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[quote="EastStroudsburg13'] Perhaps there's another STEM activity that's more popular among them. I continue to maintain that the fully-open nature of Texas regionals and the strange setup for events serves as an implicit barrier to new teams, which have to navigate that system in addition to SO itself.
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Can you elaborate on the above statement? I don't know how other states do regionals, or what is strange about our setup of events, and how either would be a barrier to new teams.

cool hand luke wrote:

EastStroudsburg13 wrote: Perhaps there's another STEM activity that's more popular among them. I continue to maintain that the fully-open nature of Texas regionals and the strange setup for events serves as an implicit barrier to new teams, which have to navigate that system in addition to SO itself.

Can you elaborate on the above statement? I don't know how other states do regionals, or what is strange about our setup of events, and how either would be a barrier to new teams.

Many states use closed regionals, where each regional has a boundary, and the teams within that boundary are assigned to that regional, barring extenuating circumstances. It takes away the guesswork of "what regional should we attend", and also ensures that schools only have to compete against teams from their own area. Its only perceived weakness that I see is that it forces teams in a competitive area to compete with each other, and some strong teams might not qualify for the state tournament, but I see this as more of a feature than a bug, as long as state spots are allocated proportional to number of teams registered to each region.

As for the events, Texas's addition of trials just makes the system unnecessarily complicated to navigate, IMO. Sticking to the national slate of 23 keeps things simple. The vast majority of states do not include trials in actual competition, and New York is an example of a state that formerly counted trials that no longer does (to generally positive response, I believe).

coolhandluke wrote:Also on a small side note, Texas C is not that far behind Florida C in terms of team numbers and with UT Austin doing a ton of outreach, it is quite possible Texas gets its bid back as early as next year.

Yeah we are worried about this too, and our new state director is prioritizing increasing team registrations as well cause its getting really close. I definitely think Texas deserves the second bid more than Florida, but we aren't going down without a fight

EastStroudsburg13 wrote:

cool hand luke wrote:

EastStroudsburg13 wrote: Perhaps there's another STEM activity that's more popular among them. I continue to maintain that the fully-open nature of Texas regionals and the strange setup for events serves as an implicit barrier to new teams, which have to navigate that system in addition to SO itself.

Can you elaborate on the above statement? I don't know how other states do regionals, or what is strange about our setup of events, and how either would be a barrier to new teams.

Many states use closed regionals, where each regional has a boundary, and the teams within that boundary are assigned to that regional, barring extenuating circumstances. It takes away the guesswork of "what regional should we attend", and also ensures that schools only have to compete against teams from their own area. Its only perceived weakness that I see is that it forces teams in a competitive area to compete with each other, and some strong teams might not qualify for the state tournament, but I see this as more of a feature than a bug, as long as state spots are allocated proportional to number of teams registered to each region.

As for the events, Texas's addition of trials just makes the system unnecessarily complicated to navigate, IMO. Sticking to the national slate of 23 keeps things simple. The vast majority of states do not include trials in actual competition, and New York is an example of a state that formerly counted trials that no longer does (to general positive response, I believe).

I dont think an open-regional system has a negative effect on new teams in any way. We have the same system in Florida where any team from anywhere in the state can choose to attend whichever regional they want. Contrary to what you may think will occur, very competitive teams all choose to go to the same regional so States isnt the first time they face off against each other. On the other hand, weaker teams that really want to go to states will choose to go out of their way to attend smaller/weaker regionals. MOST (>90%) attend the closest regional to them anyways.

interesting.

I like the open regionals concept. Our first year we went to what turned out to be a very very uncompetitive regional (not that we knew that at the time) and it didn't give us a good gauge for how we stood at state.

Last year that uncompetitive one got cancelled due to weather, and we were forced to go to a much much more competitive one. Instead of dominating poor competition we squeaked in as the last place state qualifier, but at least new where we stood.

This year we chose to go to the more competitive one, (and drive an additional 4.5 hours to get to it) just so we could get a better idea of where we stood and hopefully make some big improvements in weak areas before state. it worked out pretty well for us.

windu34 wrote:

EastStroudsburg13 wrote:

cool hand luke wrote:
Can you elaborate on the above statement? I don't know how other states do regionals, or what is strange about our setup of events, and how either would be a barrier to new teams.

Many states use closed regionals, where each regional has a boundary, and the teams within that boundary are assigned to that regional, barring extenuating circumstances. It takes away the guesswork of "what regional should we attend", and also ensures that schools only have to compete against teams from their own area. Its only perceived weakness that I see is that it forces teams in a competitive area to compete with each other, and some strong teams might not qualify for the state tournament, but I see this as more of a feature than a bug, as long as state spots are allocated proportional to number of teams registered to each region.

As for the events, Texas's addition of trials just makes the system unnecessarily complicated to navigate, IMO. Sticking to the national slate of 23 keeps things simple. The vast majority of states do not include trials in actual competition, and New York is an example of a state that formerly counted trials that no longer does (to general positive response, I believe).

I dont think an open-regional system has a negative effect on new teams in any way. We have the same system in Florida where any team from anywhere in the state can choose to attend whichever regional they want. Contrary to what you may think will occur, very competitive teams all choose to go to the same regional so States isnt the first time they face off against each other. On the other hand, weaker teams that really want to go to states will choose to go out of their way to attend smaller/weaker regionals. MOST (>90%) attend the closest regional to them anyways.

I do have to say I have a natural preference for closed regionals because it makes tracking results from year to year significantly easier, and it gives the term "regional champ" geographic meaning, especially with individual events. I'm glad to hear there are cases where open regionals work, and they both have clear positives and negatives. In the case of Texas, I'm really just trying to conjecture at possible causes for the problems, and perhaps regional setup is irrelevant to that discussion.

I'd think the closed regionals would make it much more difficult to move into the top tier at your state since you can't see how you measure up if you are in a weak area, or you never make it to state if you are in a strong one.

looking at the last 3 years states, the best from the DFW area.
2019 -
division b 21st - Harmony FW
division c - 11 - Coppell

2018
b - 13th Coppell north
c - 6th - TAMS

2017
b - 19th Coppell west
c - 7th - Tams

That's crazy bad ESPECIALLY division b.

cool hand luke wrote:I'd think the closed regionals would make it much more difficult to move into the top tier at your state since you can't see how you measure up if you are in a weak area, or you never make it to state if you are in a strong one.

looking at the last 3 years states, the best from the DFW area.
2019 -
division b 21st - Harmony FW
division c - 11 - Coppell

2018
b - 13th Coppell north
c - 6th - TAMS

2017
b - 19th Coppell west
c - 7th - Tams

That's crazy bad ESPECIALLY division b.

I would counter that with the fact that the top 5 in Pennsylvania's B division this year were all from different regions, and that's with only 6 regions; in addition, the 2nd-placed team, Harlan Rowe, was able to qualify despite coming from a relatively weak region (no other team in their region had made the state top 10 the previous 2 years). There will always be weaker regions and stronger regions, but I don't think closed regions have impact on individual teams' ability to move up to an elite level. Texas has enough high-level invitationals that teams aiming to compete at a high level would always have chances to match up against tough teams from other regions.

that's true, but all the Texas high level invitationals are 8-10 hours from us. we actually went to and Oklahoma one this year. If we could only have open STATE competitions instead of open regionals, nationals might actually happen for us!

cool hand luke wrote:I'd think the closed regionals would make it much more difficult to move into the top tier at your state since you can't see how you measure up if you are in a weak area, or you never make it to state if you are in a strong one.

The top tier teams all qualify for state whatever regional system you have. The teams that miss out on state are the middle-ranking teams in competitive areas.who are replaced at state by teams from less competitive areas.

That's OK - the mid-rank teams are getting a good competition at their regional, and they know that when they beat a state powerhouse in an event, they've done pretty well, and they have a good benchmark for next year. Plus I kind of agree with East that a regional championship makes more sense if it, you know, determines the champion of a region.

Although it's convenient to be able to select regional B, because regional A conflicts with your major school event.

I'm definitely on the side of open regionals here. I'm sure we could easily point to, say, SE PA C as an example of a regional where powerful teams fail to qualify for state because of unusually high competitiveness.