The Case For 'Regionalizing' teams at the Nationals.

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Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 8/15/2000 7:02 AM MST



The Case For 'Regionalizing' teams at the Nationals.

Consider the following:
Randomly divide teams into groups - named for regions of the country (e.g. N,S, E, W) sponsors (e.g. Delphi, Baxter, NASA, DiamlerChysler) or for scientists (e.g. Newton, Einstien, Currie, Edison) or for Atoms (Helium, Boron, Nitrogen, Oxygen) or for Disney characters (Mickey, Goofy, Pocahontas, Tarzan) or whatever.

Each group would play all its qualifying matches against teams in its group. Each group would have its own picking teams that can only pick from within the group. Each group would have their own elimination rounds and crown their own Championship Alliance. Each Group Champion would go on to the FINAL FOUR.

The FINAL FOUR would be on the MAIN STAGE with everyone present. AT THE AWARD CEREMONY!!!! Why not? We are only talking about 12 teams here. This would be AWESOME! I would really love to see this happen. 15,000 fans all watching the finals! Worthy worthy worthy.

I would gladly give up a seeding round to make room in the schedule to allow this to happen: End the qualifying matches on Friday night, have picking be the first thing on Sat. morning. And begin the Elimination Rounds on Sat. AM. Note: with 4 groups and 16 qualifying alliances per group almost 50% of the teams to play in the Elimination Rounds even with 400 teams at the Nationals.

One more positive benefit would be that teams are more likely to KNOW who the good teams are in their group. This will allow teams to scout more effectively, which is impossible with 400 teams, and to pick the best teams to go forward into the Elimination Tourney.

Beyond even this, the seeding rounds are more likely to produce more accurate seedings because the seeding accuracy is determined by the ratio of seeding rounds to number of teams in the seeding group. By cutting the seeding group to ¼ the size the seeding becomes statistically 4 times better (for a given number of seeding rounds).

The only down side to the as far as I am concerned is that one group might be 'stacked' with good teams by accident. This is really no different than the current 'luck of the draw' teams face. Teams either are lucky or unlucky in the seeding rounds based on who they happen to be seeded with or against. At least in the 'regionalized' proposal, unluckily seeded teams would have a fighting chance of getting noticed by one of the picking teams, while they are more likely to go unnoticed in a field of 400.

One final advantage is that it would make a very dramatic, made for TV event of the Final Four.

I strongly urge FIRST to consider this poposal.