Shawnee Mission East Debate

Dear Coach and Debaters,

You are cordially invited to the 65th annual Shawnee Mission East Invitational Debate Tournament on Friday, November 11th and Saturday, November 12th, 2022. The SM East Invitational Tournament will include rounds both Friday and Saturday for varsity, open, and JV. All divisions will feature 5 preliminary rounds followed by quarters, sems, and finals on Saturday afternoon. We may break straight to semifinals depending upon numbers.

Varsity Division:  This division is for your most competitive teams. We will have a variety of judges in this division. Most of them will be experienced community judges, former high school debaters, or current/former college debaters.  Friday and Saturday. NOTE: We are not the DCI bid tournament so this division might be collapsed into Open if we don’t have enough teams. 

Open Division: The name speaks for itself. Friday and Saturday with out-rounds.

JV Division: This division is limited to 1st and 2nd year debaters only. Friday and Saturday with out-rounds.        

Please enter at this link: http://smedebate.tabroom.com 

You may request up to four teams total in any combination of the divisions. Your teams beyond 4 will be waitlisted unless we have a reciprocal agreement. Please prioritize your waitlisted teams on tabroom, or email me and let me know the preference. We will give entries and extras in the following order: 1) Reciprocal obligations, 2) Shawnee Mission schools, 3) EKNSDA schools, 4) those whose tournaments we have attended or plan on attending this year, 5) first come, first serve. Entry deadlines are posted on tabroom.  

Hope to see you on November 11th and 12th!

Sincerely,

Trey Witt

Head Debate Coach

Tournament Schedule

SME DEBATE TOURNAMENT RULES AND PROCEDURES:

1)  The 2022-2023 national policy resolution will be debated. 

2)  The tournament will be cross-examination style with 8-3-5 time limits. Prep time will be 8 minutes per round.

3) Every school should enter a judge or sponsor who will be on standby. Additionally, if you have more than 6 teams, we might need additional judges from you. Schools entering teams in the varsity division should plan on bringing 1 varsity-level judge per 2 teams. If you did not host a tournament, you will be required to provide 1 judge per 2 teams entered. If you hosted, but required us to bring judges, we will expect the same quota from you. Judges can be entered on tabroom. Any school that does not fulfill a judging request will have the judge removed from a room in which one of its teams is debating and will forfeit that round with a 3-4 loss.

4) With the exception of extreme circumstances as determined by the tournament management, any team more than 10 minutes late to a round through no fault of the tournament will forfeit with a 3-4 loss.

5) Brackets will be broken in both preliminary and elimination rounds to avoid schools hitting themselves. If we have a conflict in out-rounds where there are multiple schools with multiple teams, we will first accommodate schools who have broken brackets for us in the past.

6)  Judges will be considered “clean” at the beginning of elimination rounds and may see a team a second time in elimination rounds.

7) Tournament management reserves the right to handle difficulties in a way that seems fair to us. We will not be following discretionary KSHSAA rules. Teams are responsible for their own chargers, power strips, etc. Guest wifi will be provided (but the wifi is not always dependable). Competitors may not communicate with others outside of the room for competitive advantages during debates.

8) There will be 5 preliminary rounds. Each team will be guaranteed 3 rounds on one side and two on the other. Rounds 1 and 2 will be pre-set. 3-5 will be power-matched. 

9) Sweepstakes will be awarded to the top 3 schools, based on best 4 team record (at least 2 teams in varsity or open). As usual, there will also be a combined SME/SMW traveling sweeps trophy. Schools eligible for sweeps at each tournament will be in contention for the traveling trophy, which will be awarded to the school with the most sweeps wins at both tournaments.