4th HIT - Hoover Invitational 11/1/2008

[Joshua Rutsky]

The 4th Annual Hoover Invitational Tournament will be held at Hoover High School, Hoover AL (sensing a theme?) on November 1, 2008. Play will be pool with single-elimination playoffs, and a separate JV pool will be available. Format will be Alabama State Competition Association format (4 quarters: 1st, 10 5-point tossups; 2nd, 10 10 point tossups with 20 pts of bounceback bonus; 3rd, worksheet worth 100 points; 4th, 10 15 point tossups).

Projected cost per team is $60, with a buzzer set discount of $5 (up to two sets). Teams from schools with enrollment under 300 students may request to participate for free in this tournament, as may any team traveling from out-of-state that will have to stay overnight. In the past, the field has been between 25 and 40 teams. We have plenty of space and will expand to accommodate as many teams as possible.

For further information, e-mail jrutsky@hoover.k12.al.us.

[Matthew D]

Only thing that might keep DAR away from this one would be the fact that it is also Homecoming at the Capstone. Mrs. D is pretty adamant that she wants to be on the Quad on this day...

[vandyhawk]

A potential problem here is that Vandy's ABC was already announced for that weekend. Not sure of your fields in the past, but presumably this would affect at least a handful of teams.

[Joshua Rutsky]

We're aware of the conflict with Vandy's Fall ABC, but we actually had to fix our date for facility scheduling reasons before ABC announced, so it's just one of those bad luck situations. We're also trying to be an option for teams that can't make the trip due to financial issues as well; gas prices are hitting everyone pretty hard these days, and Alabama budgets are dropping like a rock, as I'm sure they are elsewhere.

[quizbowllee]

Hi, Joshua. Congrats on the performance in Tuscaloosa. That was a killer field.

I plan to bring our teams to Hoover, but I am wondering where the questions will be coming from this year.

Thanks,

Lee

[Joshua Rutsky]

Thanks, Lee.

I'm not 100% certain of our source for questions this year, but it will NOT be Patrick's Press this time. I have been trying to negotiate with Chris Ray over at DACQ to write some of our rounds, but he's hard to get in touch with. More likely, we will be using another outside source and supplementing them with in-house written questions. ASCA format doesn't lend itself to pyramidal questions, but we're working on it. I'll e-mail you a copy of the "fun tourney" round I wrote and you can get a look at what I'm aiming for, though I can't promise it'll be what comes out.

[quizbowllee]

Pyramidal questions can work with ASCA format just fine. When we write questions for our tournaments, I make sure that they are pyramidal - even when they are ASCA format. Jim Garrick has been doing a good job of this, too. At any rate, we will be there.

Thanks,

Lee

[Joshua Rutsky]

We are pleased to announce that the 4th HIT will be an event using HSAPQ questions! We hope this will help to make the HIT an even stronger tournament in coming years, and welcome any teams interested in joining us on November 1.


Josh Rutsky

[quizbowllee]

We are pleased to announce that the 4th HIT will be an event using HSAPQ questions! We hope this will help to make the HIT an even stronger tournament in coming years, and welcome any teams interested in joining us on November 1.


Josh Rutsky

Good choice. Will this still be ASCA format?

[Joshua Rutsky]

Yes and no. We will maintain the 4 quarter format and scoring, but will be using a category quiz round instead of a worksheet round. This will be a little different for most of the in-state schools, but HSAPQ does not permit alteration of their question sets in any way, and this is the best compromise I can get between quality questions in pyramidal format and the ASCA format for play and scoring at this time. Hopefully, people will be pleased enough by the results that they will want to support an ongoing relationship with HSAPQ. I was very pleased with the sample questions and quick response I have received from this group, and I would like to be able to push for more such partnerships in the future, perhaps even at the state level.

[quizbowllee]

After looking at who all writes for HSAPQ, I'm confident that they are probably the best question-writing business around. I'm definitely looking forward to Hoover.

[Joshua Rutsky]

This tournament is now officially a PACE qualifier, and still has a number of open slots.

[Joshua Rutsky]

We currently have 19 teams registered for Varsity play and 9 teams for JV play. Ideally, we'd like to get to 24 and 12, so we'll take late sign-ups until further notice. Remember, we are a PACE qualifier, we offer a fee waiver for out-of-state schools, and we are using HSAPQ questions. Contact me at j(nospam)rutsky@hoover.k12.al.us or at mr.rutsky at gmail.com for information or to request a spot.


Field update as of 10/20/2008:

Varsity:
Arab
ASFA
Decatur
East Lawrence
Ohatchee
Pickens County
South Lamar
Indian Springs
Pelham
Hartselle (2)
PW Bryant
Sand Rock
Buckhorn
Opelika
Cullman
Southside
Spain Park (2)

JV:
Arab
ASFA
Hartselle
Montgomery Acad
Northridge
Ohatchee
Pelham
South Lamar
St. Bernard Middle

[quizbowllee]

Brindlee Mountain will have 1 varsity and 2 jv teams, also.

[Ditzy Blonde]

Josh,

It sounds like a great field of teams. I am really sorry that I am the reason Matt is not bringing his DAR teams to your tournament. I KNOW you always do a super job. We would be there but THE UNIVERSITY's homecoming is always my birthday present to myself since high school and being on the capstone and I insist on the family going with me. I wish it were another weekend, but I do understand having to work around schedules. Best of luck to everyone and I look forward to hearing the results. We will try to make the next one!

ROLL TIDE.

[azngod1992]

Just wondering, since I (and perhaps other readers) am unfamiliar, what exactly will the category quiz be like?

[Joshua Rutsky]

For the category quiz, the team that is behind at the start of the CQ quarter will be given the first choice of categories. The reader will begin the timer, and will begin reading questions from that category. The team captain's answer will be the accepted answer. The team may answer as many of the ten questions they are offered as they can within the one minute alloted period. They will receive 10 points per correct answer. There will be no "steals" by the other team, who will get their own category next, and will have the same one minute to answer the questions as asked.

That's a rough description. We'll go over it more formally with coaches, who will pass it on to you.

[Joshua Rutsky]

1st Place: Alabama School of Fine Arts
2nd Place: Indian Springs School

Semifinalists: Altamont School and Russellville

Full results and statistics will be available on Monday or Tuesday. Apologies for the delay, but we have a lot of scoresheets to put in.

I appreciate the patience of all those who attended this tourney, and hope that the delays we had were not too big a distraction from the quality of the tournament. Any time you can have an event as large as this one (I think the final count was 48 total teams) and finish before 6PM, I think you can call it a positive experience, and we hope everyone felt they got their money's worth.

Josh Rutsky
Hoover High School Coach

[azngod1992]

I would like to thank Mr. Rutsky for one of the best tournaments ever hosted in the state of Alabama (or in my experience at least). The delays were minimal, the readers were (for the most part) great, and the questions were some of the best I ever heard.

I would especially like to praise the HSAPQ team for writing such great questions. In 10 rounds of play, I think I heard only 2 tossups or bonuses that I had complaints with. Of course, there were some variability in bonus difficulty, but I thought the difficulty was just about right. These questions are infinitely better than whoever makes (Garrick's Press, I think?) the Alabama State tournament questions. I would definitely like to see a move towards HSAPQ sets for our state tournament.

The only suggestion I might have for the HSAPQ people is the include variability in terms of difficulty through out the 4 rounds (i.e round 1 is the easiest and have shorter questions and round 4 has the hardest and longest questions). I can't wait to attend my second HSAPQ tournament at Brindlee Mountain come December.

[quizbowllee]

While the questions were FAR, FAR, FAR SUPERIOR to any ASCA tournament ever, the majority of feedback I heard from other coaches was negative. It's frustrating how so few people recognize good quiz bowl when they see it.

I will agree with one thing, though: the lightning round (category round, whatever) was a disaster. Those questions were way too long to get through in a minute. No reader we had ever got through more than five of them, and most only got through 3 or 4.

Tossups were great, though!!! This was real quiz bowl, folks. This is the way it is meant to be. I'm sorry if some of you didn't do as well as you're used to (Brindlee Mountain didn't, either, but I'm not blaming the questions), but playing on questions like these is how you learn and get better.

Thanks, Joshua Rutsky, for taking a stand and using real questions.

[Magister Ludi]

HSAPQ would love to hear feedback on the set. We are sorry for the length of the timed round questions. We were unaware that the category round was going to be timed. In future sets used in Alabama we would adjust our questions in the category round accordingly. If you have any specific comments on the questions or HSAPQ please email me at: tedgioia @ starpower.net. We would especially like to hear from coaches and players, who don't regularly post on the boards.

[Joshua Rutsky]

Stats are now in the computer in an SQBS file and will be sent to any who request a copy. The top six players in the tourney:

1. Alvin Shi ASFA PPTH 5.67 PPG 170.00
2. Alex Shaw Spain Park PPTH 3.62 PPG 108.75
3. Nick Humphrey Oneonta PPTH 3.48 PPG 104.38
4. Zach Martin Indian Springs PPTH 3.45 PPG 103.50
5. Hunter Pearce Southside PPTH 2.64 PPG 79.29
6. Jeremy M Russellville PPTH 2.56 PPG 76.67


In the varsity bracket, ASFA defeated Indian Springs 325-160 for the championship. ASFA defeated Altamont to advance to the finals, while Indian Springs beat out Spain Park for the other finals spot. The top 8 teams (in no particular order):

ASFA
Indian Springs
Altamont
Spain Park
Russellville
Oneonta B
Brindlee Mountain
South Lamar

In the JV bracket, Holy Spirit defeated Russellville 195-110 for the championship. In the semifinals, Holy Spirit defeated Arab and Russellville defeated South Lamar.


Congratulations to all who participated, and thank you for coming!

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

Can't you just upload the sqbs files to here?

[Joshua Rutsky]

You are correct. The files are now at http://results.scobo.net/HooverHighSchool.