UIL District Qualifier

for the 2021 National Tournament

Information on Tournament Rules, Breaks, Etc.

UIL District of the NSDA
Information on Tournament Rules

Number of National Qualifiers

We are a level 2 district.  Because of COVID, the national office has temporarily changed the number of entries required for qualifier numbers.  Keep in mind that as long as we have 4 entries in a given event, we automatically qualify 2 entries to nationals in that event.

10 entries - 3 qualifiers
20 entries - 4 qualifiers

Congress:

16-29 entries - 2 Qualifiers
30-58 entries - 4 qualifiers
59-87 entries - 6 qualifiers

General Note on No-Shows:  Students who are more than 15 minutes late to a round without notifying the tabroom of technical problems will be considered a forfeit.

Public Forum Times

There have been some changes to public form speech times.  In 2020, the Board of Directors voted to permanently add one additional minute to each summary speech and one additional minute to each team's preparation time.  The new speech times look like this:

1st Speaker from each team - 4 minutes
Crossfire - 3 minutes
2nd Speaker from each team - 4 minutes
Crossfire - 3 minutes
Summary from each team - 3 minutes
Grand Crossfire - 3 minutes
Final Focus from each team - 2 minutes
Prep Time - 3 minutes per team 

Breaks for all Events

Debate Events

Please note that the Up-Down Method of running the district tournament will no longer be used.  We will be running a single-elimination bracket style tournament.

Prelim rounds 1 and 2 are pre-set.  Rounds 3 and 4 are power-matched.

Special Note About SOP scores

This is copied directly from the NSDA Manual, dealing with pairings for power-matched rounds in prelims.

Once the bracket has an even number of entries, schedule entries such that the entry with the best (lowest) SOP score debates the entry with the worst (highest) SOP score. Then the second best debates the second worst, and so on. The following priorities should be used in pairing powermatched debates:

1. Avoid two entries from the same school debating each other
2. Avoid entries debating each other more than once
3. Avoid any entry in CX and LD debating on the same side as a previous round in sidelocked rounds
4. Pair entries according to their position in the bracket as determined by SOP scores

SOP (Seed + Opponent Seed) scores are calculated by adding the seeding of the entry together with their average opponent seed up to that point in the tournament. The top seeded debaters might end up lower in the bracket than worst seeded debaters if they debated against worse  opponents. The goal of SOP is to even out the difficulty of the brackets over the course of the tournament.  Break this pattern of SOP as minimally as possible to avoid higher pairing priorities. In an event with an uneven number of entries, the bye goes to the entry with the worst SOP score overall that has not yet been awarded a bye. If two entries must debate against each other a second time in either preliminary or elimination rounds, in LD and CX, the second debate must have sides reversed from the first debate; in PF, the coin flip is still used. In all cases, the computer should be primarily used to create pairings in preset and powermatched rounds to ensure impartiality and true randomness where necessary; however, the debate tabulation staff should check the computer to ensure pairing priorities are correctly followed. 

Elimination Rounds in Debate Events

NSDA rules for the debate events mandate 4 preliminary rounds.  All winning entries must clear to the elimination rounds (in other words, all entries with a 3/1 record).  The number of winning entries will dictate which elimination round.  SOP scores are used to determine seeding in elimination rounds as well.

For example:  In LD, there are 6 students with a 3-1 record.  There are too many students with 3-1 records to begin with semi-finals, and not enough to begin with quarter-finals.  Therefore, a "partial quarters" round will be conducted to determine who advances to semi-finals.  These would be the students will 3-1 records, keeping in mind the SOP scores apply when determining seeding:

1st Seed
2nd Seed
3rd Seed
4th Seed
5th Seed
6th Seed

These would be the pairings for the partial quarters round

1st Seed - bye
2nd Seed - bye
3rd Seed debates 6th Seed (the winner advances to semi-finals)
4th Seed debates 5th Seed (the winner advances to semi-finals)

The number of debates to be held in a partials round depends on the number of debaters needed for the next round.  The debaters on the bottom of the bracket will always debate for a position in the next round, while the debaters at the top of the bracket will have a bye for the partials round.

Only debaters with a winning record will advance to elimination rounds.  

In Public Forum, we have the numbers for only 3 qualifiers; if there are 3 winning records at the end of the prelim rounds, those 3 students become the qualfiers.  If there are only 2 winning records, those 2 will be become qualifiers and an elim bracket will be created with all the 2-2 records to determine the 3rd qualifier.

In CX and LD, we have the numbers for 4 qualifiers; therefore, the 4 winners of the quarter-finals round will become qualifiers.  

At least 3 judges must judges all elimination rounds.

Brackets may not be broken to avoid same-school debates, but the school's coach may decide who advances without a debate.

Entries who are eliminated in an elimination round are considered tied for alternate position; ties are broken by preliminary round seeding.

Speech Events

Fewer than 8 entries:  No elimination rounds will be conducted.  
No final may be smaller than 4 entries.  
All entries whose rank totals are tied with an advancing entry also advance to finals.  
Final rounds may have no more than 7 entries.

15 entries will break to a semi-final round
30 entries will break to a quarter-final round.

So, for us:  all asynchronous events will advance directly to finals, unless cumulative scores would require more than 7 entries to advance to finals; in that case a semi-final round will be scheduled.

Congress

At least 8 schools must participate in the Senate in order to seat a Senate.

Time for debate on any one piece of legislation may not exceed 1/3 of a session's floor time.

In both House and Senate, the number of chambers will be determined by the number of entries.

8-15 entries - 1 chamber (that will debate both rounds)
16 + entries will be divided as evenly as possible into chambers of approximately 12 entries.  

Breaks to Finals:

Finals chambers will be composed of no more than 16 students.  Breaks from prelims will be determined by the number of prelim chambers:

2 chambers - 6 from each chamber will advance
3 or 4 chambers - 4 from each chamber will advance
5 chambers - 3 from each chamber will advance
6 chambers - 2 from each chamber will advance