Early final round of state questions.

[grappler-of-old 44]

After looking at the flier sent out by KHSAA about procedures at the final round of the state tournament I have 2 questions. 

Q#1.  Why is it that if an athlete gets injured the placements don't roll up?  I know we don't have an alternate but why wouldn't the placements roll up and make the bye at the 8th place?  I know the kneejerk answer will be that the athlete entered the state semi-state and now he is out and it becomes a FF.  But don't we want the best matchups?  We have argued for decades about seeding the state tourney, and now that we are essentially doing this with the semi-state tourney. 

Q#2.  I asked this last year and never got a straight answer.  Why is it that all the top 4 placers at a semi state cannot make it to the semi's?  SS1 2nd and 3rd place finishers will meet in the quarters and vice versa.  Is this preferred by most of the people? I may be in the minority on this but I think that if the best 4 in the weight class are from the same semi-state then they should all be able to make it to the semifinals. 

 

[BigBossMan 21]

I think you are definitely in the majority. Not sure how the format for the final round was derived. This is the only tournament formatted this way that I have ever seen. It is better than what was originally done a few years ago, but it could be better. 

Not only is the First Round an absolute meat grinder of a tournament in which you have to wrestle 4, 5, even 6 matches to qualify for the final round, you may even have to wrestle the same opponent 3 times in 3 weeks. I agree with you wholeheartedly on the seeding aspect. We seed every tournament all season except for the semi state. All you have to do is seed the region champions, the seeding criteria has been established. Why is seeding the semi state such a problem? Middle school spent about 20 minutes seeding their state tournament this year. 

Since the final round is a continuation of the first round, why are kids wrestling to placement positions? When you essentially know where you will be seeded some may jockey placements to get a better draw for the final round. Instead, why not wrestle the first round like a true first round. Wrestle 2 rounds of championship matches and 2 rounds of consolation matches. 8 wrestlers from each semi state move on to the final round. Continue the tournament from there. Seeding the first round is key though. SS1 #1 overall seed should theoretically meet up with SS1 #4 overall seed in the championship round 3(which would take place at the final round state tournament). The winner of that match would theoretically wrestle the winner of SS2 #2 overall seed vs #3 overall seed. Those winners would be the semifinalists in the top of the bracket. SS1 #2 & SS1 #3 winner would wrestle the winner of SS2 #1 & SS2 #4 in the bottom bracket semifinal. The losers would drop down to the consolation quarterfinals.

Essentially, this would make the tournament a true 32 man bracket. (With proper seeding). I hope this is a moot point and that in the near future a venue suitable for a true 32 man bracket is used, and the state wrestling tournament becomes an epic event comparable to surrounding states' tournaments. Fingers crossed.