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WV wrestling loves filling the month of December with Dual tournaments.

What are everybody's thoughts on dual tournaments vs individual bracketed tournaments?

Dual tournaments offer individuals more matches as they are guaranteed matches and don't just go 2 and out as happens in individual tournaments. They also offer better opportunities for better matchups if opponents are in different weight classes. It also encourages wrestlers to score more points in a match which is what college coaches are looking for. Puts more emphasis on team scoring and less on individual matches and coaches look for the best matchups to allow their team to win the dual. The benefits are many, the only drawback is there are very few individual awards and recognition.

mike.carman wrote:Dual tournaments offer individuals more matches as they are guaranteed matches and don't just go 2 and out as happens in individual tournaments. They also offer better opportunities for better matchups if opponents are in different weight classes. It also encourages wrestlers to score more points in a match which is what college coaches are looking for. Puts more emphasis on team scoring and less on individual matches and coaches look for the best matchups to allow their team to win the dual. The benefits are many, the only drawback is there are very few individual awards and recognition.

I agree with Mikes comments and would only add that there are so many forfeits due to so many teams inability to fill weight classes.

Campion wrote:

mike.carman wrote:Dual tournaments offer individuals more matches as they are guaranteed matches and don't just go 2 and out as happens in individual tournaments. They also offer better opportunities for better matchups if opponents are in different weight classes. It also encourages wrestlers to score more points in a match which is what college coaches are looking for. Puts more emphasis on team scoring and less on individual matches and coaches look for the best matchups to allow their team to win the dual. The benefits are many, the only drawback is there are very few individual awards and recognition.

I agree with Mikes comments and would only add that there are so many forfeits due to so many teams inability to fill weight classes.

That most definitely is a big draw back where the pro to an individual tournament is you can try to fill the brackets by adding more teams to your tournament. Only drawback to that is other brackets can get too big for the tournament.

Anybody else have any input?

I had an opportunity to coach a high school team 3 years ago. We went to a hybrid dual/individual tournament. There were 12 teams (two pools of 6 teams). We wrestled 5 dual matches on the first day. The second day was an 8 line bracket tournament. Based on the results from the first day, the wrestlers were seeded accordingly for the individual tournament. The wrestlers that didn't qualify for the 8 line bracket tournament still had matches to wrestle. Not sure I explained that too well, but I thought it was a pretty neat concept.

Quantity then quality
Start the season off with getting lots of mat time, working and applying what you are learning in practice in live events, and working on conditioning (5 matches in a day). You get that in dual tournaments in December and early January.
Then in January you seek out quality competition to see how you rank with what you have learned.

There is no one answer to this question. Dual tournaments offer a unique ability to get in 5 matches in a single day or 8-9 in two. Whereas with a tournament you are lucky to get 4-5 in multiple days. It also gives you a better opportunity to see a wide range of competition over those matches. Most importantly it gives your team flexibility. While a straight up tournament might be helpful to the several best wrestlers on your team those are not your only wrestlers.

A mix is best, and I agree that transitioning that in the last month or so of the season to get those high quality opponents, 2 and out scenarios, etc. is the way to go.

Anybody else have any input?

I like South83 format. Would make for a fun weekend and plenty of mat time.

Anybody else have any input?

Bearhugger wrote:Anybody else have any input?

I prefer the Duel format