State Tournament Formatting

It's been brought up in the another thread and i think it's interesting enough to have a thread all it's own....

In case anyone didnt know, Each year a different conference hosts the State tournament. Last year the MAYLA was supposed to host the State Finals and they did so at Arrowhead High School in Hartland. This year, the MALA hosts the State Finals and i believe like Middleton High School will the place to be this year. Currently, each conference is allowed to send one representative(the conference champion) to the State Tournament. the host conference (this year it's the MALA) is allowed to send another representative tothe tournament.

A lot of guys have strong opinions about this, let's hear 'em.

I think there needs to be a change...but there just aren't enough teams to do it yet. This format works out fine usually since as long as I have been playing lacrosse the best team in Wisconsin usually wins state.

If we can get about 5-6 more teams in the state I would like to take the top 8 or 10(two byes) and play a tourney that way. None of this, oh..you win conference so you get it stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in hockey once the conference games are done. Everyone is back in for the tournament to get to state. I think it should be something like that, but only with the top 8-10(I dont know how to classify the rank though) teams in the state...if all those teams are only from one or two conferences...oh well.

i think it shud be an eight team tournament, since now ther r four conferences, each cud bring two reps

I don't think the MALA Red & White should be necessarily counted as 2 seperate conferences. That'd mean 2 out of 5 teams from each Red & White, sounds like a little much IMO.

^ Thats why I said there aren't enough teams...and I still don't think they should just be picked based on conference. It should be a state-wide poll or something. What if the top 4 teams are all in the same conference, it's not fair to not give them a chance to make it to state just because they are from the same region.

I think that conference champions should get the automatic bid to the stat tournament, but as for the rest, what if tournament eligibility(sp?) was based upon your overall record? like keeping your record over .500(as it is in WIAA football) or over like .600?

The way the tournament is set up is an absolute joke. I have said it before and will continue to believe so as long as its run like this. Just because a city hosts, they are automatically given two entries? On what grounds? What if two of the top four teams this year were Milwaukee teams?

The tournament should be an eight tournament team. The MAYLA, MALA, and BayVal should all send two teams. A regular season champion, and a post season conference tournament champion. If this is the same two teams, then either the second place team in the regular season or from the conference championship go. That equals six total teams. The final two teams should be voted on by the Coaches. You could set up something where each coach is allocated two votes.

Either way, too many teams are being left out. The way it is run now is an absolute joke. I think my feelings on it are clear.

That could work...We should just do it how hockey does it.


The way the system was designed worked fine for its time...but now that there has been so much growth, it's outdated and isn't fair since there are MANY talented teams now.

For now I think the most realistic would be to be a six team with the top two from each conference playing with two teams with the best record getting a bye. The seeding would go something like rating on the conference champions first, then record, then goals against. Though, it should be fixed so that teams from the same conference don't play eachother in the first round. When there becomes another legit conference, then it could expand to an 8 team tournament. I'm looking at the Lacrosse region with Wasau moving to that conference if it develops. Then again, if there are enough teams to make two conferences out of the three existing regions, then that would be another option.

i think everyone has great ideas.

Top team from every conference(MALA red and white only count as one.. and usually they go interconference so you could pick the top team that way. like middleton and waunakee are in different sides of MALA, but play eachother twice.)

then the next 5 best teams according to win pct, goals scored, goals allowed, strength of schedule are in.

how seeding is figured out, i have no clue. but i think that should be the format for selection

I think there should be post conference tourney where the top two from each conference (1st and 2nd at the tourney) go on to state and then coaches statewide vote upon two teams to get a bid so that there's 8 teams for a full tourney.

Then seed the teams in the tournament maybe even to laxpowers ratings, because at the end of the year they're pretty efficient at ratings. If not to laxpowers ratings seed them by whomever got first at the conference tourney plays someone who got 2nd at a different conference. (for instance 1st milwaukee vs 2nd madison, 1st mad vs 2nd bayval, 1st bayval vs 2nd mil) and the two coaches bids play each other.

Warriorlax23 wrote:

I don't think the MALA Red & White should be necessarily counted as 2 seperate conferences. That'd mean 2 out of 5 teams from each Red & White, sounds like a little much IMO.

Every year a different conferece gets 2 teams at state, last year it was milwaukee, this year its madison

Jack wrote:

Warriorlax23 wrote:

I don't think the MALA Red & White should be necessarily counted as 2 seperate conferences. That'd mean 2 out of 5 teams from each Red & White, sounds like a little much IMO.

Every year a different conferece gets 2 teams at state, last year it was milwaukee, this year its madison

I was refering to this comment made by laxmehard

Quote :

i think it shud be an eight team tournament, since now ther r four conferences, each cud bring two reps

which was made above my post.

Jaron wrote:

...Either way, too many teams are being left out. The way it is run now is an absolute joke.

I agree, and have agreed for years. I assumed the WLF, or whatever it currently is, would have realized the ridiculousness of the situation and amended it by now.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jaron - it should be an 8 team tournament with each conference gettng two AQ's with two at-large bids. The four team format might have been sufficient back when the talent level of Wisconsin was lower and not spread out throughout the state (with most of the talent comming from Madison), though currently the strong level of competitiveness of all teams throughout the state certaintly makes the 8 team format not only possible but also more beneficial to all.

For example, if the tournament were to happen today with an eight team format, the tournament would contain Waunakee (MALA AQ), Middleton (MALA AQ), Marquette (MAYLA AQ), Arrowhead (MAYLA AQ), Wausau (BayVal AQ), Neenah (BayVal AQ), with the at-large bids most likely going to Sun Prairie and USM. All 8 of these teams are very strong and competitive, which would make the state tournament what its supposed to be, the pinnacle of the lacrosse season.

However, if it was a four team format, it would just be Waunakee, Middleton, Marquette, and Wausau. Still ok, though it would screw over teams like Arrowhead, because then they wouldn't even get a chance to compete and enjoy the atmosphere of the tournament.

I like that gfields. and then you seed them by their record then head to head then if its still tried goals agents and if all else fails a coin flip.

4 teams is quite lame... end of point.

I really hope they do decide to change it around this year and put 8 teams into it.

I mean, Kansas does 4 teams with one conference. Seems logical here, but lacrosse there, compared to here, is rediculous. 8 team state tournament will more than likely help the sport grow even more, knowing more teams can make it to the end tournament now, rather than a single one from a conference of 10 or so teams.

Hopefully the board does this.

It has now been a year since this has been discussed. What does everyone still think?

I think that as long as any conference has more bids than the other two people will complain. My proposal? 6 team tourney, giving the two conference champions that are ranked highest (using either coaches poll or laxpower) byes. I don't think anything will really be changed until there's another conference. As for where it's hosted? This is definitely my bias, but almost every state tourney is in Madison that's where I'd like to see it stay. It DEFINITELY needs to stop being hosted by high schools. You can't have a state championship where one of the teams is playing on it's home field. Just my opinion though.

I disagree, I think that as long as the location has been picked before the season, there is nothing wrong with hosting it at a highschool. Think March Madness, NCAA hockey tourney, Super Bowl. All of these are decided before the season, and have a chance for the home team to make the championship game at their home school.

As far as the whole playoffs go, there definitely needs to be some sort of system where every team in the state has a chance atmaking it some way or another. The only thing is the number of teams. With hockey, football, soccer, basketball, etc they all split into a separate playoffs to get to state, with usually a 8 team state tourny, or a single state game to end it. The only problem is that Lacrosse loves to have their conference tourneys, and it is hard to say, ok you won your conference tourney, now go through a whole tournament where you could have to play a team you just beat again.

As a coach, I would LOVE to see a Hockey like state tourney. This isn't a particularly popular opinion, but I think JV should have one also. Youth to.

That said, I hear from parents all the time that the 'season is sooooo long'. 'We are going on vacation 90 seconds after school is out'. 'Baseball started, little Johnnie can't fool around with this silly lacrosse anymore'.

I agree with AHS that, like the Super Bowl, if it is known where the State games will be played it should be played at a HS field.

My $0.02

March Madness is almost never hosted at an actual universities institution, but hosted at a professional stadium and sponsored by a university. No state championship should have home field advantage. If you want to argue it should rotate between the regions, I can live with that, but there's few enough lacrosse teams where it should be no issue having it not on a teams home field. Think Breese Stephens in '05, or Banta Bowl in '06, not AHS in '07 or MHS in '08. Hosting at a high school is fine in my book, but it just shouldn't be at a school that can potentially be playing in that game.

In defense of the AHS one...it was planned to be at Brookfield Centrals HS on their turf field...but they backed out last minute and AHS was the only place that was able to host the event with that short of notice.

Oh I know, I'm not faulting anyone for what's already happened. I'm just saying it's silly for the future to have that happen again. It's not like the HF advantage made a difference in that game, it was going to be one sided wherever it was played.

Butters,
The NFL picks a site for the Super Bowl 3-4 years in advance. To be fair, there has never been a Superbowl played at a teams home field, but the possibility exists.

I think a neutral site would be great, with the new indoor turf field in the Dells its a good central location with the facilities to do it up right.