Indiana bested elite teams from Emory, Berkeley, Michigan, Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Cornell this past weekend in Atlanta Georgia. The hoosiers brought eight to compete against a field of over 300 other students. The duo of Harry Aaronson and Nick Gallina had the hoosier's best finish with five wins and three losses, giving them a chance to qualify for Monday's single elimination debates. While 40 teams qualified for Monday rounds, with records of five or more wins, there are only thirty-two slots available in the single elmination bracket. IU was a narrow miss as the 34th seed. Just .2 points out of technical speaker points out of over 300 awarded seperated the team from the 32nd seed.
Policy debate tournaments have preliminary debates where two teams debate a resolutional question in front of a single judge. The judge is required to award a winner as well as individual speaker points for each debater involved. The accumulated speaker points operate as a tie-breaker after wins are accrued. The Hoosier debaters spoke with rhetorical fire, fury and argumentative precision, but came up short.
Coach Brian DeLong was proud of the program and the individual efforts during the weekend. Our students showed they were amongst equals against the best teams in the nation.
Three freshmen debaters were awarded their first wins as members of the debate squad. Notable recruit Reilly Markowitz, a Florida resident and direct admit into Informatics, partnered with sophomore Cameron Dehmlow Dunne to achieve a respectable three wins at the tournament. The team revealed a clear competitive potential for rapid growth at future tournaments.
The resolution for the 2017-2018 season asks whether the United States should establish National Health Insurance. Each debate team will be assigned an equal number of rounds for and against the resolution during the preliminary debates. Debate team members have been researching and giving practice speeches on the policy question since its release in late July.
The Hoosier Debate team will return home to begin preparation for their next competition at the University of Kentucky in two weeks.