NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

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DumbJaques
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NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

The Ohio State University Academic Team is proud to announce the return of Ohio's NAQT High School State Championship Tournament to OSU this spring. The tournament will be held Saturday, April 7, at Ohio State's Columbus campus. Registration will begin at 8:15 AM, with rounds beginning at 9:00 sharp. I will be serving as the TD.

Questions: This tournament will use the Division II SCT set. Please take careful note of NAQT's policies if any coaches or players are intending to attend NAQT's collegiate SCT next month.

Eligibility: It's the state championship! All Ohio high schools are eligible. Rosters cannot exceed 6 players.

Fees:
Base fee: $80 for your first team, $75 for additional teams
Buzzer discount: -$5
Staffer discount: -$10**
New to Quizbowl: -$20 (your school played no pyramidal tournaments before September 1, 2017)
**ALL staffers must be approved by the TD.
The minimum fee per team is $50, unless you are providing multiple experienced moderators (subject to TD approval).

Payment: All teams must pay by the day of the tournament. Teams that do not will be charged a $25 penalty fee. We will accept either cash or checks. No other form of payment will be accepted. All checks must be made out to “The Academic Team at the Ohio State University." Checks made out to other entities cannot be accepted. If there is a logistical issue that prevents this from happening, please contact me far in advance.

If your school requires an invoice, please email me at the contact below, and we will provide one in short order.

Registration:To register, please fill out this form.
NOTE: If you are bringing staffers, please email me at [email protected]. Please include the staffer names, whether they are scorekeepers or moderators, and a very brief note about their experience. Your staffers cannot be approved without this email.

UPDATE - Location:
The opening meeting will take place in Independence Hall Room 100. Note that the tournament itself will take place in the Enarson Classroom Building. Please do NOT go to Enarson for the morning meeting.


Transportation and Parking: The best place to park on campus is almost certainly either the Lane Avenue Garage (2000 Tuttle Park Place), or the football stadium lot across the street. Note that these locations are paid parking, even on Saturdays (though the rates should not exceed ~$12 for the day). A backup option is the Lane Avenue Garage (2100 Neil Ave). There is free street parking around campus, but this is far from guaranteed on Saturday mornings, and I *strongly* discourage you from attempting to find it.

Middle School: For ease of transport, and at the request of coaches, this tournament will share the date and location with the Ohio Middle School State Championship. The tournaments will otherwise be separate entities, using different rooms and TD's. Please don't contact me about the middle school tournament - I don't know anything about it.

Lunch Options: We will supply a brief guide to the best local food options as the tournament date approaches. Please check back here for that and other updates, including exact building and room information.



Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] with any questions. We look forward to seeing you all in April!
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
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Re: NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

Update: I've heard from some coaches that there may be issues with school system bureaucracies processing payment by the day of the tournament. I completely understand this - just contact me ahead of time, and we'll work something out.

Field:
Miami Valley
Northmont
Copley A
Copley B
Beavercreek
Solon High School A
Solon High School B
Fisher Catholic
Grove City High School A
Grove City High School B
Little Miami High School A
Little Miami High School A
Westlake High School
Boardman High School
Tiffin Columbian A
Tiffin Columbian B
Dublin Scioto
Jackson
Hillsboro
Walnut Hills A
Walnut Hills B
Lakewood Local High School
St. Charles Preparatory
Streetsboro A
Streetsboro B
Tippecanoe
Cloverleaf
Columbus Alternative
Austintown Fitch A
Austintown Fitch B
Thomas Worthington
Olentangy Liberty

Note that we still have more spots available, but teams should sign up ASAP to make sure they have a spot.
Chris Ray
OSU
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University of Maryland, 2014
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Re: NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

Update: First, the field currently stands at 31. I am likely imposing a 36-team cap, so any stragglers should sign up *very* soon. Remember that you are not registered until you complete the google form, but every team listed here is good to go.


The opening meeting will take place in Independence Hall Room 100. Note that the tournament itself will take place in the Enarson Classroom Building. Please do NOT go to Enarson for the morning meeting.


Also, take note that NASAT tryouts (for the Ohio all-state team) will take place immediately following the tournament, at the same location. Any players who are interested in competing for Team Ohio should try out. I believe there is a $5 cost (to cover the question set). Please direct any questions to Tyler Benedict of Miami Valley (OSU is not involved with the organization, but is happy to provide the venue - go Team Ohio!).
Chris Ray
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University of Maryland, 2014
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Re: NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

A week out, the field is at 30; this is a fine number to work with, but I'm also happy to go to 32, if any stragglers wish to sign up. 32 will be the cap, though.

A logistics email will go out today, but all the crucial info is available in the post above. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
Chris Ray
OSU
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Re: NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

Congratulations to Dublin Scioto, who won Ohio's 2018 State Championship Tournament in the 2nd game of a thrilling advantaged final against Beavercreek. Congratulations are also due to Beavercreek, who were neck and neck with Dublin the entire way. Each of the first two games were decided by a single tossup. The final round went down to the wire as well, with Beavercreek jumping out to a 100-point halftime lead before Dublin capped off the comeback on the back of 5 straight powers from Clark Smith.

Full stats for the event are available here.

I want to thank everyone for coming out, especially our volunteer staffers - Brian Meeron, Tom Moore, Jarret Greene, Seth Teitler, Keith Day, Joe Bellas, Evan Gutter, Jacob Durst, Seth Brugler + friend, Joe Czupryn, and Peter Berger. This event surely would not have been possible without your able assistance - thank you.

I apologize to teams for the couple hiccups getting started; as coaches were told via email, I was at an academic conference this week, and ended up getting stranded out of down due to severe weather. I spent much of the ~18 hours before the tournament on planes or in airports tyying to get back to Columbus as quickly as possible, but could not arrive until around Round 2. In addition, we had several teams drop from the tournament literally hours (and in one instance, one hour) before the tournament began; this necessitated changing the entire format of the schedule. The primary result of these issues was that we started at around 9:30, which is unfortunate. However, we still finished around 4:30-4:45 PM, which seems pretty good for a 30-team event.

However, this also meant that we ended up using a format in which only 6 teams made the top bracket - in my mind, this is suboptimal (though certainly not uncommon) for a state championship tournament. The alternative would have required 13 rounds + finals, and my understanding was that coaches voiced a strong desire to go with a shorter format of 10 games + finals. I sympathize with the teams that ended up in the second bracket, but it sounds like the decision made was probably the best one under the circumstances.

Aside from that, I'm very pleased with how this tournament turned out, and I'm extremely proud of my team, especially Aakash Singh, Amol Gandhi, Tristan Mooney, and Chris Schroth, for navigating a difficult situation on their own. We made excellent time once things got going, finished before 5:00, and ensured 10 games for all teams (apologies to those teams in the bottom bracket who had a playoff bye - one team had a medical emergency and needed to leave).

I do think this year's set was too hard - many questions didn't seem to play well among current high schoolers, and I'm not sure I'd support the use of an unedited Division II SCT set for States next year (unless SCT is itself easier next year). But I encourage coaches who have thoughts on this one way or another to contact NAQT.

Thanks once again for coming out - I'm looking forward to seeing you all again next year!
Chris Ray
OSU
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University of Maryland, 2014
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Re: NAQT Ohio State Championship: 4/7/18 at Ohio State

Post by DumbJaques »

One more thing: I've heard from some coaches that there was concern over the bracket structure we used, both in terms of seeding, and in terms of playoff format. I'll address each of these.

On seeding: This was in part a result of the sudden drops that forced us to revamp our schedule - we had to change both the number of brackets and the size in each bracket, and some seeding differences (eg, the difference between the 5th team and the 8th team) was not preserved. I did a substantial amount of research to make sure seeds were as accurate as possible, but because I was on a plane when the schedule had to be changed, there were a few slips. I apologize for this. I also understand that some coaches may have offered the running-ppb document for the backup TD's to use. If this was indeed not taken into account, this is a huge oversight, and you have my sincere apologies. Looking at the stats from the event though, I do think that much of the placement appears fairly solid with respect to performance vs. finish place.

On the playoff format: As I said, I am unhappy we had to use a format in which some teams were eliminated with a single loss in the prelims. This was not the format in place before 8:00 AM of the tournament, and only had to be used because of drops.

My understanding is that some coaches would have preferred a format that used two championship brackets of 6, evenly ranked, who would then play a round robin before playing their equivalent ranking in the other bracket in a one game final for placement - A1 would play B1 for 1st/2nd, A2 would play B2 for 3rd/4th, etc.
In contrast, we used a straight playoff round robin of the top 6 teams, and final series as needed.

To me, the advantages of the 2-bracket scenario are that it avoids the 1-loss elimination. This is not insignificant - I would very much have liked to avoid that. But that seems to be it.
The disadvantages, conversely, are that it takes longer (mild concern), it significantly reduces the number of games that top-6 teams get against other top-6 teams (significant concern), and most importantly, it prevents true "finals series" between the top two teams, who would just play a one-game final.
This year, where we had two teams far ahead of the rest of the field who played a truly remarkable finals series, that would have been quite the significant detriment to the tournament. So, if we'd have used the 2-bracket design, Dublin and Beavercreek would not have played their finals series, which seems like it would have been a disservice to the event.

One can't know these things beforehand, of course, but on balance, I still think the 1-bracket format is the better choice of those two. I do see the merits of the other, but feel it was a justifiable choice given the constraints. In any event, I'm sure we won't have to repeat that scenario in any future years we may host the event - I don't expect to have a ton of last-second drops combined with a travel emergency occur simultaneously in the future.

I do welcome any feedback coaches have, however - I hope that OSU will continue to be a host for this event, and that we can do so above all in a collaboration with Ohio coaches.
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE
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