger percentage year in and year out of small school kid qualifiers are 3rd and 4th place kids than the percentage of big-school qualifiers that are 3rd and 4ths--meaning their rate of qualifying because of a good draw versus because of being truly a top 4 kid is assured to be higher also. Knowing this is true, we then know their qualifying rate goes down when there are wrestle backs--because wrestle backs eliminate the "good draw" possibility.

 

 

i dont think the data supports it.    Look at all 56 of this year 4th place semi-state qualifiers (2021):   10 out of 56 are from 1A to 2A schools or 17.9%.  So 82.1% are from big schools.     Based on this data,  the big schools are benefiting considerably more than the smaller schools.  I purport that  yes, the big schools dominate the 1 and 2 spots, but a lot of the small school kids start falling in the what im calling the screw zone (3rd or 4th best)  and also some fall in the bonus zone of 5-7.   Based on the 82%,  the big schools might be benefiting more from the no wrestlebacks. So lets calculate the 79% misqualification rate.     44 big school  wrestlers times 79% means 35 big school wrestlers benefited this year.   Granted most of the time they got the bonus over another big school wrestler but some small schools got screwed.    10 small school wrestlers * 79% means 8 possibly over placed, but i think we find at least 8 wrestlers in the bonus the 35 wrestlers would have made up for that. 

Edited by Wrestling Scholar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, maligned said:

I'll track with you. The rate of "lucky quarters" for 4th placers is about 79%. So take away 5 from the small schools and take away 17 from the big schools. Now redistribute those 22 we took away from everybody at the 91% big-school rate we pull from positions 1-3: that gives 2 spots back to small schools--for a grand total of 3 estimated deserved 4th placers from small schools. They lose 3 state qualifiers out of their 13 over the 2-year period if wrestle backs are in place.

 

Well at least we are now getting closer to 'evening out'.

 

First, that 79% of 'Lucky Quarters' is based on a random assumption - how accurate is that percentage?

 

Second, 91% is the big school rate for taking 1-3. And since almost half of the small school placers are 4th it stands to reason that the percentage for big school 4th place finishers would be less than the 91% rate at which they take the 1-3 spots. It would fall somewhere between that 91% and the actual 79% (22 of 28) that occured. 79% would give 4-5 small school kids back. Now you have only lost 1 kid in 2 years.

 

Given that all this is based on assumptions & a very small sample size, I still believe that the law of averages is going to win. In the long run, for every small school kid that gets a fortunate draw there will be a small school kid with an unfortunate one. It really doesn't need to get any more complicated than that.

 

The simple explanation is usually the correct one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

i dont think the data supports it.    Look at all 56 of this year 4th place semi-state qualifiers (2021):   10 out of 56 are from 1A to 2A schools or 17.9%.  So 82.1% are from big schools.     Based on this data,  the big schools are benefiting considerably more than the smaller schools.  I purport that  yes, the big schools dominate the 1 and 2 spots, but a lot of the small school kids start falling in the what im calling the screw zone (3rd or 4th best)  and also some fall in the bonus zone of 5-7.   Based on the 82%,  the big schools might be benefiting more from the no wrestlebacks. So lets calculate the 79% misqualification rate.     44 big school  wrestlers time 79% means 35 big school wrestlers benefited this year.   Granted most of the time they got the bonus over another big school wrestler but some small schools got screwed.    10 small school wrestlers * 79% means 8 possibly over placed, but i think we find at least 8 wrestlers in the bonus the 35 wrestlers would have made up for that. 

You're calculating who's benefitting more by quantity. I'm quoting who's benefitting more by rate. A higher rate of qualifiers from smaller schools is benefitting from good draws than the rate of benefit for the big school qualifiers. The fact you mention is exactly right: a much higher percentage of big school state qualifiers end up 1st or 2nd at semi-state (other than FW, which has very few big schools)--meaning a lower rate of their qualifiers come from the "luck zone" in 3rd or 4th. Again, if a higher rate of one group's qualifiers is by luck--they will suffer more percentage-wise when you take luck away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, maligned said:

You're calculating who's benefitting more by quantity. I'm quoting who's benefitting more by rate. A higher rate of qualifiers from smaller schools is benefitting from good draws than the rate of benefit for the big school qualifiers. The fact you mention is exactly right: a much higher percentage of big school state qualifiers end up 1st or 2nd at semi-state (other than FW, which has very few big schools)--meaning a lower rate of their qualifiers come from the "luck zone" in 3rd or 4th. Again, if a higher rate of one group's qualifiers is by luck--they will suffer more percentage-wise when you take luck away.

 

Your method has solid logic, but...

 

It is based on a very small sample size. And uses the rate based on the top 3 qualifiers to predict where the 4th qualifier would likely come from. If more small school kids are qualifying based on lucky draws then they must still be 5th &/or 6th best. so clearly the rate of 4th-6th is going to be different than it was at 1st-3rd. So your assumption that the 4th qualifier rate is going to follow the rate at which kids qualify 1st-3rd is suspect.

 

Additionally, I question the accuracy of the 79% 'Lucky Quarters' rate. Where does this come from? If it is accurate than that means that (4) out of every (5) 4th place qualifiers is not the participant who deserved to advance & only reinforces the idea that wrestlebacks are needed. But I concede that just because wrestlebacks are needed doesn't mean you are wrong about losing small school qualifiers. But my contention is that ensuring the correct kids are advancing is more important than the school size they come from.

 

Lastly, I still firmly believe that the 'Law of Averages' is going to win out in the end. It is a fact that for every kid that gets a fortunate draw someone else had to get an unfortunate one. So in the long run, for every small school kid that gets a good draw there will be one that gets a bad draw. And to put it in more precise words, for every small school kid that is only 5th or 6th best but got a lucky draw only to be eliminated by wrestlebacks, there will be a small school kid who was 3rd or 4th best but drew into one of the top 2 kids quarter bracket and then got through because of wrestlebacks. Your rate of 1st-3rd qualifers does not take into account those kids.

Edited by SIACfan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hate to be a nit-picker, but not enough to keep my mouth shut...What you all are calling the "law of averages" is in reality the "Law of Large Numbers." This law basically states that, given a large enough number of trials, observed outcomes will eventually arrive close enough to expected outcomes that any difference is negligible.

 

The law of averages is not a real mathematical principal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.