I keep hearing people talk about these tough 16 man brackets in 4A. 2 days of brutal competition.

I am not hear to knock the competition as every kid who wrestled gets credit and it is a great accomplishment for all who qualified to the state tournament

BUT.......

I would like to put an end to the thought that these are actually 16 man brackets. Looked at 3 Regionals - Spring Hill, Fort Scott, and Chapman. Could not find brackets for Mulvane. Not one bracket in all three regionals was full. I read Spring Hill only had 15 teams, still no bracket had 15 wrestlers.

Spring Hill / Chapman / Fort Scott
106 - 9 / 10 / 9
113 - 12 / 10 / 8
120 - 10 / 10 / 12
126 - 11 / 13 / 12
132 - 8 / 10 / 10
138 - 14 / 11 / 11
145 - 13 / 11 / 12
152 - 12 / 10 / 12
160 - 11 / 11 / 12
170 - 10 / 13 / 9
182 - 10 / 8 / 11
195 - 12 / 11 / 10
220 - 13 / 8 / 9
HWT - 12 / 8 / 8

I would bet a lot of money that not 1 bracket in Mulvane was full either!

Very valid comment!!

I did a finger drill on the brackets on four regionals: Garden City 6A, Emporia 5A, Fort Scott 4A, Eureaka 321A. GC 1st round was 96% filled (108 of 112 slots filled--how did they do that), Emporia was 72% filled (31 of a possible 112 slots open), Fort Scott 4A 64% filled (79 of 224 slots open), Eureka--with 24 schools--was 76% filled (53 opens of 225 slots). In all four classes, there were 167 1st roun opens out of 672 slots. Thats a 25% vacancy/75% fill. Not good numbers. Bet the rest of the state had similar numbers!!!

Big, big problem, statewide. Not enough wrestlers statewide in any class to fill 16 team regional brackets. Not enough kids wrestler coming up to fill high school rosters. What can be done???

Like Iowa's State Tournament (last week).

Dan Gentzler-Andover Central

Same problem?

At least you can find most of the 4 and 3 A brackets so you can count the entries.... Not always true with the other classes. However, I bet this is because the regionals up North don't want the ones down South to see.

But, regardless, I see no reason to change things. The lack of full or near full brackets speaks to something else - participation appears down. As success creates participation I see no reason to change the format and make it harder for kids to have success.

And, a 2 day regional will always be tougher when you have to watch weight and still wrestle. Good practice for state.

Reason for same problem ?????

I cut the bottom of my comment (3 posts above) and copied it to a New Topic: New State Format. Think Tommyboy's comment was directed to what I cut out.

Sorry for the confusion

Contrarian

Of course I agree wholeheartedly.
I have said that and pointed that out more than once, but it fell on many deaf ears.

Of course I agree with seeing no reason to change things.

The two weigh ins is one of the things that makes a 2 day tournament tougher but I will remind you that one of the things that makes a 1 day tournament tougher is tougher competition. Of course many of the 5A and 6A wrestlers are very familiar with both, that is 2 day tournaments with really tough competition (Basehor, Newton, GC, Derby, Rosehill, etc).
6 of 1, half a dozen of the other? There are a lot of different variables that close minded people don't consider when they are hacking on 5A and 6A.