TNAAU State tournament seeding

[durdon]

Chuck I agree with almost all of your points... I skipped liberty this year because we had a top 100 and my youngest wanted the forth piece of the state medal. There should be some thought by the TNAAU as to when the top 100 tourneys are held next year so they don't conflict with national tourneys...

 

As far as seedlings go head to head should be part of the criteria but it seems like nobody in Tnaau wants to do the actual seeding so they have developed this auto seeding system based off region placings.. I was just trying to find an easy way to auto seed the brackets I do agree any seeding should use head to head criteria.. But I still disagree with you and josh that we should use last years placings as part of the criteria. I just think each season should stand on its own..

 

 

[humorwrestling]

Heres a great random example of why using the Top 100 tournaments is not the best solution. I randomly chose a middle school bracket and looked at all Top 100 and Region results.

 

Middle School 85

Top 100

Region 1 - Adzima, Lay, Nelson, Moultry

Region 2 - Moultry, Justice, McCray, Manuel

Region 3 - Lay, Justice, Adzima

Region 4/5 - Moultry, Adzima, Lay, Manuel

 

Region

1 - Nelson

2 - Justice, Adzima

3 - Lay

4 - Moultry

5 - Dooley, Manuel

 

So based on the Top 100 points Moultry would get the Top seed here with 2 tournament wins. He didn't attend the Region 3 Top 100 and was 4th at Region 1 Top 100. Lay has the more consistent Top 100 record with a win, a 2nd, and 3rd, and he won his region but he placed lower than Adzima and was beat head to head at one of the Top 100s. Adzima has a 1, 2, & 3 in Top 100 but placed 2nd in his region to Justice who took 2nd twice but didn't win a Top 100. Dooley didn't attend the Top 100s but won his region. He beat Adzima earlier in a different tournament. Nelson, the Region 1 Champ, best Top 100 finish was 3rd but he beat Moultry who won the 2 Top 100s where Nelson didn't compete.

 

A true mess. We should revisit this bracket after Saturday to see how it turns out. In my view there are 7 wrestlers who can win the tournament.

 

I could go on and on here but there are so many uncontrollable variables with the Top 100s that it makes no sense to me to include them in state seeding. I agree that Region champions should be paired against 4th from another and 2 vs 3. There may be some manual adjustments based on previous state place/winner but this can get tricky and in my opinion should only be used as seperation criteria, if a previous state placer gets 4th in his region he should wrestle a region champ 1st round.

 

If the top 2 region champs get placed on the same side of the bracket, its unfortunate, but a fact of life that wrestling teaches us. Don't expect your daddy to work it out and clear a path for you, step up and overcome. If not then you were 3rd that day and now you have motivation to come back and try again next year. After all, this is not an Olympic gold we are wrestling for, there are no college scouts, and in the grand scheme no one will every care where my kid placed in AAU State.

Edited March 6, 2013 by humorwrestling

[CPOPE2]

Chuck I agree with almost all of your points... I skipped liberty this year because we had a top 100 and my youngest wanted the forth piece of the state medal. There should be some thought by the TNAAU as to when the top 100 tourneys are held next year so they don't conflict with national tourneys...

 

As far as seedlings go head to head should be part of the criteria but it seems like nobody in Tnaau wants to do the actual seeding so they have developed this auto seeding system based off region placings.. I was just trying to find an easy way to auto seed the brackets I do agree any seeding should use head to head criteria.. But I still disagree with you and josh that we should use last years placings as part of the criteria. I just think each season should stand on its own..

 

I had it as 3rd and 4th criteria so head to head and Top 100 points would come first. Again, my points above were a quick suggestion that I thought about for a grand total of 2 minutes before typing. It can be improved.

 

Personally, as an "outsider" to Tennessee (although my family is from Nashville and Westmoreland), I like your Top 100 tourneys and love the belt award (wish TGA would so something like this and make it more meaningful than our Tour of Georgia tournaments that were eliminated due to poor participation. I would focus more on making these tournaments as attractive as possible. As long as they do not conflict with national tourneys, a minimum participation requirement would not be a bad idea. Using Trackwrestling as a seeding criteria isn't horrible, but it rewards the wrestlers who run/avoid competition and penalizes those that wrestle up in age/weight and also those that travel to wrestle the best competition.

[CPOPE2]

After all, this is not an Olympic gold we are wrestling for, there are no college scouts, and in the grand scheme no one will every care where my kid placed in AAU State.

 

You're correct to an extent but your kid cares, and that's what this is all about. I hear people all of the time saying that they don't like wrestling for true 2nd because, as they put it, "who cares if they get 2nd or 3rd". I asked my boy that very question and he, along with most every other kid I asked, would want a shot at 2nd. Kids shouldn't be penalized or rewarded due to an inept bracketing process.

[CPOPE2]

Heres a great random example of why using the Top 100 tournaments is not the best solution. I randomly chose a middle school bracket and looked at all Top 100 and Region results.

 

Middle School 85

Top 100

Region 1 - Adzima, Lay, Nelson, Moultry

Region 2 - Moultry, Justice, McCray, Manuel

Region 3 - Lay, Justice, Adzima

Region 4/5 - Moultry, Adzima, Lay, Manuel

 

Region

1 - Nelson

2 - Justice, Adzima

3 - Lay

4 - Moultry

5 - Dooley, Manuel

 

So based on the Top 100 points Moultry would get the Top seed here with 2 tournament wins. He didn't attend the Region 3 Top 100 and was 4th at Region 1 Top 100. Lay has the more consistent Top 100 record with a win, a 2nd, and 3rd, and he won his region but he placed lower than Adzima and was beat head to head at one of the Top 100s. Adzima has a 1, 2, & 3 in Top 100 but placed 2nd in his region to Justice who took 2nd twice but didn't win a Top 100. Dooley didn't attend the Top 100s but won his region. He beat Adzima earlier in a different tournament. Nelson, the Region 1 Champ, best Top 100 finish was 3rd but he beat Moultry who won the 2 Top 100s where Nelson didn't compete.

 

A true mess. We should revisit this bracket after Saturday to see how it turns out. In my view there are 7 wrestlers who can win the tournament.

 

In order to address this issue, you place a minimum 2 Top 100 appearance requirement and average their placements. If you have multiple kids that got the maximum points, you move to the next criteria; which is head to head. You can also use Region placement and add it to the criteria.

[humorwrestling]

I didn't say it doesn't matter. It matters to me and my kids, my point is that the kid and DAD shouldn't be blaming his kids losses on a "inept bracketing process," they have to learn that there will be obstacles in life and wrestling. They are going to learn a lot about overcoming obstacles in many of these AAU matches because they must beat their opponent and inept referees (thats a whole different discussion). But as I said, in the grand scheme, no one asks on a college application if your child won AAU State. And if you or your child can't get past a loss in AAU wrestling at some point in your life then maybe you are taking the wrong approach. No one is penalizing a kid with a bad bracketing process, its the system in place--teach your kid to work through it.

[humorwrestling]

In order to address this issue, you place a minimum 2 Top 100 appearance requirement and average their placements. If you have multiple kids that got the maximum points, you move to the next criteria; which is head to head. You can also use Region placement and add it to the criteria.

 

So you want to require a kid who can compete on the national level and travels outside of Tennessee to stay in the state and attend a lesser tournament in order to secure their seed at State? If thats the case then lets just let TN AAU make every club's schedule for them. We can do one tournament in the state each weekend and everyone is required to come or you don't get to go to state.

 

Have you ever considered that if every wrestler that has a legit shot at winning their region attends all the Top 100s (in order to secure a state seed) you will see the same 4-5 kids wrestling each other at 7+ tournaments each year. How does this improve our wrestling in Tennessee. My philosophy says that you expand your horizons and attempt to find different/new/better competition to improve your own.

Edited March 6, 2013 by humorwrestling

[CPOPE2]

I didn't say it doesn't matter. It matters to me and my kids, my point is that the kid and DAD shouldn't be blaming his kids losses on a "inept bracketing process," they have to learn that there will be obstacles in life and wrestling. They are going to learn a lot about overcoming obstacles in many of these AAU matches because they must beat their opponent and inept referees (thats a whole different discussion). But as I said, in the grand scheme, no one asks on a college application if your child won AAU State. And if you or your child can't get past a loss in AAU wrestling at some point in your life then maybe you are taking the wrong approach. No one is penalizing a kid with a bad bracketing process, its the system in place--teach your kid to work through it.

 

I'm guessing that's a blanket comment made to others cuz I can assure you that we understand winning and losing. That's why we travel. Try drawing the Tulsa Champ in the first round (when you feel confident that your son is the first, second or third best wrestler in the bracket)and then tell me if you feel that there's no "inept bracketing process". We did that at Liberty Nationals and then fought back to win 3rd b/c they didn't have a true 2nd match. You know what my son was saying after the tournament? "Why can't I wrestle the 2nd place kid?" At Dixie, we drew his teammate (who is arguably the best kid at his age/weight in the SE), lost by 1 point and then we were rewarded by drawing a National Champ (and multi-time State Champ) first round in losers bracket; which we also lost by 1 point. That was a growing experience right there as it was only the second DNP he's experienced in his young/short career. I mention these b/c I understand getting the sh*t end of the stick. I also have seen us get a favorable draw where we might not have placed 2nd had we wrestled the 3rd place kid and guess what??? I still would want to wrestle for true 2nd even if I knew that there was a chance that we'd go from 2nd to 3rd.

 

You need to do one or the other (in my opinon): either seed to the best of your ability and still offer a true 2nd OR don't seed and have an open tourney and offer a true 2nd.

 

*Note - I realize that it's my kid who wrestles. I refer to us winning and losing as "us" because we're a team and I'm his #1 fan; not cuz I want to receive credit, etc.

[CPOPE2]

So you want to require a kid who can compete on the national level and travels outside of Tennessee to stay in the state and attend a lesser tournament in order to secure their seed at State? If thats the case then lets just let TN AAU make every club's schedule for them. We can do one tournament in the state each weekend and everyone is required to come or you don't get to go to state.

 

Have you ever considered that if every wrestler that has a legit shot at winning their region attends all the Top 100s (in order to secure a state seed) you will see the same 4-5 kids wrestling each other at 7+ tournaments each year. How does this improve our wrestling in Tennessee. My philosophy says that you expand your horizons and attempt to find different/new/better competition to improve your own.

 

Did you read what I posted? I said to make sure that they DO NOT conflict with national tourneys. We travel everywhere and seeding isn't important to us (at all). I'd rather my son go unseeded as we wouldn't get a 1st round bye. Secondly, I said to make it a 2 tournament Top 100 requirement, not all of them.

[humorwrestling]

I agree with you that it sux to be on the wrong side of those types of brackets and I don't know there is a way to fix it to be perfect, especially in youth. There are over 60 weight classes in our state, there is no possible way to look at subjective seeding criteria and incorporate that into every weight class. It takes high school coaches hours to seed their region tournaments and thats only 14 weight classes and there are still inequitities.

 

I just think that requiring attendance at Top 100 tournaments not the answer. There are too many variables and these Top 100 tournaments are not the cream of the crop anyway. There are other more competitive tournaments in our state. I'm not against a true 2nd, but if we do it at State we should also do it at Region.

[CPOPE2]

I'm not against a true 2nd, but if we do it at State we should also do it at Region.

 

Agree 100%. They should be used at all tourneys in my opinion.

[humorwrestling]

Did you read what I posted? I said to make sure that they DO NOT conflict with national tourneys. We travel everywhere and seeding isn't important to us (at all). I'd rather my son go unseeded as we wouldn't get a 1st round bye. Secondly, I said to make it a 2 tournament Top 100 requirement, not all of them.

 

So if seeding isn't important to you, WHY are we having this discussion?

 

We all know how difficult it is to obtain a gym for a tournament, how do you propose that we schedule around all the national tournaments? Its not feasible.

 

I say we scrap the whole idea of Top 100. Pour the money being spent on those awards into State and make State the crown jewel event. The belts are really nice and I love seeing the kids being rewarded, but the winner is not necessarily the best wrestler, they might just have the best logistics.

 

Its all about priorities, I have kids on my team who could win the belt, but we choose not to chase it. Like you, we travel for competition and our plan is to have it pay off on the high school level and possibly pay for college. Thats more valuable than the belt to us.