maligned

As mentioned in the amended 2.0 post...no. Part of the reason for considering the unbalanced 8-8-12-12 model is that we can use the same format for 1A and 2A as before and trust they'll easily catch up to 3A and 4A by their 3rd or 4th round. Small schools will have 5 rounds with one bye. Big schools will have 4 rounds.

The people have spoken. Thanks for all the input. President Greg Ratliff, tournament director JD Minch, and others have put their heads together and figured out proposed ways to make 20 mats work so that we can run with the idea of 8 teams in 3A and 4A and 12 teams in 1A and 2A. See the updated nitty gritty details in the original post. Cheers

Official numbers by the IHSAA for classification purposes come out every two years. The numbers governing 2019-20 and 2020-21 for all sports were released in January a year ago. Next release will be this time next year.

It will be the same enrollment numbers as this past season.

Sectionals and regionals have been on a "category" or quota system for going on 5 years (you get credit for somewhere between 2 to 6 regional qualifiers or semi-state qualifiers instead of exactly 4 depending on your strength). When we run the math for the different semi-states, it always comes out that there are roughly 3.6 to 3.8 state level guys per weight, on average, from FW while the others are each in the 4.0 to 4.3 range consistently. FW has never been below 3.5 and no other semi-state has ever been above 4.5, so there's not enough evidence to suggest we need to go to a quota for semi-state where certain ones get credit for 5 state qualifiers per weight or others only 3 since we're working with whole numbers.

He said..."that means one of Bellmont or Garrett wouldn't have been voted in" as if one of the two would have definitely been left out--when in fact Bellmont would have automatically been in and Garrett would have had the very compelling profile that you had and almost certainly been voted in just as you were.

Schools have always been allowed to choose to be in the biggest class for qualifying if they want. EMD have always been the only ones until Cathedral last year opted in when they fell to 2A size. I'm guessing no others will, but we'll see.

No school is "moving" classes per se. Teams are reclassified every year based on updated enrollment numbers and how many teams have 7+ kids at sectional. Once the 4A schools are removed, the rest of the qualified teams will simply be divided equally into three classes as always.

The adjusted scoring for 3A will make things a little different, but the new 3A most likely would have been this last year: Semi-state auto bids: Columbus East, Mishawaka, Roncalli Automatic wildcards: Bloomington South, Mt. Vernon (Fortville), Hobart Voting for both spots: Wawasee, Harrison (WL), Franklin There's also a chance that with this year's updated scoring Northridge would have eked into the top 10 and taken the 4th available semi-state auto bid and that others would have narrowed the points gap and worked their way into the voting.

Procedures will be released the week before sectional, but qualification scoring will be very similar. 1A and 2A will be nearly unchanged. 4A will be slightly changed from the old 3A charts. 3A will be a blending of the old 3A and 2A charts.

This is incorrect...see the post above I just made.

Close...the scoring is different enough that certain teams are affected more than others when moving classes. It would have been: Semi-state auto bids: Culver Academies, Oak Hill, Southridge Auto wildcards: Western, Norwell, Bellmont Voting 1: West Vigo, Edgewood, Eastern (Greentown), Garrett, Jasper, Delta, Jimtown Voting 2: Gibson Southern Southmont would have earned 131 points, just behind N Montgomery in the NC semi-state race--with both outside the top 10 and outside voting consideration. Manchester would have earned 138, also just slightly outside voting consideration. All told, I'm guessing that after voting 2A would have been the same as this year minus the 4 teams that would have been in 3A (Wawasee, Leo, Jay County, Columbia City) and with Southridge replacing West Vigo.

Not sure how many teams will want to bump up. There's plenty of competition in the new 3A if people dont bump: Columbus East, Mishawaka, Roncalli, Franklin, Hobart, Mt. Vernon, WL Harrison, Castle, Bloomington South, New Palestine, Floyd Central, East Noble, Northridge, among others, are teams who have recently qualified or almost qualified in the old 3A. And it will be rare that one of these teams has that little bit extra to genuinely compete for a title against the 4A elite. Franklin's title run a few years ago and Mishawaka's very high quality level in the mid/late 2000s were impressive feats. Depending on enrollment numbers and sectional forfeits, Wawasee, Leo, Jay County, Columbia City from this year's 2A Team State could be in the new 3A as well. It won't be a "junior" accomplishment if you win it or place high.

UPDATED JANUARY 21 WITH NEW TEAM ALLOCATIONS The IHSWCA has decided on significant changes for Team State for 2020-21. Namely, a 4th class will be added and the new 4A and 3A classes will have 8 teams (while 1A and 2A continue to have 12 each). These changes will determine new qualification procedures during this year's individual tournament. Here is a summary of the specific changes and their rationale: --A new 4A class will be added, which will include only schools with 2000 or more students plus the teams that have decided to compete in the largest division despite smaller enrollments. RATIONALE: There is a very consistent, even distribution of schools across enrollments from the smallest schools up through most of the current 3A schools, at which point we see a sharp spike in enrollment among the top third of that current class. This means there is a much, much larger gap between the biggest and smallest schools in 3A, comparing with 2A and 1A. Consequently, we've seen very rare high placement at Team State outside of the biggest few schools and the two Catholic powerhouses while there is a broader range of success in the other divisions. All 4 divisions will now have roughly 2 times as many students in its largest schools compared to its smallest. --Eight (8) teams will qualify for the event in 3A and 4A. Twelve (12) will still qualify in 1A and 2A. RATIONALE: Much has been made about the wait periods for the big school duals at Team State between rounds with the current unbalanced system of 12 teams per class. With the change to 8 teams per class in the larger classes with slower duals, the event can move along more efficiently. In 4A and 3A, there will be two pools of 4 teams per class. Pool winners will wrestle for the championship and all other teams will wrestle a placement match based on their position in their pool. In 2A and 1A, the 5-round program will proceed as it did this season (3-team pools, 4-team placement brackets, all teams guaranteed 4 matches) with the realization that the 3-round pool matches will be completed at roughly the same time as the first two of the four rounds for 4A and 3A. --Classification for 1A, 2A, and 3A will be unbalanced to allow for an equal percentage of qualifying teams per class. After the 4A schools are removed, the remaining schools with at least 7 wrestlers at sectional, will be divided so that 3A has 25% of the schools (roughly 60) and 2A and 1A have 1.5 times the number of 3A (roughly 90 each). RATIONALE: All of 1A, 2A, and 3A will have the same percentage rate of qualifying schools. Only the very large schools will be put in a smaller group to reflect their high concentration of the best overall teams that have made up almost all of the big school top 4 finishers during the IHSWCA Team State era. --Geographical qualification will be adjusted slightly in 3A and 4A. Going forward, the best 3 semi-state winning qualification scores will receive automatic bids in the big school classes. Additionally, the next 3 best scores, no matter the semi-state, will receive the next 3 automatic bids. Finally, if the 4th best semi-state winner in a given semi-state has a qualification score among the class's Top 10, they will receive the 7th bid in the class. All other bids (1 or 2 per class to fill out the field of 8 ) will be voted on according to protocols similar to the past. RATIONALE: Preserving geographic distribution of qualifiers is important. However, there will be an increased problem with low numbers of teams at certain semi-states and a more limited field of 8 spots available per class to keep the event at its highest competition level possible. For example, there will be only 3 schools in the new 4A class in Fort Wayne, while the other sites have between 8 and 13 teams each. These new qualification procedures will allow a strong representation across classes for all semi-states and allow a fair opportunity for all semi-state winners to prove their worth without unduly punishing deserving event candidates.

1A was so wide open this year. 2 and 3 seeds both fall in the pools. Southern boys N Posey and Southridge headed to the championship match plus Tell City in the 3-4 match in a flipping of the usual FW-dominated script in this class.