wvmat.com

http://mynewsonthego.com/wheeling/reade ... f77eccd698

Don’t get me wrong here...I’m grateful this is not cancelled but I’m confused on the 2 weekend, 2 locations aspect and the 12 man bracket. It will be on your teams staff to have good stats and a good negotiator because selecting 12 out of 40+ wrestlers and properly seeding them will be like a youth seeding meeting, Chaos...

Being prepared with good information about your wrestler will be necessary for certain. However, it will not be a chaotic as you might think. The OVAC moved to a seeding committee last season. Thus, there isnt going to be 40+ coaches all trying to argue there wrestlers into the top 12. The coaches/teams will be required to submit all the information and arguments for any wrestlers seeding by a certain date. After that date not information will be accepted. The seeding committee then looks over all of this information and votes on seeds.

Certainly it will be more important than ever for seeding to work out appropriately; however, this process creates a buffer for the chaos that can surround seeding. https://www.heraldstaronline.com/sports/local-sports/2019/11/catholic-centrals-herder-11-more-introduced-as-new-wrestling-coaches/

So rankings are starting to matter?????

Certainly they are more important than ever generally (as committee likely takes them into account), and specifically this year when matches (particularly against OVAC opponents) may be very minimal. The OVAC does not keep a rankings list or otherwise qualify wrestlers (outside of their seeding for the tournament). However, the man that runs http://www.ovaec.org/ (and formerly OVAecWrestling.com) is (or at least was last year) a memeber of the committee. He does rankings, projections, and many many other things through his website for the OVAC throughout the wrestling year. While I will not claim he is perfect, he does a good job and is open to adjusting if he has missed information that is later brought to his attention. I would be hard pressed to not see them using those rankings at least a base.

Thanks for the kind words!

Pottstd wrote:Certainly they are more important than ever generally (as committee likely takes them into account), and specifically this year when matches (particularly against OVAC opponents) may be very minimal. The OVAC does not keep a rankings list or otherwise qualify wrestlers (outside of their seeding for the tournament). However, the man that runs http://www.ovaec.org/ (and formerly OVAecWrestling.com) is (or at least was last year) a memeber of the committee. He does rankings, projections, and many many other things through his website for the OVAC throughout the wrestling year. While I will not claim he is perfect, he does a good job and is open to adjusting if he has missed information that is later brought to his attention. I would be hard pressed to not see them using those rankings at least a base.

I don't disagree with the above, but I would think the point being made is that a coach will want to make sure that their wrestler's "record" of opponents wrestled and beaten is kept up to date and clearly points out achievements indicative of support for being seeded as high as possible. These "records" would also be important to highlight if any losses came against an outstanding wrestler. So when I read Bearhugger's statement, what came to mind is that "records" and how they were achieved, and not "rankings", are important at the OVAC seeding meeting (same as they were last year when the seeding committee was first formed). Of course the "rankings" kept by "Shaggy" on the OVAeC website will be important, because they are indicative of one of the people on the committee thoughts and opinion. Other members of the committee will have to decide for themselves if they agree with those opinions or not.

Certainly it will be imperative for the coaches to submit good information for their wrestlers, especially those on the bubble 9-15 range. Scheduling will also be extremely important. Since OVAC matches will likely come at a premium this year, a good initial schedule will be important, but more important will be the ability to schedule on the fly. For instance, how will the committee rank a wrestler who has a good record (say 20-4 or something), but has only wrestled 2-3 OVAC opponents? Certainly who in the OVAC he has wrestled will be important, but will this be better than someone who has a slightly worse record (say 18-7), but has 10 or more OVAC opponents to compare.

Hopefully we coaches can do a good job of giving the committee useful informaiton. I'm still just happy that something for the OVAC is going on this year (particularly for senoirs).

I'm all for amending the rules to create a 16 man bracket. If your top 4 already advance automatically, why grant a 1st rd bye at the actual tournament too? (correct me if I'm wrong about this) These young men and women will already be losing alot of matches throughout the season, likely getting 25-30 matches at best vs 50 matches typically. For instance: I'm unaware of the status of the Wheeling Park Duals but I'm assuming its either cancelled or it will be modified into an unrecognizable version of what it was. This was always a great event that a wrestler could pick up 8-9 matches in a weekend. While I'm very happy that so much thought and effort is going into seeing that the OVAC and wrestling in general will actually take place, I can't help to feel bad that these kids, particularly the seniors, will not get to participate at full capacity.

Has there been any thought on changing the dates of the event, or is it to be an all-Ohio affair? I can understand if it is, as it will be hard for the WV teams possibly to fit this in to a slightly less than 10 week season.

The tournament dates are now February 10 and February 13 - same format as before. Somebody please correct me on that if I'm wrong.

admin wrote:The tournament dates are now February 10 and February 13 - same format as before. Somebody please correct me on that if I'm wrong.

This hasn't been confirmed yet it. It looks to be the week of 2/13 but the dates haven't been set yet.

aacoach15 wrote:

admin wrote:The tournament dates are now February 10 and February 13 - same format as before. Somebody please correct me on that if I'm wrong.

This hasn't been confirmed yet it. It looks to be the week of 2/13 but the dates haven't been set yet.

Thanks for the clarification, Coach! Hopefully we'll have some official dates soon.