2012 Missouri Fall Academic Tournament (10/20/2012)

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Hello Coaches,

The University of Missouri Quizbowl Club is pleased to announce that we are planning on hosting our fifth annual Missouri Fall Academic Tournament on October 20th, 2012. This is the first varsity invitational tournament of the year, and we hope you will consider our event as a season kickoff for your team. In our past four years, thanks to our central location that allows for most teams from around the state to make the day trip to Columbia, we have had the incredible fortune to be able to attract many of the very best teams in the state from both major cities and all places in between, so we hope to be able to offer you a good chance to play many of this year’s most competitive teams.

There are a lot of changes to the price of this tournament to make it cheaper for everybody. I am especially excited to let you know that this tournament is offering free entry to all teams who did not play a Missouri Quizbowl Alliance-certified tournament in the last season. We are also offering a $20 discount for teams who did play an MOQBA event last year, but have never attended a tournament at Mizzou since 2008. Lastly, we are reducing the overall The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is a statewide group promoting high quality quizbowl. Criteria for certification include pyramidal questions, a guarantee of six rounds minimum per team, and other factors that MOQBA considers valuable for high quality quizbowl. Details on MOQBA and its certification procedures can be found online at www.moqba.org.

We will be using an Invitational Series set written by National Academic Quiz Tournaments, and we will use the same game format as last year (20 tossups with 30 point rebounding bonuses, and tossups will have -5 point penalties for an early buzz that is incorrect, and powers, or an extra 5 points for a correct early buzz). These are the same style of questions that NAQT will be using in the MSHSAA State Championship.

We will be giving out trophies to the top 3 teams, and if we have a large enough field of small schools, we will also give out an award to the top placing small school team. We will be using NAQT's definition of a small school, which is any non-selective public school with 500 or fewer students in grades 10-12.

This tournament will be using a rule where each team can have a maximum of 6 players. If you have more than that, do not feel hesitant signing up an extra team so that every player gets more opportunities to participate in games.

The field will be capped at 36 teams. Spaces will be allotted on a first-come, first-serve basis. We will form a waitlist, and if teams drop, we will proceed down the list in order. If the field fills, then we will be able to guarantee you a 10 game schedule, which we are very excited to offer your team to allow them to get increased early season playing time. Also, if we fill the field, then the top 6 teams and possibly the top small school will qualify for the 2013 NAQT High School National Championship. Additionally, the top teams will qualify for the 2013 PACE National Scholastics Championship.

We already have an excellent field of teams who registered early, with multiple teams from the top 10 in the pre-season ranking, Ladue and the Illinois Math and Science Academy, and three states represented. Here is the current field, with only 6 spots remaining:

Clayton (2)
Cuba*
Hallsville (2)*
Helias (2)
Hickman (3)
Higbee (2)
Illinois Math and Science Academy
Ladue Horton Watkins (5)
McCallie (TN)
North Kansas City (2)
Oakville
Rock Bridge (2)
Springfield Catholic
Thomas Jefferson IDS (2)
Tuscumbia (2)*
Villa Duchesne

Entry Fees
First team from a school: $60
Additional teams from the same school: $50
Buzzer system discount*: -$5 per system per team, up to $15 off.
Staffer discounts: -$5 per team that brings a scorekeeper, and -$25 for each experienced moderator a team brings. This can be a coach, parent, or any other person attending who isn’t playing. We will provide the scorekeeper with a lunch. For both the staff discounts, we need to know about your plans to bring staff before the tournament, and we reserve the right to not take you up on your staff and their discount.
* In order to receive the buzzer system discount, the system must be fully functional for 8 players.

To register, please email me at [email protected] with the name of your school, how many teams you wish to enter, and the best way to contact you with any questions. There are only 7 spots left in the field, so you need to grab them fast!

Also, be sure to look out for our other tournaments on December 1st, and on February 2nd. Our campus will also be hosting the Missouri NAQT Qualifier tournament on March 2nd. We also recommend you look into attending other MOQBA events, which can be found on our website at http://moqba.org/calendar/.

We hope to see you in Columbia on October 20th to kick off the new quizbowl season!

Charles Dees
Tournament Director

P.S. We would like to recommend that if you are interested in finding more practice material to prepare for our events, you check out quizbowlpackets.com, which is an archive of hundreds of high school packets.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Today, we had an incredible day of quizbowl at MU. After 10 rounds, we whittled down our 32 team field to 4 superplayoff teams, Clayton A, Ladue A, Ladue B, and the Illinois Math and Science Academy, who drove all the way in. After the superplayoffs, Clayton placed fourth, Ladue B took home the third place trophy, and Ladue went into the final undefeated, with a one game advantage over IMSA. IMSA then dealt Ladue their first loss of the tournament, before Ladue rebounded in round 2 of the finals and won the championship of our fifth ever Missouri Fall Academic Tournament. I think everyone who watched the finals series can agree, those were probably the best games ever played in Missouri. It was great to see so much talent on display today, and everyone deserves a round of applause.

Stats will be up soon, special thanks to Jacob O'Rourke being willing to drive in and do a usually thankless job that we needed the help with. Everyone else who staffed today, you are awesome. And of course, thank you coaches and players for supporting us.

Again, congratulations to both Ladue and IMSA, both teams who seemed to me to be solidly in the hunt for a national title.

[Dominator]

Fresh off of the 7 hour drive home, let me say:

(1) Thanks to everyone at Mizzou for a great tournament. All the staff were friendly and competent and the organizers were very hospitable. People should come to Missouri tournaments.

(2) You heard it here first: Ladue B is legit. I would not be the slightest bit surprised to find them in the national top dozen by the end of the season, and I could see them going even farther.

(3) The three-game final against Ladue A were some of the best-fought matches I've ever seen. Congratulations to Ladue A for a well-earned victory.

[1992 in spaceflight]

Prelims stats are up. I will finish and upload the playoffs and superplayoffs stats once I've actually gotten some sleep.

Playoff stats are up.

Superplayoffs plus Finals.

Combined.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Bump, because the full stats have been posted by Jacob directly above.

[Edward Powers]

The stats for Ladue A are exceptional---over 11 Powers per game, and a PPB of over 25? And IMSA at over 8 Powers and over 24 PPB? The 3 matches between these two teams must have been a delight to see, and they have surely set the bar quite high for the rest of the country. Congratulations to both teams for such outstanding performances.

[1992 in spaceflight]

The stats for Ladue A are exceptional---over 11 Powers per game, and a PPB of over 25? And IMSA at over 8 Powers and over 24 PPB? The 3 matches between these two teams must have been a delight to see, and they have surely set the bar quite high for the rest of the country. Congratulations to both teams for such outstanding performances.

The final games were easily the best matches I've ever seen at any regular-season tournament in Missouri. Furthermore, I'm impressed with how much teams have been improving each and every year they come to this. Lutheran High School of St Charles, Clayton's freshman Omkar, and many other teams and players impressed me while I was entering stats the past 2 days. I also want to extend a huge congratulations to IMSA, who showed that they, along with Ladue, are a contender for a national title.