This has been an interesting discussion on the
relative merits of single elimination. I thought I'd add
an opinion from the high school side of
things.
Most hs tournaments in Illinois have a round-robin
format followed by a single-elimination playoff of 8 or
16 teams. Morning rounds are often seeded, though
not always. I assume that there is a much wider gap
among high school teams as compared to college teams,
but we hear a lot of similar
complaints.
Lately we have experimented with what we call
"turnabout" tournaments, where the 30 or so perennial
favorites in the state are simply not invited. The three or
four that we have held so far have been very positive.
We came up with this idea after several people had
hosted tournaments with large school divisions vs. small
school divisions, point differentials, etc. In many
cases, the final round ended up being a guppy going
against a whale. The turnabouts seemed to be a better way
to do this.
I also agree with what I perceive
in some of the previous messages: if you are not a
competitive team, don't whine when you lose!
Coachdave