Seeding system has to be broken

[wiwrestle#1]

Look at D2 138lbs. Delebreau beat Bozile each time they faced off this year (all of Bozile's losses) including Sectionals, Bozile still got the #2 seed, that can't happen.

[Fish]

Similar situation in the D1 113 bracket.   Wathke (Bay Port) beat Beckett (De Pere) in the regional and sectional finals but is seeded lower.  It's not a huge deal because even if they flip flopped seeds they would still meet in the quarters.  But,  it's clear they are putting more emphasis on state results from the previous year instead of head to head results of the current year.

[harley25]

Some people will complain Koy Hopke got the number one seed!! is it perfect? No, but get over it and go out and win every match, the best wrestlers will prevail. Some people just like to complain

[wiwrestle#1]

Go over each one of their matches and tell me how Bozile is better. Koy Hopke's losses are to the top 2 kids in the country, nobody will argue his seed. I'm not from either of their schools, I'm just stating a fact that the system didn't work here.

[SWIGuy]

Some people will complain Koy Hopke got the number one seed!! is it perfect? No, but get over it and go out and win every match, the best wrestlers will prevail. Some people just like to complain

Or, you could do a better job seeding as identified in the thread from yesterday.  Take prior year state appearances out of the equation or move them more to the bottom of the criteria.  You have a whole season, plus regionals and sectionals to consider that all happened in the current year.  Emphasize the more current results and cross the brackets to reduce sectional rematches in the first 2 rounds.

[beastmode]

Have you even watched the video explaining how the state seeding is completed? It's very informative and really takes the guess work out of the process, and it does take in to consideration head to head match ups.  check it out... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isiVcVarPzE

[rankwizard]

Some people will complain Koy Hopke got the number one seed!! is it perfect? No, but get over it and go out and win every match, the best wrestlers will prevail. Some people just like to complain

hey- they are stating fair cases. It is not complaining... just stating what is and that we can improve on this in the future.

Also, nobody will complain about Hopke getting a 1 seed.

the seeding did a great job in a lot of places. we're going to enjoy it.

[wiwrestle#1]

Have you even watched the video explaining how the state seeding is completed? It's very informative and really takes the guess work out of the process, and it does take in to consideration head to head match ups.  check it out... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isiVcVarPzE


I did watch it, very informative. However it seems in this case because Bozile was hurt for most of the year, paired with his state place last year, that helped him. To me, that's a flaw in the system. 

[New School]

Improvements can absolutely be worked towards in the system.   Didn't Delebreau lose to the 7 seed?  Should the 7 jump them both?

It becomes a slippery slope when you have several losses on the year.  The system tries to look at the entire body of work in a season, can't just focus on your good wins without also factoring the losses which Bozile didn't have in this case. 

[Numbers]

Why are sectional rematches an issue?  You could also be matched against the neighboring sectional kid that you lost to this year first round.

I assume for many the issue is the match was lopsided the two previous weeks at regionals and sectionals.

So what options might be viewed as an improvement?

1) 2 matches for everyone at state.  I think is would solve 90% of the complaints.

2) Does eliminating regionals and just having sectionals make a slight improvement?

3) Could only seeding the top half the bracket allow flexibility to avoid sectional first round rematches? 

[SWIGuy]

Have you even watched the video explaining how the state seeding is completed? It's very informative and really takes the guess work out of the process, and it does take in to consideration head to head match ups.  check it out... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isiVcVarPzE

I watched it.  It is very informative as to how the seed points work and I have a better understanding now.  I still think it doesn't work well in many cases.  They talk about "this year's body of work" while most of the criteria reference last year's state tourney.  Let's be honest, in a lot of cases these kids in the bracket don't have a great deal of head-to-head or common opponents except for the guys from their own conference/regional/sectional. Now you are completely into last year's results.  What's the incentive to get 2nd in your sectional instead of 3rd besides that one seed point?  What's the advantage of having two guys who might be in the overall top 5 in the bracket wrestling each other in round 1 or 2 for the 4th, 5th maybe 6th time this season?  What is the incentive for a team who had some qualifiers last year in a less tough sectional to go out and wrestle big tournaments against good competition?  They can just stay in their own area, wrestle their duals and get good seeds at state based upon the last year's qualifier criteria because they have less or no head-to-head or common opponents.  Worse yet, it reduces the upside/reward for kids who did go to those tourneys and prove themselves against that competition.

It makes no sense to me to talk about this year's body of work, and then have most of the criteria look back to last year.  Most of the problem lies with the last year's state qualifier criteria.  That will often times be a kid who finished 3rd in his sectional last year, and 3rd in his sectional this year.  Why would that deserve a better seed than a kid who finished 2nd in his sectional this year and has a better body of work this year?

[Numbers]

Have you even watched the video explaining how the state seeding is completed? It's very informative and really takes the guess work out of the process, and it does take in to consideration head to head match ups.  check it out... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isiVcVarPzE

I watched it.  It is very informative as to how the seed points work and I have a better understanding now.  I still think it doesn't work well in many cases.  They talk about "this year's body of work" while most of the criteria reference last year's state tourney.  Let's be honest, in a lot of cases these kids in the bracket don't have a great deal of head-to-head or common opponents except for the guys from their own conference/regional/sectional. Now you are completely into last year's results.  What's the incentive to get 2nd in your sectional instead of 3rd besides that one seed point?  What's the advantage of having two guys who might be in the overall top 5 in the bracket wrestling each other in round 1 or 2 for the 4th, 5th maybe 6th time this season?  What is the incentive for a team who had some qualifiers last year in a less tough sectional to go out and wrestle big tournaments against good competition?  They can just stay in their own area, wrestle their duals and get good seeds at state based upon the last year's qualifier criteria because they have less or no head-to-head or common opponents.  Worse yet, it reduces the upside/reward for kids who did go to those tourneys and prove themselves against that competition.

It makes no sense to me to talk about this year's body of work, and then have most of the criteria look back to last year.  Most of the problem lies with the last year's state qualifier criteria.  That will often times be a kid who finished 3rd in his sectional last year, and 3rd in his sectional this year.  Why would that deserve a better seed than a kid who finished 2nd in his sectional this year and has a better body of work this year?

Removing prior year state qualifier is the easiest and most significant change to implement. 

When kids shift weights before regionals or teams shift wrestlers to make a stronger dual team, it limits the head to head and common opponents seeding criteria effectiveness. 

The idea that a second time state qualifying (did not place) wrestler gets a seeding point over a current year state qualifier that just accomplished the same standard is wrong.  Also worth mentioning that some kids left at home last year were better than some of last year qualifiers due to sectional depths.

When seeding a tournament, when is I participated last year a criteria?

[panther93]

Coaches that know the system and criteria should seek out competition and put their athletes in a position to get seeded.  As a coach I have refined our schedule to wrestle in different parts of state and tried to make sure that the competition was from our division as much as possible.  Between our Christmas tournament and four other competitive tournaments most of my state competitors were able to get head to heads or common opponents.  Some of this helped us and some hurt as we lost.  I really try to get out of our conference/regional area as much as possible.  I hate wrestling guys more than twice, yet we know that once we hit the tournament series it might be every weekend. 

When I scan through the brackets the two wrestlers that seem to take a hit more than others are freshman and those that change a weight class at the end of the year. If one changes weight classes most of their H2H and common opponent criteria is gone with the exception of regionals and sectionals.  As for the freshman, they will only receive H2H, common opponent, sectional champ, and then record.  We have had freshman seeded in the top four the last two years, so it does happen if they have wrestled a tough schedule.

If we truly want to try and separate the top two to four wrestlers there is no 100% correct way to do it.  The human element is too subjective and different opinions are sure to be had.  Having been on both ends of this debate, a 10th grader that was 41-3 seeded 12th behind numerous wrestlers with 9-11 loses and wrestlers seeded 1st and 2nd due to criteria, they all need to win in the end to move on. 

Create a bracket that is truly double elimination and a lot of this debating about seeding would go away.

[SWIGuy]

I won't quote the whole post but I agree with pretty much all of this panther93.  Double elim would make much of it go away.  I think an easy fix that would help is still to remove the previous state qualifier criterion and replace with something with more emphasis on current year results.  Sectional placement? Maybe current State qualifiers beaten this year?  That one would at least reward current year results against good wrestlers, and would somewhat mitigate the negatives of changing weight classes and wrestling different divisions on the process.  If you went to tournaments and beat guys that are now at State but in a different weight/division it seems like a better indicator than finishing 3rd in your sectional last year.

One other option would be to run the criteria thru the sectional champions and runners-up as a pool and seed them 1-8 (for D2/3), and then separately thru the sectional 3rd placers like they currently do in their tie breaker.  That way you would reward 2nd vs 3rd in the sectional.

Nothing will be perfect, but perfect should not preclude improvement, right?

[New School]

I like the idea of wins over current qualifiers across the 3 divisions.  Would reward those with stronger schedules and wins from the current season.

The other elephant in the room is finding a way to make MFF from tough matches in a tournament to protect records and seeds not a thing.  Not an easy thing to do but it is clearly being abused and taken advantage of