Kaw Valley League Coaches discussed today at the seeding meeting the possibility of having our dual meets all at one dual tournament. This would save team points towards weaker league opponents and also allow them to wrestle teams more suited to thier level of competition. We have 10 teams in our league. Just wondering if 3 mats would be enough for a one day tournament and what would be the best foremat?

When I was still at Imac, that idea was kicked around. Assuming the league stays with 10 teams (and who knows about that!), the teams could be divided into two five team pools. Everyone wrestles everyone in their pool, then the top two in each pool go head-to-head for first, the two seconds in each pool go for third, etc.
I think it would be a great idea, and I hope it goes forward.

This concept is definitely the way to go in my opinion. But I think it would be difficult to do unless four mats could be put down. It would be difficult to keep the rounds even. If you split into two pools of five, then four teams from each pool would be wrestling at each time. That means four total duals going on in round one. With only three mats, one of the round 1 duals would have to wait. It would be hard to continue to round two without having completed all the round one duals yet.

Perhaps there would be a way to work it out, but that is one problem I foresee.

Kit's idea has some merit and makes a lot of sense. And there would be a couple of different options here:

Basehor, obviously, has a big enough gym for four mats, as does a facility like Saint Mary College in Leavenworth, and those could be viable options.

The other alternative would be assigning the meet to two sites at a time (have seen this done before for volleyball). It would go something like this:

Lansing and Immaculata host with the finals at Lansing, or
Mill Valley and Bonner Springs host with the finals at Mill Valley, or
DeSoto and SFT host with the finals at SFT, or
Piper and Basehor host with the finals at Piper, or
Tongie and Perry host with the finals at Perry.

Of course, if the KVL ends up being an 8-teamer like it sounds it could be, this is all moot, too!

i agree that 4 mats seems to be required. i think there are 4 schools that would have room to put down four mats, Basehor, Bonner, Mill Valley, and Desoto (might be seating issues at Desoto). The tournament could rotate between these 4 schools and the other 6 schools could rotate the regular league tournament.

Kit,

If this took place in the Frontier League, would you not have the duals with each other during the year? If you did not have the duals during the year, how would you divide the pools for the tournament? You know someone in the Frontier League would complain they were put into the hardest pool and it wasn't fair.

I say draw peas--it worked for the heavyweight bracket.

You would have a dual league tournament in addition to a regular league tournament?

There are a myriad of ways to work this. But the concept holds that it will allow the teams in the KVL flexibility to dual more schools that are in the same "Class" as them. Factor in the two new schools that are planned for the DeSoto district (one public and one Catholic) and the possibility that KSHSAA may force the KVL to accept Atchison and Bishop Ward; you suddenly are using all your "points" dualing conference teams - and then see them at the conference tournament.

The other possibility is to do what the EKL and Sunflower have done - not mandate duals against conference teams. Either way, as the Frontier and the KVL both grow it is going to create scheduling and points problems. The coaches should be commended for having the foresight to address the problem before it becomes an issue.

Yes, we would have the dual tournament early in the season and the regular tournament at the end where it is now with it counting as the league champion. You could divide pools on last years finishes, possibly. As far as not wrestling tough schools, We try and hit them early for the competition. I don't think you would have that much trouble. This would free up 5 or 6 team points for other competition.

I think that a good way to run it with two teams would make it a two day tourney, and every team wrestles everyone

JustAFan,

I agree it would difficult to fairly seed/divide teams into pools without dualing each other during the regular season.

One seeding possibility is to use a point formula, similar to what they do at the Cadet National Duals in Colorado each summer. Each team would receive points for state placers, state qualifiers, winning records, and negative points for open weights. The seeding could be done with this formula, no seed meeting necessary, could be done by the tournament director after the coaches send in their info. While this may not be entirely accurate it could probably be close enough to make the pools as about as fair as we could get them.

Just a thought.

I do think duals are more exciting for the fans and great for our sport. They also reward the teams with the most depth and solid lineups top to bottom. A few all-stars only count for so much in a dual, but to win duals you must put together a true team and fill each weight with solid competitors.

I kind of like the idea of a 2 day tournament and wrestling everybody. The thing I worry a little about is someone like I-mac getting somebody scheduled. If that is a problem, some of the 2 deep teams could wrestle them with j.v kids. Thats not an insult cause teams are strong one year and not the next. The point system sounds good also. Talking with Joe Keeler, he didn't seem like it could get done in the coming year because of pryor contracts. Not sure what that means but I assume it is duals with other schools.
I hope that is not the case and we get to going on it. The coaches all seem pretty good about it.

How big of a deal can this be to SFT? I saw where SFT and Perry had applied to join another league.