UIL wrestling alignment

[bobmabry]

Well put Austex.

I agree as well. Not a bad job on the alignments. It was going to be a tough nut to crack and I think they did pretty well.

The bottom line is more wrestlers competing for district, regional and state titles, more excitement and most importantly, the continued growth of our sport.

[justanotherparent]

Good post, Austex, and great point about the districts that have 15, 16 & 17 teams. The reality is that the brackets for individual wrestlers will most likely have far fewer participants. Those large districts aren't even close to being the toughest districts for advancement. All in all, a good job by the UIL, IMO. It will be interesting now to see the venues for the regional and state tournaments.

[coachdelgado]

I posted this back in February. Here it is again.


Hey, I have been in Texas for 4 years now. My experience comes from Tennessee. They created a system that rewards prior state tournament success. Basically the wrestlers who were returning state placers and also region champs, were essentially seeded by formula. Those that do not win their regions are not seeded. It is a bit more necessary there with 8 regions. They have some brackets in this years tournament with 6 returning state placers. Their 120 bracket,
Hey, I have been in Texas for 4 years now. My experience comes from Tennessee. They created a system that rewards prior state tournament success. Basically the wrestlers who were returning state placers and also region champs, were essentially seeded by formula. Those that do not win their regions are not seeded. It is a bit more necessary there with 8 regions. They have some brackets in this years tournament with 6 returning state placers. Their 120 bracket, http://www.tssaa.org/2011Champions/Stat ... DI/120.pdf, has 6 returning place winners with only 3 of them being region champs. Only those that won the region get seeding consideration. 3 region champs who are returning place winners got "placed", what we would call seeded, the other 5 region champs were drawn into the remaining region champ positions.

Their formula for seeding, they call it placing or separation, is published and well known. Only those previous state placers are considered, the remaining region champs are randomly drawn in to the remaining region champ spots. In each quarter bracket, there are 8 wrestlers, 1 from each of the 8 regions and encompasses 2 region champs, 2 seconds, 2 thirds and 2 fourths. 1 v 4 and 2 vs 3 then 3 v 2 and 4 v 1.

Here is their criteria,
IV. STATE TOURNAMENT (Division I)
A. The state wrestling tournament shall be held the weekend of the third Saturday in February.
B. The draw for the state tournament shall be made by the Board of Control and shall be released
after the completion of all regional wrestling tournaments.
C. Wrestlers who meet the qualification shall be placed in each weight division in the state
tournament. In order to be placed, a wrestler must be a regional champion and must have been a
state place finisher during his high school career. The criteria for placing shall be as follows:
1. Separate all state champions (includes state champions from other states).
2. The following criteria shall be used to separate state champions: (a) state champion at
same weight, (b) state champion at higher weight, (c) state champion at lower weight. (If
there are two state champions at the same weight the state champion from Tennessee will
receive the higher seed.)
3. Follow the same procedure as #2 above for 2nd place from previous year, 3rd place from
previous year, …
4. Items #2 and #3 shall be applied in order to wrestlers who placed in the state tournament
two years prior.
5. Blind draw.

Anyway, by doing so it tries to create the best possible matchup for the finals. A blind drawn, rotation tournament is great at identifying the best wrestler but not necessarily the best placing for 2nd to 6th. Last year the 152 3rd place wrestler, who was a returning state champ, beat the 2nd place wrestler rather soundly at the regional tournament. Due to him being blind drawn into the same half of the bracket as the returning OW, they met in the semifinals. Most would agree that they were the two best in the weight class if not two of the best in the tournament. That kind of high caliber matchup should have taken place during the finals, not Saturday morning.

Of course, this is just my opinion as a wrestling fan, so have at it and tear it apart.

[jmicheal2333]

Jmichael,
I get it now. Your a kid. I should have known you have to stand up for your coach and your teammate. However your arguments seem to contadict each other. If walker would have been seeded ahead of Pierce then how is it an upset? Walker was a returning State Champion and undefeated in two years, but you think its an upset. That is the # 1 problem with seeding the state tournament. You and your buddies are good at playground name calling but not at evaluating talent and not reading. DB NEW YORK! Have I ever been to another State? Think about it chief. You seem to be stuck on a seeding matrix but are not really interested in realignment or the new format. Probably doesn't effect you.

New York,
To let you know and put your mind at ease, I am not a kid, nor am I a coach like yourself. I am a fan and parent, and have been involved with wrestling the last 17 years and but in only 4 different states (and not NY). I think highly of Texas wrestlers and coaches and therefore I don't usually post. I have been involved in the youth level wrestling all the way to the high school level. I believe the Pierce -Walker match was an upset not because of the seeds they would have received but because I like many others believe that Pierce is a better wrestler from all three positions, he is quicker, stronger, has better technique than Walker, and has much more potential than Walker. Now with saying that, Walker wrestled a good match and happened to come out on top this time. But I have to think you agree with me when I call it an upset because you continuely want to point out and somehow defend yourself and Walker by saying he is the better wrestler. Usually when someone is better they usually don't have to try to convince others by continuely bringing it back up that they beat someone because everyone already expects them to win. This has not been the case with the Peirce-Walker match and that is why people wanted to cheer against Peirce. They wanted the underdog Walker to win, and that is ok.
Who is name calling? I am just telling the truth, when you assume I am from Allen, that is showing your stupidity and how you are prejudice against Allen. I said you were ignorant because I thought you just didn't have the knowledge to make an educated post. Now I know because you are from NY and they have great schools, you must be just plain stupid, because you don't want to make an educated posts, and you want to continue to believe your wrestler Walker is better and that a matrix system wouldn't work. If he was truely better then you wouldn't mind having an round two, but I have a feeling you will post that you have nothing to prove: BTW that is usually what the underdog says or the ones that are scared to put it back on the line, because they got lucky the first time. So I don't expect to see another Pierce -Walker match-up because everybody knows his dad and coach will want to keep bragging into their old age about the time they once beat the Great Oliver Pierce. Probably the best thing for the kid is to not wrestle him again.
I personally like the "all one class" because I like the idea of there being one state champion. However I do think there will be more involvement throughout the state and it will help wrestling grow overall. I want to believe the wrestlers I do cheer for will not be effected by the realignment or new format because I think they will continue to win.

BTW I don't mean to call anybody out or attack any wrestlers, however I don't think that saying that there was an upset in a match is just a bad thing. No disrespect to Aaron Walker he had one great match against Pierce, and two great Texas high school seasons, but nothing wrong with saying I think Pierce is the overall better guy. Sorry if I offended anyone wasn't trying to, just think DBNEWYORK should be a coach like he was hired to do and good coaches dont go on bragging about one win. IMO

[DBNEWYORK]

JMichael,
Again I am certain that I have seen the highest quality of wrestling and been involved with wrestling for much longer than you and again I will not call you stupid because you think Pierce is a better wrestler than Walker, however I am certain you have not seen Walker wrestle enough to make determinations that Pierce is better in all three postions, he is faster, stronger and has better technique. It does sound like a resonable argument if you have trained or coached both Pierce and Walker. I have not. I do repect Oliver Pierce on may levels, first he is a class act. He is a gracious winner and a composed loser. He is dominating on his feet. He is a successful multi sport athlete(very successful in both sports, rare.) I also apprectiate the fact he thrives on representing Texas! It is clear he is disaplined and he has made sacrifices that 99% of high school athletes won't make. I am certain that you would not disagree with these statements so I guess I must be just plain stupid only when you disagree with what I have to say.
I am not Aaron Walkers coach but I have seen him wrestle for the last four years. I have watched his wrestling level continue to grow and develop. I have been at tournaments where he has beaten State Champions and I have seen him wrestle in the room against 3 different State Champions in the same group. My educated opinion comes from first hand knowledge. I would not post on this website anything that I was not certain could be backed up with fact. You have your opinions however they are from the outside looking in. I am proud of Aaron Walkers two State Championships, not one. I am also proud of the accomplishments of everyone of my wrestlers from the State Champions right down to the JV kid that went 0-2 at district. I am proud of the courage and the effort they put in, I am proud that they learn to fight to the end regardless of the score. I would imagine this is a lesson you have learned through you many years involved in wrestling. My biggest problem is with "educated wrestling fans that make uneducated statements" If you are not well versed on Aaron Walkers wrestling skills your judgment of who is the better wrestler is incomplete. I actually feel bad for Aaron and anyone not in the Metroplex because even after he beat one of the best wrestlers in the state he still does not get the respect he deserves. Aaron Walker is the best 152 pound wrestler in the state! That is why we have a State tournament and that is why we ask the wrestlers to go ahead and wrestle the match. If you can not exccept that, then you have not learned as much as you thought over the last 17 years involved in wrestling

[Goddard84]

To set the record straight, I posted the original message that referenced the Pierce/Rico matchup that happended in the semis. It was a perfect example of the flaw in our current system where we don't properly seed at state so a finals matchup can occur in the semis. That was it. I edited the original post to remove reference to any wrestlers after DBNEWYORK started the negative attacks (later he brought up Walker in the discussion for some unknown reason). I didn't want to focus on wrestlers just the seeding system and how it can create unwanted matchups before the finals.

DBNEWYORK, you need to take a chill pill and stop attacking people personally on this thread. I am not an Allen parent or fan (though I do have a tremendous amount of respect for the program, its wrestlers, and its accomplishments).

We need a matrix or some other seeding system at state to avoid this situation. I suggest we seed the #1's from each Region at state. That would be pretty simple and would eliminate most situations where we could have the top 2 wrestlers at state meeting before the finals.

[cwilson]

The idea of seeding regional champs based on last year's tournament results has some merit. Separate last year's medalists. That makes sense and would be easy to do. If you don't win your region, you don't get seeded. Very doable, free from bias, and an improvement over what we do now

[jmicheal2333]

Ideas for seeding at state
state coaches have meeting before tournament to discuss seeding
criteria: top 2 placers at regionals go on board
in no particular order
1.overall winning percentage
2. last years state placement-State champ at same weight, state champ different weight, state placer
3. head to head
*if there was an upset at regionals then coaches can decide together to put wrestler on board based on there criteria.

This avoids most match ups to early in the tournament but will not avoid them all.

[jmicheal2333]

this somethimes helps in keeping a team to wrestle an in-state tournament and travel where their state competition might be so they can wrestle a guy head to head and get criteria over them

[cwilson]

Ideas for seeding at state
state coaches have meeting before tournament to discuss seeding
criteria: top 2 placers at regionals go on board
in no particular order
1.overall winning percentage
2. last years state placement-State champ at same weight, state champ different weight, state placer
3. head to head
*if there was an upset at regionals then coaches can decide together to put wrestler on board based on there criteria.

This avoids most match ups to early in the tournament but will not avoid them all.

That will never happen. THe state is too big to get everybody together for a seeding meeting. The UIL likes to get brackets done so they can make programs, etc. A seeding meeting gets to close to the state tournament date and causes logistical problems. THis is why you see a matrix in almost every state. Are there any states that have a seeding meeting for state? IMO, If the state tournament is seeded, it should be by a point system that is computer generated. YOu have to take bias out of a seeding meeting at the state tournament.