KU Debate qualifies 3 teams for NDT, places 3 teams in Final 16 at American Debate Association tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has qualified two additional debate teams to compete at the National Debate Tournament, to be held at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, March 31-April 4. The team of Graham Revare, sophomore from Shawnee, and Ryan Snow, senior from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, qualified through a district tournament. The team of Jimin Park, junior from Topeka, and Jet Semrick, junior from Prairie Village, was selected as an at-large team by the NDT Selection Committee. They join the team of Mickey McMahon, junior from Leawood, and Michael Scott, junior from Glenview, Illinois, who had been selected as an automatic first-round, at-large qualifier based on ranking as one of the top 16 teams in the country.
Only six schools are allowed to qualify three teams for the National Debate Tournament. This is the seventh consecutive year that KU has qualified three teams for the NDT. The other schools qualifying three teams are Emory University, Harvard University, Liberty University, the University of Michigan and Wake Forest University.
KU Debate entered four other teams in the American Debate Association National Championship Tournament, held at Emory University March 4-7, where three of the teams advanced to the top 16 and one reached the quarterfinals of the national championship tournament. The ADA is an open tournament for schools who are members of the American Debate Association. While most of the field consisted of teams qualified for the National Debate Tournament, KU entered teams not qualified for the NDT and a new pairing of two of its NTD-qualified debaters.
“Since only three teams from a school can qualify for the NDT, and our program has more than three teams talented enough to compete at the NDT, we wanted to give some of those teams a chance to compete at a national championship tournament to measure themselves against some of the top teams in the country,” said Brett Bricker, KU associate director of debate.
The team of Scott and Snow, paired up for the first time this year, finished the preliminary rounds with a 5-1 record, including a win over the team from Northwestern University ranked second in the country. They received a bye through the first elimination round as the fourth seed and defeated Missouri State University in the octafinals before losing to an NDT first-round, at-large qualified team from the University of Michigan. Scott was the fifth-place individual speaker at the tournament, and the team finished in fifth place.
The team of Lily Ottinger, senior from Shawnee, and Samir Rahaman, freshman from Chicago, advanced to the elimination rounds with a 4-2 record as the 17th seed. They defeated the University of Kentucky in the first elimination round to advance to the final 16. They lost a close debate to the NDT First round at-large team from Liberty University, ranked 10th in the country, in the octafinals.
The team of Ethan Harris and Jacob Wilkus, freshmen from Lawrence, advanced to the elimination rounds with a 4-2 record as the 15th seed. They defeated a hybrid team composed of a debater from Columbia University and a debater from Washington University St. Louis in the first elimination round, before losing a close debate to the second-ranked team in the country from Northwestern University, who would go on to win the tournament, in the round of 16.
A fourth KU team composed of Ye Gang Lee, freshman from Halstead, and Will Soper, sophomore from Overland Park, finished with a 3-3 record in the preliminary rounds and just missed qualifying for the elimination rounds.
Scott Harris, the David. B. Pittaway Director of Debate at KU, said, “We are very proud of the performance of our students at the ADA tournament. It is very rewarding to have so many of our students demonstrate that they can compete against the best and brightest debaters in the country.”
Top right photo: Graham Revare and Ryan Snow.
Middle right photo: Jimin Park and Jet Semrick.