NOT UNDERSTANDING SEEDING AT TOURNAMENTS

[oltimer]

Normally, #1 at top #2 at bottom while #3 and #4 split in middle. I have noticed that some seeding is not making since to me. You have kids that should meet in finals but meet in first round or earlier than they should... Just following Track Wrestling Tournaments, you see a close match earlier than the pins all the way to finals and some cases, in the finals! This would be ok if True Second was done. Also some head to head action before tournaments should have kids seeded where they have already beaten some of the seeded ones! Seems like politics!! With all the questions I have had, I asked about it and the tournament dirrector stated that Track only used Track Wrestling info...??? I have heard other parents complian about the same thing when they can clearly see that little Timmy is a #1 and is facing another #1 in first rounds of competition. why is that?? Can someone explain?? I did find out why kids were double FF in 3rd/4th place matches was due to a limit of 5 matches a day. Im catching up but really dont understand not using all stats/head to head and seeding the bracket in what seems to be fair to the kids participating?????.... There is always a seeding meeting right?? This doesnt really apply to my kids due to no wins at head to head nor ranked either but just seemed to me as not the norm....

 

 

???Anyone care to help????

[ghouse]

Are we talking high school or youth level?

 

One thing to keep in mind is that nearly all tournaments use a different set of seeding criteria that is typically put in place by the tournament director.  Most good tournaments, whether run in TrackWrestling or not, will have clearly published seeding criteria that can be followed.  The seeds can be determined outside of TrackWrestling and then input as the brackets are built.

 

It can be a combination of lots of different things like:

1) season record

2) head-to-head results

3) previous state placements

4) previous placement at the tournament in question

5) placing at other events throughout the season

6) state qualifiers

7) state ranking

8) general knowledge of a kid's skill level

 

That is just a short list of some of the most common things.

 

If a tournament is being run using TrackWrestling then you can certainly allow TrackWrestling to seed the tournament and it will look into what data it has available to seed based on that.

 

Tournaments that do a true seeding meeting are becoming more and more rare.  Most tournaments now ask coaches to send in relevant information ahead of time and then a tournament director or committee will seed the event based on the information sent in.

Edited January 6, 2014 by ghouse

[oltimer]

Thanks! That does make since! It is a lot of info to utilize for pairing. It was just VERY big talk in the stands so of course having time between matches, I started looking into what they were talking about and I got so confused and frustrated, I had to stop looking. With that said, I can fully understand why computers do the math! It just seemed, at times, a little odd once you looked at it for a bit but this helps me to understand more. Thanks for the information Mr. ghouse!

[YOUTHCOACH16]

Ghouse explained it perfectly. If you are referring to youth level tournaments I can give a little more clarity as well.

[oltimer]

Any information would be great!

[oltimer]

I was hearing that kid a has beaten, within this years comp. season, kid b and or c! All this iformation will be helpfull to tell if kids are seeded correctly or if a mistake has been made! The parents of the kid said that their kid lost out as I saw them leaving. I can only think A. beat the man to be the man or (given a bad draw on random bracketing)---dog eat dog world...lol scary, just if my boys ever compete enough to show a seeding at a tournament....lol

[YOUTHCOACH16]

I'm not sure which ages you are asking about. At youth tournaments our biggest obstacle and complaint is the length of the tournaments. This past weekends top 100 had almost 600 kids and 65 different weight classes in the different age groups. There simply isn't enough time to have a seeding meeting. It would take all day . Coaches/ parents are required to fill in seeding information on track wrestling when signing up their wrestler. It's done in a drop down box and you have 4-5 choices to chose from . The highest being state placer. The problem and inconsistencey comes from kids not being ranked correctly by whomever enters them into the tourney. Some are done by error and some are probably intentionally entered wrong in order to gain a better seeding. Track then seperates all the kids from the same team and tries to seperate the better wrestlers based on the seeding criteria that was submitted. There were weight classes this past weekend that had 4-6 returning state placers in them so the odds of the best two kids wrestling early was quite possible. I also noticed some of the better wrestlers didn't have the correct seeding criteria entered either. I'm not sure if this was just overlooked by whomever entered them or if it was intentional so their wrestler would get more quality matches but it makes it more probable two good wrestlers will face off earlier in the tournament. With us having a true second match it all works out in the end no matter what.

[Sommers]

At youth tournaments our biggest obstacle and complaint is the length of the tournaments. This past weekends top 100 had almost 600 kids and 65 different weight classes in the different age groups. There simply isn't enough time to have a seeding meeting. It would take all day."

 

Excellent point(s) if you're not careful you can go into the wee hours of the morning. Even the high school level will go way late with pre-seed mtg's and late statistical updates. That's what used to spice up tournaments when coaches like Al Miller didn't send in records & such with roster submission on Wed/Thurs

 

Suspense at every weight when Cleveland rolled into town. "get your business done early boys!"

[oltimer]

Thanks for all the help!