April 2 – 6 the UT Dallas Debate Team travelled to the University of Iowa for the 69th National Debate Tournament (NDT). The NDT is collegiate debate’s most prestigious and selective tournament. Of the hundreds of teams that compete in college debate, only the top 78 are invited to the NDT to battle it out for debate’s national championship.
The UT Dallas team of Jacob Loehr and Anthony Ogbuli, both juniors, started slowly with a 2-1 loss to Stanford, then bounced back to defeat Towson university in the second debate. After defeating Baylor, Jacob and Anthony ended day one with a record of 2-1. In the second day of competition they struggled, losing 2 and winning 1 more to even their record at 3-3. One more loss and they would be eliminated from the tournament. In the morning of day 3, Jacob and Anthony bested City University of New York to set up a critical round 8 against the University of Kentucky. A win in round 8 would put UT Dallas through to the elimination debates, something the team had not accomplished in 3 years. “It was a stressful preparation for round 8, no one wanted to say it, but there was a lot riding on the result. The entire team came together, we talked about our strategy and they executed. I was nervous, but felt good about our chances” said Director of Debate Scott Herndon.
It took over an hour to decide round 8, but UT Dallas pulled out a 2-1 win and advanced to the elimination rounds where they would face another team from Kentucky. Only 32 teams advance to elimination rounds of the NDT. The best of the best. Jacob and Anthony’s run ended with a 4-1 decision for Kentucky. “Of course we wanted to win” said coach Phil Samuels, ”but these guys proved something today and they’ll be back.”
When it was all over, Northwestern University was the NDT champion, defeating University Of Michigan on a 3-2 decision. UT Dallas was the only Texas university to qualify for the elimination debates of the NDT. “It speaks to the hard work of the students and our staff that we are able to distinguish UTD in that way” said Herndon. “We’re all proud of what we’re building.”
Qualifying for the NDT is a yearlong process. A committee evaluates every applicant team’s season record and awards 16 teams with an at-large invitation to the tournament, then the rest of the teams debate their way through regional qualifiers to fill out the 78 slots. Jacob and Anthony qualified back in February, at the District 3 regional qualifier. It is UT-Dallas 13th consecutive NDT qualification