There can be little doubt that being in a tough regional is going to make a person a better wrestler. However I can't find the logic in thinking it was an "advantage" to the wrestler that does not make it to state when wrestlers he has beaten get to go just because they were in a weak regional. I know this is not the states position but should'nt the state trny. showcase THE BEST KS has to offer? In no way am I trying to belittle the respective state tournaments but if the best are not there then it definetly takes away from them. I am just throwing out a number here but imagine the NCAA with 20% of the best wrestlers absent. Just a thought and an observation.

Maybe KSHSAA could implement the same thing college wrestling does and allow each regional to have 3-4 wildcards. The wildcards could be voted on by the coaches of each respective regional (that may be worse than a seeding meeting!!). If each regional added 4 kids that deservedly should be in the state tournament, that would only add 16 total kids to the tournament. It would result in 8 pigtail matches, and wouldn't add much overall time to the tournament -- especially with the addition of a 4th mat (at least in 321A).

A good wildcard for the norton regional would have been Thiele (sp?) at 160#. Based on the consolation semifinal match with Campbell from Hoxie, he deserves to the in the tournament.

sample I agree with that it sounds like a good plan to me.

BLUTARSKY-There is a huge difference between "luxury" and "luck of the draw". Agreeably, Russell benefited from the luck of the draw. Having an attitude of "such is life", or as ks85 put it, "deal with it" is one of many lessons learned from my wrestling years. Life is not fair, referees make mistakes, a pencil line is not drawn in your favor, you get caught in a wrestling move and lose the match, all this is but one thing in your life. Get over it, move on to the next thing, realize that "such is life"! It's better than whining, criticizing, running around crying "it's not fair!" Not pointing a finger at you, directly, just pointing out a difference in the attitudes.

tksnkc- Yes, this subject will be "beat to death" forever! I believe the advantages a person receives, for being in a tough region (perhaps a disappointment, here and there) are sometimes not realized until they are out of high school. The preparation for the task involved, has been learned well!

Realize your task, prepare for it, do it to the best of your ability!!...enjoy it, then move on to the next task at hand!

wood--being from Russell it is not surprising that you accept and advance the "life isn't fair" refrain. Russell won the Hoistington regional--congratulations--but only scored 37 points at the JR Durham Invite in Norton in January. Merely a coincidence?

If the injustice of the western Kansas regionals (3A & 4A ) were once-in-a-while situations it could be dealt with by just saying "shucks, life isn't fair"--- but this is an EVERY YEAR problem and there must be a solution.

OK--show of hands--all of you in 3A & 4A who were in a regional other than Norton or Abilene--how many of you would REALLY want to have had your team/school trade places with a team in one of those two regionals?

Tough talk about a bad situation is hollow when it doesn't affect you directly.

Question:
Where do you draw the line?

While it is true that there were some regionals that were stronger than other regionals in some brackets, there were none that were stronger in every bracket.

So the question is how do you come up with a system that would ensure that the top 16 wrestlers are divided equally among the states 4 regionals?

There is not a system that would allow that to happen.


Not unless you wanted to send teams to multiple regionals.

There would be only one true way to make sure everyone who was worthy make it to state.
That would be to have one massive bracket and let everyone come.

This however would not be a prudent or logistically smart thing to do.

I guess the bottom line is, we can not change the system (I am not sure it needs changed much, although they should try to ensure that if the top two make it, they are on opposite sides of the bracket) so why not just wrestle.

Is it just me or is it always ppl. from a weak (eastern) regional saying "... dont change it." or "Deal with it." Ppl. in the west have been "dealing with it" every year for 30 years. Maybe it is time some others deal with it and get Norton, Hoxie, St. Francis, Oberlin etc. in their regional. And I have not exactly seen a whole lot of coaches posting saying they wish they could have been in the NT regional.

There are, in fact, seveal ways that the regionals could be grouped in a more fair manner. Below are three that come quickly to mind:

(1) use east-west highways as the dividing lines, cutting Kansas into four "east-west strips" with four regional sites in the middle of the state.

(2) Have a lottery where a set number of NWKS schools have the opportunity to be "drawn" into a regional in the east. There is room in the other regionals--for example, the Hesston regional had 135 entrants and Norton had 185. the east regionals year in and year out can absorp one or two more full teams with little problem. Of course, to implement this solution would be admitting that there is a competitive imbalance.

(3) Send six from each regional, the consolation semi-final losers would be placed in pig-tails; one would wrestle off with a #4 placed and the other with a #3 for the right to enter the bracket.
Now that four mats will be used in Hays on Friday, this is not far-fetched. This would yield a maximum of 112 additional matches (assuming all regionals had more than four entrants per weight class--not the case in some of the regionals) 28 matches per mat, and approximately adding2.5 hours.
Move the start time back to 9:00 a.m. and the ending time will approximate the "old' time when only three mats were used.

4. Do away with the Regional system. Just have a massive 4-day tourney in Hays. WOW!!!

Oh wait, that wouldn't take into account those that were sick or injured. And it wouldn't take into account those that "got caught" or those that had a bad draw, an off day, an those whose "moon was in the 7th house."

This has been a perpetual topic over the life of this forum. I appreciate the difficult position which KSHSAA is in. Fans (see numerous topics/posts) would like some sort of equitable distribution of teams. While administrators & principals are telling the KSHSAA to limit team travel distances.

It is clear that the bigger hammer is with the administration, as it should be frankly. The cost attributed to participation in the state tournament series (mileage, hotels, etc.) in the face of declining education revenues is a tremendous factor. Just look at the litigation that the State and Johnson County are in regarding school financing and the "right" to levy additional county taxes.

Unfortunately, until the state/school budget crisis subsides I do not see the KSHSAA being able to justify to school administrators and school board presidents the noble ideas put forth in previous posts. Hope everyone enjoys BOTH state tournaments.