NickS

So a tournament can't be classed based on the level of skilled wrestlers returning?

For those who are interested, here's the point system the OHSWCA is using to determine which teams they invite to their duals. http://www.fcpsports.com/teamsitepro/ohswca/showBlank.php?link_id=4466&section_id=470

Umm yeah, you're actually right. The OHSWCA (the equivalent to the IHSWCA) was running a great invitational tournament. The OHSAA (different organization) was impressed and decided to run an official team state-dual tournament. Why would the OHSAA undertake such a project if it wasn't working for the OHSWCA? Here's a link to what the OHSAA is planning on doing. http://www.ohsaa.org/sports/wr/boys/2011/LetterRegardingTeamTournament.pdf Technically, even this is not an all-in tournament.

Greco, I like your transition plan. I just think it'll have to be over a longer time frame. Still good idea though. I like how it'd be required for schools to join the IHSWCA in order for them to be invited. Something I've been thinking out, instead of having 3-class tournaments. There could be 3 brackets. What I mean by this is, you'd still have the top 8 or 16 teams from 3 classes competing. But instead of being broken up by class, they'd be broken up by returning points. This is a rough example of what it'd look like with the top 8 for this year. [table] Invites from 3a [table] Crown Points - 347 Perry Meridian - 254 Evansville Reitz - 244 Cathdral - 241 Roncalli - 225 Merrillville - 212 New Castle - 211 Ben Davis - 194[/table] Invites from 2a[table] [table][tr][td]Yorktown - 252 Danville - 159 Delphi - 159 Jimtown - 153 Southmont 139 Hanover Central - 139 New Prairie - 135 Culver Academies - 129[/table] Invites from 1a [table] Fountain Central - 173 Alexandria - 160 Adams Central - 136 Mater Dei - 135 South Adams 127 Union County - 103 West Central - 99 Southridge - 88[/table] [/table] After you get the invites, rank them 1-24; with 1-8 going to Bracket A, 9-16 going to Bracket B, and 17-24 going to Bracket C. This is what that would look like. [table] Bracket A [table] Crown Point (3a) Perry Meridian (3a) Yorktown (2a) Evansville Reitz (3a) Cathedral (3a) Roncalli (3a) Merrillville (3a) New Castle (2a)[/table] Bracket B[table] [table][tr][td]Ben Davis (3a) Fountain Central (1a) Alexandria (1a) Danville (2a) Delphi (2a) Jimtown (2a) Southmont (2a) Hanover Central (2a)[/table] Bracket C [table] Adams Central (1a) New Prairie (2a) Mater Dei (1a) Culver Academies (2a) South Adams (1a) Union County (1a) West Central (1a) Southridge (1a)[/table] [/table] (I don't know why my post is getting all goofed up. So annoying.) Anyways, what this format does is allows for teams to be matched up better by talent vs. by just how big your school is. So, some years, you might have a team that competes in Bracket A, then the next year compete in Bracket C. I'm going to stop typing now.

When it comes to running what type of tournament, all-in or one-day, I look no further than what Ohio is doing. As organized and structured their association is, they don't have an all-in tournament. They have over 500 teams in their state and they only invite 24 teams to their state duals. It seems to be working pretty well and it doesn't seem many people are up in arms over how the other non-invited teams are getting the shaft.

OK?

Y2 and Karl - I'd love to have every power wrestling program in the invite. With there only being so few spots open, that's very difficult to do so. Another issue is that it would most likely shun the small schools that could field competitive teams. Isn't that what's your biggest beef with the current state tournament? Plus, this'll allow the flexibility to cycle more teams from year to year. You wouldn't have the same 5-6 teams every time, but still have a very competitive tournament. Isn't this what also was an issue with team state? Greco and Gstem - Judging by those teams, do any of them look like they only have 1-2 studs? Maybe a re-weighting of the point system would be in order. My brain just isn't that mathematical savvy. ;D I'm curious to know what Ohio uses too. But I think using points earned throughout the state tournament is actually good. Teams that were able to do well at weaker sectionals would drop off after regionals and semi-state. Plus teams that had the 1-2 studs still would be behind, because they wouldn't do well as a team at sectionals or regionals.

Yeah, I mean, who would want to go see Crown Point, Perry Meridian, Yorktown, Reitz, Cathedral, or Mater Dei right?

The "ideas for team state" thread got me thinking about what the IHSWCA can do as an alternative now that the IHSAA is aborting team state. I figured I'd post this in a new thread so it wouldn't get lost. I compiled all the returning placement points earned throughout the entire state tournament last year. I would use total team points earned, but I just don't have the numbers to go through that. So for this example, I'm sticking with placement points. For the first year, I would run a 16-team tournament, with a minimum of 5 teams coming from 3 classes. In order to be invited, you have to finish in the top 5 of your class in returning team points; with the 16th invite going to the highest scoring team remaining. Seeds could be based on returning points, or seed the top 8 and random draw the rest, or just random draw the whole thing. Just throwing options out there. 4-4 team brackets. 1sts going to the 1st place bracket, 2nds going to 2nds, 3rds going to 3rds, and 4ths going to 4ths. You know the drill. These are who would be invited for this coming year. The points represent the placement points returning. Keep in mind, I used points earned throughout the whole state tournament. Not just the state finals. Crown Point (3a) 347 Perry Meridian (3a) 254 Yorktown (2a) 252 Evansville Reitz (3a) 244 Cathedral (3a) 241 Roncalli (3a) 225 Merrillville (3a) 212 Fountain Central (1a) 173 Alexandria (1a) 160 Danville (2a) 159 Delphi (2a) 159 Jimtown (2a) 153 Southmont (2a) 139 Adams Central (1a) 136 Mater Dei (1a) 135 South Adams (1a) 127 Would these be the best 16 teams in the state? No. Would this replace the IHSAA team state? No, and it probably never will. But how could you argue against this being the toughest regular season tournament in the state though? 8 or 9 team state caliber teams. 15 of the 16 teams with at least 1 returning state qualifier, and 37 returning state qualifiers total from last year. I think this would be a good start to what we want as a wrestling community. Thoughts?

In Ohio, their coaches' association runs their own dual state tournament during the season. I'm willing to bet that Ed's and Graham consider it to be a great and prestigous honor, despite the "official" state champion being determined later in the year by the OHSAA. From what I've read online, the OHSAA is planing on having a team state tournament within the next couple of years. I'm sure the success of the coaches' version has been a big influence on that.

Please reread my post with regards to using returning state points vs. using in-season results. After doing so, if you still feel that in-season results is more feasible then, well.... good luck with that. ;D

I'm not sure how well-received a BCS-type formula, that someone cooked up in the seat of their own house, would be in the coaches' community. Furthermore, using current season results would mean invitees wouldn't have much time to prepare. The season practically starts on thanksgiving week right? This tournament would take place in the middle of January. That's just 2 months at that point. Factor in that you have to still wrestle some matches to find how who's going to be invited. You got to think that takes at least a month of wrestling to plug in some data. Now you have just 1 month for invitees to prepare. Then you have to start filling the tournament, which may take time. What if they have something scheduled that week? How reliable would be a 1 month of data be in determining teams? Using returning state tournament results is the most reasonable way, in my mind. You'll literally know who to invite the day after state finals. That gives you 11 months to plan and fill the tournament. I know that this could hurt senior-laden teams, but time to prepare is extremely important. Something in-season results couldn't possibly do. GrecoCoach- Maybe we could have 3 classes of tournaments. I only suggest starting with 16 teams becuse it's the first year. Maybe we could have 3 classes, but say you have a really good 2A or 1A team (Mater Dei). They could be invited to wrestle in the 3A tournament? Just throwing that out there because I think the fans (and I'm sure the coaches too) want the best teams to face off, regardless of their size. Anyway, this is a minor issue that can be worked out fairly easily. But the format should be so that every team benefits from attending, not just the winning teams.

In my opinion, in order for this IHSWCA dual tourney to work from the get go, we need to start small. Just by reading through this thread, it looks like we aren't going to have many weeks open out of the season to run this thing. I'm not sure we'll have the organization and manpower to run an all-inclusive tournament right now, especially in just one week. Be patient, start small the 1st year, and build from there. This is what I propose for the 1st year. A 16 team invite on a Saturday, in mid-January. I know there might be some conference tournaments going on. But I do think this can be worked around if the invitees are given enough time to prepare. This is how I would go about which teams will earn those invites. Count all the returning team points earned throughout the entire State Tournament, sectionals thru state. (I'm actually in the process of looking at the returning placement points just to see what it would look like for this coming year.) To make it so that this invite tourney wouldn't be dominated by big school teams. Split up all schools into 4 classes: 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, with the top 4 scoring teams from each class being invited to this tournament. If a team happens to decline the invitation, invite the next team down for that class. Seed the tournament by those returning team points, 1 thru 16, with 4 teams going to 4 mini-brackets in the morning session. In each mini-bracket, the winners of the semi's will face off in their mini-final, while the losers will wrestle for mini-3rd (yes, I love using the word mini.) In the afternoon session, You'll have the mini-1sts going against eachother, in the same format, as well as the mini-2nds and mini-3rds and mini-4ths, you get the picture. In other words, I'd run this tournament similar to how The Clash is ran. Every team gets 4 matches in. So it wouldn't be like the weaker teams would get hammerd in their first match and would be one and done. They'd get 4 good matches in and hopefully it'd be a good experience. With the better teams wrestling 4 matches as well, with 1 being crowned champion and having bragging rights for a year. If this is a success, which I don't see why not, then do it again for a 2nd year. Ask the coaches what they thought of the tourney and what could be done to improve it, same with the fans. I do believe this would leave just enough taste in everyone's mouth to clamor for more. Like I said start small and I can't emphasize enough to be patient. Don't rush to an all-inclusive tournament. We aren't ready for that just yet, I think.

I know it's not the perfect way to determine a team title. I'd much prefer to have a team series. However, I think the writing is on the wall with the cutting of team state for next year. I think we should start preparing for an alternative solution now. At least with my idea, you'll have only the best teams from sectionals moving on. And not worrying about an average team with a handful of studs taking home the crown. Just my 2 cents.

Check out the thread titled "Team, Sec, Reg, and SS scores." It'll give you an insight on how each semi-state (plus teams, sectionals, regionals) stacked up against one another.

With Team State being gone next year, apparently. An idea I've been pondering, for next year, is advancing just the highest scoring team. For example, whoever wins sectionals advances to regionals, for the team aspect. So you'll have the 2 sectional champions battling for a team title at individual regionals. Then at individual semi-state, you'll have the 4 regional champions battling for a team title. Then at individual state, you'll have the 4 semi-state champions going for the state title. I think this would allow for the actual better teams to keep advancing. And you wouldn't have to worry about an Indian Creek winning a team title. (Not trying to downplay their achievement this past weekend. But we know they aren't the 2nd best team in the state.)

This is what I counted up. Team 1. Crown Point - 88 2. Indian Creek - 76.5 3. Yorktown - 64 4. Castle - 60 5. Perry Meridian - 60 6. Evansville Mater Dei - 48 7. Jimtown - 47 8. Lawrence North - 41 9. New Castle - 38 10. Roncalli - 33 Sectionals 1. Crown Point - 125 2. Lawrence Central - 93 3. Castle - 88 4. Mooresville - 79.5 5. Evansville Central - 79 6. Decatur Central - 75 7. Delta - 74 8. Plymouth - 71 9. Northview - 59 10. Elkhart Memorial - 58.5 Regionals 1. Castle - 167 2. LaPorte - 142 3. Pendleton Heights - 139 4. Mooresville - 113 5. Perry Meridian -112 6. Rochester - 109 7. Jay County - 106 8. Goshen - 98 9. Bloomington South - 72 10. Richmond - 69 Semi-States 1. Evansville Reitz - 382 2. New Castle - 367 3. Merrillville - 336.5 4. Woodlan - 257

I've been keeping track of the sectional, regional, and semi-state scores as well. This is what I have heading into tonight. Sectionals 1. Crown Point - 109 2. Lawrence Central - 77 3. Evansville Central - 76 4. Castle - 73 5. Mooresville - 69.5 Regionals 1. Castle 149 2. LaPorte - 119 3. Pendleton Heights - 116 4. Rochester - 104 5. Perry Meridian - 102 Semi-State 1. Evansville Reitz - 336 2. New Castle - 329 3. Merrillville - 299.5 4. Woodlan - 229

Why do you assume that the 115 lber would have an advantage since he's cutting down? I think alot of times, these cutters are at a disadvantage since they're always sucking weight instead of focusing on actual wrestling and technique. For this reason they are actually losing strength and conditioning.

This is one of those topics that won't go away until a change is made. Kind of like the casino bill in Ohio. It's going to eventually happen, the question is when?

I wonder what the percentage of guys, in the highest levels of high school and collegiate wrestling, have a substantial background in the international styles? Coincidence?

I don't want to burst your bubble, but 119 thru 160 is 8 weight classes. If 40-50% of your roster is between those weight classes. That means 50-60% of your roster is in the other 6 weight classes. So according to your estimations, most of your wrestlers are actually not in the 119-160 range. Just saying...

I don't know where you guys see how these options are eliminating a middle weight. Going off the numbers I posted, 135 thru 189 are our most populated weight classes. That is 7 weight classes. Option A would actually add a class for these wrestlers... 136, 141, 146, 152, 159, 167, 177, and 192. Option B still has 7 classes... 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, and 195. and Option C would add a class as well... 134, 140, 146, 152, 159, 167, 177, and 192. So this perception of that "we would lose a middle weight class" is actually false. In fact, quite the opposite is what would happen, in reality.

Does anyone else see the irony? ;D

Dave, I posted some numbers in another thread, but I figured they would definitely benefit this discussion. I tabulated them, by hand, from the sectional brackets posted on this website (http://www.indianamat.com/2010-ihsaa-wrestling-sectional-brackets/2010/01/). So I'll leave it up to you to decide how much emphasis to put on them. This is the particpation % for all the weight classes at sectionals for Indiana... For example, 103 was being filled at 72.6% for sectionals. Which means, it was forfeited by 27.4% of all schools in Indiana. Over one-quarter of Indiana teams couldn't even field at 103 lber. [table] 103 [table] 72.6%[/table] 112 [table] 77.7%[/table] 119 [table] 84.2%[/table] 125 [table] 82.3%[/table] 130 [table] 86.8%[/table] 135 [table] 90.3%[/table] 140 [table] 91.3%[/table] 145 [table] 92.3%[/table] 152 [table] 88.7%[/table] 160 [table] 89.4%[/table] 171 [table] 91.3%[/table] 189 [table] 89.0%[/table] 215 [table] 86.8%[/table] 285 [table] 87.4%[/table][/table] These next set of numbers shows the grade average for each weight class... I wasn't able to account for everyone, because not every sectional bracket had the grade for the wrestler in it. So using 103 as an example again, I was able to account for 197 grades for that weight class. Of those 197, 55.8% of them were freshmen, 28.4% were sophomores, 11.7% were juniors, and only 4.1% were seniors. [table] Weight Class [table] Grades Accounted For 9th 10th 11th 12th [/table] 103 [table] 197[/table] [table] 55.8%28.4%11.7%4.1%[/table] 112 [table] 208[/table] [table] 38.0%35.1%19.2%7.7%[/table] 119 [table] 224[/table] [table] 29.5%29.5%21.9%19.2%[/table] 125 [table] 222[/table] [table] 23.0%30.2%24.3%22.5%[/table] 130 [table] 236[/table] [table] 24.2%25.4%25.4%25.0%[/table] 135 [table] 239[/table] [table] 18.0%23.4%31.8%26.8%[/table] 140 [table] 248[/table] [table] 14.9%25.8%27.8%31.5%[/table] 145 [table] 249[/table] [table] 12.9%25.3%27.7%34.1%[/table] 152 [table] 241[/table] [table] 10.0%27.0%34.0%29.0%[/table] 160 [table] 239[/table] [table] 15.5%18.0%29.7%36.8%[/table] 171 [table] 244[/table] [table] 12.3%20.9%29.1%37.7%[/table] 189 [table] 244[/table] [table] 13.9%15.2%30.3%40.6%[/table] 215 [table] 235[/table] [table] 8.9%20.4%36.6%34.0%[/table] 285 [table] 234[/table] [table] 9.0%21.8%32.5%36.8%[/table] [/table] For what it's worth, I originally put these numbers together to show the disparity between 103 (and 112 to a lesser degree) to the rest of the weight classes. Now, getting to the debate on which weight class option to choose... Just to be let it known, first off. My choice was basically derived off of what I saw from the first 4 or 5 weight classes in each option. The reason why is because each of the middle and upper weights are being filled at around 90%. With the data that I tabulated, it appears that none of the options would really have a negative effect on the participation rates for those wrestlers, in my opinion. I eliminate Option D (no change) as a choice because I feel 103 has to be tinkered with somehow. Judging from the numbers above, not only is it being forfeited at a high rate, it's also being filled with underclassmen mostly. Which indicates to me that it's a "fill in" or "plug in" weight class, with many schools having very little depth behind the varsity wrestler. Option A is interesting, because it looks like your basically combining together 103 and 112. I feel this is too extreme of a move though, because there are still enough wrestlers out there for 2 lower weight classes. Furthermore, I feel the gap between 110 and 119 is too big. So I eliminate Option A. So it boils down to either Option B or C... In option B, for the first 4 weight classes, outside of 103 going to 106, there really isn't much change compared to the current lower weights. Basically all your going to see is wrestlers going from 103 to 106. You'll have your 112 tweeners choosing between 106 and 113. Then, you'll have your 119 lbers go to 120 and 125 lbers go to 126. You're going to see an increase in participation at 106, but a decrease at 113. So it's a wash really, in my mind. What I like about Option C is that you bump up the lightweight to 107. I believe anyone that can wrestle 103, can wrestle 107. You'll then, have your 112 tweeners choosing between 107 and 115. Then you'll have your 119 tweeners choosing between 115 and 122, and the same for the 125 tweeners between 122 and 128. After that, the numbers above, suggest that the middle and upper weight classes will work themselves out. So I'm going with Option C as my pick!!!