Team Tournament Expansion, ugh
In its ongoing attempt to contrive a meaningful event out of the PIAA Team Tournament, the PIAA board has again expanded the tournament. This is from Andy Shay of the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
One day after it shot down a proposal to expand the PIAA Team Wrestling Championships in both classifications, the Board of Control had a change of heart (last) Friday.
By a vote of 20-10, the board approved an expansion of the team championships from 16 to 20 teams in Class AAA and from 16 to 17 in Class AA.
The expanded tournament will start in 2011, and add an extra day to the event making it a three-day affair.
Despite unanimous approval by the PIAA wrestling steering committee, the measure was voted down Thursday evening by a 21-9 count.
Here's a beter idea: Take every team in the state for a 14-day round-robin event so that the tournament is fair and balanced and can have a new team champion four weeks later.
Oh, and let the hotels and motels in the area jack their room rates to $120 a night for school districts that have to shell out about $5,000 to send wrestlers to this made-up event.
The PIAA is so blase about this tournament that it doesn't even seed it. So matchups that should occur in the finals are held in the semis (like last year, when Central Mountain and Central Dauphin met) or earlier.
This is such a joke.
One day after it shot down a proposal to expand the PIAA Team Wrestling Championships in both classifications, the Board of Control had a change of heart (last) Friday.
By a vote of 20-10, the board approved an expansion of the team championships from 16 to 20 teams in Class AAA and from 16 to 17 in Class AA.
The expanded tournament will start in 2011, and add an extra day to the event making it a three-day affair.
Despite unanimous approval by the PIAA wrestling steering committee, the measure was voted down Thursday evening by a 21-9 count.
Here's a beter idea: Take every team in the state for a 14-day round-robin event so that the tournament is fair and balanced and can have a new team champion four weeks later.
Oh, and let the hotels and motels in the area jack their room rates to $120 a night for school districts that have to shell out about $5,000 to send wrestlers to this made-up event.
The PIAA is so blase about this tournament that it doesn't even seed it. So matchups that should occur in the finals are held in the semis (like last year, when Central Mountain and Central Dauphin met) or earlier.
This is such a joke.
posted by Joe Tuscano at
6:48 AM
2 Comments:
Ya Ya Ya Joe, you hate the state duals, you have stated this for 8 years now. I'm glad your consistent. I love the state duals, just because you have the best dual meet team doesn't mean that you have the best tournament team. see central dauphin and central mountain last year. Look at Benton in AA, They were not even in the top 10 dual meet team last year and they won individual states. Drama Baby..... i do agree with you that it should not have been expanded. Stop watering it down.
First, I'm glad you've been reading me for the last 8 years.
What galls me is that the PIAA did not expand it to make it more competitive. It was expanded to make the PIAA more money. What team was left out of last year's tournament that deserved to be in? I can't think of one.
And they don't even seed the tournament!
It costs a team about $5,000 to compete in this event - buses are $1,100, and hotel rooms run about $100 a night - for two days. Increase that by about one-third for another day.
The team event takes a week out of the postseason. Class AAA wrestlers wait a month between the regular season end and the individual postseason.
I just don't see the point.
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