Well, I think the changing of tournament participation is a kind of natural phenomenon and has to do with the life cycle of the tournament scene as new tournaments rise and old ones fall. Also, I think there are a lot of trade offs and "political" motivations behind which tournaments organizations choose to participate in.
Finally, the quality and number of teams going to the National Draw has been slipping the past few years and it looks like it got to a tipping point of sorts as far as M&D is concerned.
Also look at the list of college coaches attending, this tournament has certainly slipped heavily on that front too! Too big and competition too watered down.
That didn't matter. M&D didn't send their older teams to National Draw anyway.
