Princeton High School Academic Tournament 10/03/09- Results

[Youse Da Force]

Playoff stats are being compiled and will probably be posted either early tonight or tomorrow morning.

Results:
Qualifying for NAQT Nationals:

1st Place Charter A
2nd Place Bergen A
3rd Place Kellenberg A
4th Place Dorman B

Tied for 5th:
Dorman A
St. Joseph's A
Charter B
Seton Hall Prep

9th Place:
East Brunswick

Thanks everyone for coming today, it was a great field.

[Edward Powers]

Dan,

Thanks for running an excellent tournament. One quick question though---with the inevitably hectic nature of the playoffs and then the need to collect buzzers before leaving, we forgot to purchase a set of questions from you. Would it still be possible to make such a purchase? If so, could you let us know how? Thanks.

And congratulations to Wilmington Charter A---we played you twice and enjoyed the outstanding competition as well as learning how much more we need to develop to be truly competitive. Good luck the rest of the year.

[Self-incompatibility in plants]

Wow. Congrats in order for Charter. Nice job. The skill and talent of that school/program never cease to amaze me.

[Bad Boy Bill]

Here was how the main playoff bracket went:

Octos:

(1) Charter A defeated (16) Conestoga
(2) Bergen A defeated (15) Moravian A
(3) Dorman A defeated (14) High Tech
(4) Kellenberg A defeated (13) St Joes B
(12) Charter B defeated (5) Livingston A
(6) Dorman B defeated (11) East Brunswick
(7) Seton Hall Prep defeated (10) Milburn A
(8) St Joes A defeated (9) Charter C

Quarters:

(1) Charter A defeated (8) St Joes A
(2) Bergen A defeated (7) Seton Hall Prep
(6) Dorman B defeated (3) Dorman A
(4) Kellenberg A defeated (12) Charter B

Semis:

(1) Charter A defeated (4) Kellenberg A
(2) Bergen A defeated (6) Dorman B

Final:

(1) Charter A defeated (2) Bergen A

On balance this was a good tournament. But thank goodness we only did 13 rounds. In the future, could I recommend that someone calculate team records separate from SQBS. If a computer error does occur, at least the team records will be calculated and we could start the playoffs.

Congrats to Bergen, they have weathered the graduation of Watson quite well.

[scquizbowl]

Wow, Dorman's B team beat their A team? They must be good this year, as they are deep. At some tournaments, they may bring as many as 8 teams. Big win by Wilmington Charter over Bergen Academy. What was the margin?

[Bad Boy Bill]

360-235

[Youse Da Force]

I'm sorry I haven't posted the stats yet. When Kunle merged SQBS files of our two buildings it deleted everything he had done after his last save, that being the primary reasons playoffs were delayed, and I haven't had the time to reenter everything yet, what with the backlog of homework and reading I developed in the week leading up to the tournament. So I just want to reassure everyone that we do have the stats, and that they will go up. Until then, I guess Mr. Tressler will just answer your questions.

[BobGHHS]

Cmon Dan,
Putting schoolwork before quizbowl? Who does that, honestly?

Anyways, for as worried as you were leading up to it, looks like you did a great job for your first time as a TD.

[Edward Powers]

Dan,

Any chance that the IS-86 Set can still be purchased?

[jonpin]

In the 17th place bracket, I think the semifinals were St. Andrew (MS) vs Livingston B and Bergen B vs [someone]. St. Andrew left to go see New York, so Liv-B was in the finals.

Dan, for the most part, you ran a great tournament, and you kept your head when it seemed disaster had struck (having run stats for a tournament where SQBS crashed during the last round of prelims, and we had to work by hand off of the prior round's printout, I understand that feeling of "The stats are gone? THE STATS ARE GONE?!?!"). And thankfully, NAQT seems to have shaped up a bit, as there were fewer howlers (although I was annoyed to see a 5x5 list bonus).
But what I'll suggest is that this tournament may have been planned too big. It's important to know that the limiting reagent on the size of a well-run tourney isn't always moderators or rooms, but general other logistics. If the stat-people aren't familiar enough with SQBS to enter 20+ games in the time it takes for a round to happen, that'll cause a backup, and it's the TD's responsibility to have a sense of how big is too big (or use a stat program that allows each moderator to enter the game results online themselves... I think this exists).
Last but not least, urgh McCosh is a pain to navigate (though I certainly understand that that probably wasn't within your power to choose).

Hope next year's runs even better!

[bt_green_warbler]

NAQT seems to have shaped up a bit, as there were fewer howlers (although I was annoyed to see a 5x5 list bonus).

Please send me details of anything you think was howlerish enough to fix for the next event that uses this set.

urgh McCosh is a pain to navigate

Some things about Princeton tournaments never change! Did anyone end up in the tunnel with all the steam pipes this year?

[Youse Da Force]

Dan,

Any chance that the IS-86 Set can still be purchased?

Yeah, I still have a couple copies left that I didn't throw out. I'm emailing you.

[Edward Powers]

Thank you.

[Cernel Joson]

Are we ever going to see stats for this?

[Carangoides ciliarius]

It's Princeton. Probably not.

Did Mount Pleasant ever end up going to this, though?

[BroNi]

No, they didn't.

The other schools in the field (besides the ones mentioned above in the top 16) were Bensalem, Bloomfield, Chatham, Colonia, Great Neck South, Half Hollow Hills West, Lawrenceville, MAST, North Babylon, North Shore, Northern Valley, Pingry, St. Andrew's Epis., Stuyvesant, Tatnall, and West Chester.

Of the above list, of the ones I read for, Pingry A was very good and equal to if not better than some that made the top 16.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Oh, thanks Nigel. At least Tatnall went (been trying to get more DE teams to go to stuff, baby steps i guess).

[Bad Boy Bill]

To clarify, that is Henderson High from West Chester.

Could we see the first six rounds of stats if they existed before the crash? We're having a discussion about who gets to play on A this year, and seeing any kind of numbers would be appreciated.

[Youse Da Force]

It's Princeton. Probably not.

Pardon me, I'm taking one and a half times a normal courseload and worked up quite a backlog of readings, essays, etc. and haven't had 3 or 4 free hours to enter 13 rounds of stats for a 54 team tournament yet.

But, Greg Bossick (MahoningQuizBowler) is going to compile the stats for ScoBo and will post a link here.

Mr. Tressler, I'm emailing you what you want.

[MahoningQuizBowler]

Yes, I have the files and will begin working on them tonight. Dan, I sent you a message already via FB, but if you have a schedule that I can use as I'm going through each round, that would be helpful.

[Edward Powers]

Any update on when stats will be published?

[Self-incompatibility in plants]

How are those stats coming?

[Youse Da Force]

Greg told me he hasn't finished yet. I've asked him to post his estimated ETA.

[MahoningQuizBowler]

Here's an update...

As far as the prelims go, Groups 1, 2, 5, and 6 are complete.

Group 3 is missing only one game from round 9; I've e-mailed Dan about it.

I'm working on Group 4 for the rest of the night. It's missing quite a few games, though, at least through round 5.

Assuming I finish what I have of Group 4 tonight, I will begin working on playoffs tomorrow evening, then backtrack if the other Group 4 games are found.

[Youse Da Force]

Here's an update...

As far as the prelims go, Groups 1, 2, 5, and 6 are complete.

Group 3 is missing only one game from round 9; I've e-mailed Dan about it.

I'm working on Group 4 for the rest of the night. It's missing quite a few games, though, at least through round 5.

Assuming I finish what I have of Group 4 tonight, I will begin working on playoffs tomorrow evening, then backtrack if the other Group 4 games are found.

Explanation: The missing round 3 match was actually a forfeit.

The missing round 4 matches are because one scorekeeper didn't write anything down for any of the first 2 matches. Greg does have all the information to reconstruct the matches, so that will be there as well.

[jonpin]

Here are the 9th and 17th place playoff brackets:

For 9th place and the last HSNCT bid
16 Conestoga def 9 Charter-C
5 Livingston-A def 13 St Joseph-B
11 E Brunswick def 14 High Tech
10 Millburn-A def 15 Moravian-A

Conestoga def Livingston-A
E Brunswick def Millburn-A

E Brunswick def Conestoga

For 17th place
32 Charter-F def 17 Great Neck S-A
24 St. Andrew's def 25 Bloomfield-A
28 Stuyvesant-B def 21 MAST-A
20 Livingston-B def 29 HHH West-A?
19 Bergen-B def 30 Millburn-C
27 Bergen-C def 22 Livingston-C
26 Chatham-A def 23 Livingston-D?
18 Stuyvesant-A def 31 Charter-E

St. Andrew's def Charter-F
Livingston-B def Stuyvesant-B
Bergen-B def Bergen-C
Stuyvesant-A def Chatham-A

Livingston-B def St. Andrew's (forfeit; St. Andrew's left)
Bergen-B def Stuyvesant-A

Livingston-B def Bergen-B

Thanks to Ian from Bergen for scanning in his hand-copied brackets (it's possible I've misread some of the team letters). Apparently Bergen led the championship game 205-120 before Charter got 7 of the last 8 to win the title.

[MahoningQuizBowler]

I have the prelims done with the exception of one game -- Group 4, Round 4, Millburn A v Northern Valley B.

Along those same lines, Group 4, Round 2, Charter D v North Shore A has no individual stats. Unless someone has those, I will use something approximating each player's average stat lines to plug in to those lines in SQBS.

If anyone here can give me some information about those match from their own records, that would be preferred. Otherwise, I'll post it as a forfeit win to Millburn and everything will go up tonight on my scobo.net space.

I apologize for the delay in getting this done.

[Edward Powers]

Greg,

I do not wish to point out the obvious, but, what the heck--"tonight" has come and gone, and still NO statistics! So: WHAT'S UP???????

[Ronnie the Bear]

Greg,

I do not wish to point out the obvious, but, what the heck--"tonight" has come and gone, and still NO statistics! So: WHAT'S UP???????

Well, Greg's got to put in scores for all of the games held at a tournament with 54 teams, along with the other Greg things he has to do. I'd imagine this is probably a "you'll get stats when I have time to put in stats, since I'm not part of Princeton" deal.

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

Greg,

I do not wish to point out the obvious, but, what the heck--"tonight" has come and gone, and still NO statistics! So: WHAT'S UP???????

Well, Greg's got to put in scores for all of the games held at a tournament with 54 teams, along with the other Greg things he has to do. I'd imagine this is probably a "you'll get stats when I have time to put in stats, since I'm not part of Princeton" deal.

Regrettably, Ed, in the quizbowl world promising to do something tonight doesn't actually mean "tonight" anymore.

[MahoningQuizBowler]

I apologize to you, your team, and anyone else who was let down by my tardiness.

However, in the meantime, I did get the remaining 2 results I needed to complete the prelims, and I was able to find a few other errors that I had not caught previously.

The entire preliminary round report is available now at http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

[ChathamNJ]

Thank you Greg, for stepping up to provide this service to the community. Any time spent on this was a gift from you, and it's greatly appreciated.

If you have the opportunity to edit the prelims file again, would you be so kind as to fix the spelling of "Chatham"? It was originally wrong on Dan's list, then fixed in the announcement thread but I guess someone went off an older list when setting up stats. Not a big deal, but 'twould be appreciated.

[Edward Powers]

Greg,

No apology necessary---I echo the sentiments of Coach Fineman---& thanks for helping Dan & the PHSAT. Your efforts ARE appreciated.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

[jonpin]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

They ran into the wrecking ball that is Dorman B.

[Inkana7]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

And yet Charter averaged 100ppg more.

Powers get chicks, 10s win games.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

And yet Charter averaged 100ppg more.

Powers get chicks, 10s win games.

No, i mean, that's kinda my point. Why didn't they get more 30s on bonus questions, then? How come so many crazy powers but a comparatively lower bonus conversion rate? It certainly is a sign that they're close to being pretty amazing, though.

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

And yet Charter averaged 100ppg more.

Powers get chicks, 10s win games.

No, i mean, that's kinda my point. Why didn't they get more 30s on bonus questions, then? How come so many crazy powers but a comparatively lower bonus conversion rate? It certainly is a sign that they're close to being pretty amazing, though.

It wasn't the bonus conversion. To translate into rough per-game figures, Dorman converted three fewer total tossups per game in part, probably, due to two more negs per game.

[master15625]

Dorman A got 50 powers, and 51 tens.



How did they not win this tournament?

I also don't understand how their bonuses heard was 99 and not 101. I have a feeling that 50 powers or 51 tens may not be correct.

[Youse Da Force]

That may be the tie breaker.

[Edward Powers]

It was great to see the stats for the Prelims---it allowed everyone who participated a chance to place their overall performance in context and to compare performances with other tournaments using the IS-86 Set. Now---is there any news on when the Playoff stats will be published?

[MahoningQuizBowler]

I'm catching up on other events that happened in the last few weeks. Once those are finished, then I'll start on the playoff stats.

[Edward Powers]

Checking the NAQT 'RESULTS' site reveals that the Princeton results are NOT YET OFFICIAL since the playoff stats and thus final overall results of the playoffs are not yet complete. Any chance they will be completed in the near future? Completion was promised more than 3 weeks ago, and it's been over 7 weeks since the tournament was held. Some teams qualified for Nationals at this tournament, but their qualifications might be jeopardized because of the incompleteness of the results. Or is this a matter of indifference to Princeton? Sorry to seem to be complaining, but your field has surely been patient. Any chance that patience might soon be rewarded, or is this too a matter of indifference? And just to provide some perspective, since Princeton's tournament, SJHS, to site only ONE example, has attended Yale's FACT, Kellenberg's LIFT, Harvard's HFT, and Penn's QuAC. All four of these tournaments have posted results, most of them within a 48 hour window, some even faster.

To be fair, I understand that the Princeton stats were lost & had to be reconstructed, but since Prelim stats were posted almost 4 weeks ago, and Playoff stats were promised on November 1st once some other intervening tasks were accomplished, nothing has even been communicated to your patient field to explain the further delays. Certainly at least this courtesy could have been extended if other problems had emerged to explain the delay. Are even these simple courtesies too much to ask? And remember the context of all of this---in 2008, all stats were lost, and it was a debacle of sorts---so this year we were promised a much better result. Of course, we know what happened and nevertheless most of your field was patient. But when do promises made and not fulfilled become a matter of concern? I am a Jerseyan and Princeton is by all accounts the great NJ University, and Jerseyans in general tend to be proud of this wonderful institution within its borders. But not in this case. And yet despite the debacle of 2008, it still has cache around the country and its name often attracts great teams from long distances. Witness Dorman & Saint Andrew's this year. But it is getting to the point that your reputation will be permanently tarnished. Is this what you want? It seems so, but I hope I am wrong---I hope there is an explanation for this long delay that protects your reputation, for I am not interested in harming it in any way. But it is not clear to me, nor, I suspect to many others who love to come to your tournament, that you are interested in cherishing the reputation of the great university which you no doubt are extremely proud to attend. So----make us all proud----respond to this belated nudge from someone that honors your tournament and your university and fulfill your obligations and promises. Or is this too much to ask?

[olsb25]

The situation as I understand it is:

-Dan sent every paper scoresheet and file to Greg soon after the tournament. Dan and I personally went through to ensure that all of the playoff rounds were there (these were mostly in paper form), and as I recall, all of the top bracket games were accounted for, although there may have been 1 or 2 games missing from the middle bracket. In any case, I am pretty sure that we have sent Greg everything that he needs to finish putting in the stats, so (not to abdicate our responsibility, per se) there's really not much more we can do. Clearly next time we will a) remember to save before trying anything crazy and b) not outsource stats to people outside our power to force to do things.

EDIT: I should note that Dan has been trying to get Greg to get this done for a while now. Maybe if he could just put up the stats for what he claims he has, we can then evaluate the reason for the supposed missing rounds/games.

[Ronnie the Bear]

Checking the NAQT 'RESULTS' site reveals that the Princeton results are NOT YET OFFICIAL since the playoff stats and thus final overall results of the playoffs are not yet complete. Any chance they will be completed in the near future? Completion was promised more than 3 weeks ago, and it's been over 7 weeks since the tournament was held. Some teams qualified for Nationals at this tournament, but their qualifications might be jeopardized because of the incompleteness of the results. Or is this a matter of indifference to Princeton? Sorry to seem to be complaining, but your field has surely been patient. Any chance that patience might soon be rewarded, or is this too a matter of indifference?

NAQT just needs to enter the final standings (as listed in this thread) and they will have enough information to determine qualifiers.

[Edward Powers]

It is good to know that NAQT has a simple task to complete its obligations, but this still does not address the simple duties and courtesies that have been ignored for weeks. And again, I am not looking to BLAME anyone. But consider what's missing---a 16 bracket single elimination for the Championship---15 games---and the 8 Team single elimination for the 9th spot in the field which also earns a spot at Nationals---so, another 7 matches. Twenty-two matches overall to officially determine who actually earned the PACE & NAQT spots at nationals---and correct me if I am wrong here about the number of matches involved. Going forward, assuming for now that I am not wrong, in the Princeton field of 54 teams in the prelims, one round equals 27 matches. So, recording 22 playoff matches is less than recording ONE preliminary round---yet here we are 7 weeks later and it still has not been done. Or, to be fairer, we know that as of November 1st, this information was available---so, 22 playoff matches----less than one round of preliminaries in the same tournament---was too difficult to post in a period of 3 weeks? How about an interesting and perhaps illuminating contrast with a fellow Ivy Quizbowl team---and the most recent example should suffice.

This weekend, we attended Penn's QuAC, and we finished circa 6:30 PM. After stopping for dinner & walking the Penn campus for a while, we arrived home at about 10PM, and when I logged on to this site, the FULL stats for every match, Prelims & Playoffs, were posted already, and Penn's playoffs had 4 brackets, three of them with round robin matches and one 16 team single elimination for the bottom 16 teams. This was all completed and posted WHILE WE WERE ON A BUS DRIVING HOME. Hundreds of matches---all posted before we arrived home. So, given this as a possibility, is it unreasonable to expect 22 playoff matches to be posted after 3 weeks (following a previous delay of 4 weeks)?

So, thanks Fred for your contribution. But Kunle---are you really satisfied with your own explanation here, given not only what is possible, as revealed by Penn's performance, but by the complete absence of any explanation to the field over the last 3 weeks while it waited? Again, I am not seeking blame, but an acknowledgment of the need for responsiveness and courtesy to your field would be nice. Even nicer would be an effort to expedite the publication of the actual final stats and the official reporting of qualification results to PACE & NAQT.

Do you think that, at least, can be done, not only for those who attended your tournament, but perhaps even more important at this late date, for the restoration of of some semblance of confidence in those who run a tournament affiliated with one of the truly great universities in the world? Does not Princeton itself deserve your best efforts, since your quizbowl team represents Princeton to the larger quizbowl commuunity?

[olsb25]

I agree, this has been a rather suboptimal situation. Dan and I had hoped that sending the stats off to Greg would make their publication a lot faster, since (unlike Penn, I imagine) I had managed to delete almost 1/2 of the total games of the tournament from SQBS, and presumably, someone whose job it is to do this sort of thing (as I understand from Dan) would have managed to post this by now. Unfortunately, since almost all of the playoff scores were kept on paper (which we sent to Greg), we are essentially hostage to his timeline... believe me, at this point I would put the stats in myself if I could. I would like to strenuously apologize for the massive delay in posting stats (and as Mr. Powers alludes to, not keeping you all updated about said delay). It seems that we still have things to learn, and let me assure all of you that we will be extra-careful that this doesn't happen with the state championship.

Furthermore, I've told Dan (and I presume he will do so, when he wakes up) to send the final standings to the relevant authorities as soon as he can so teams that qualified for nationals are aware of their status.

EDIT: grammar, other clarification

[Edward Powers]

Thank you, Kunle.

[Youse Da Force]

Greg posted the stats yesterday. I kinda assumed he'd update the thread at the same time, but anyway, here's playoffs. http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

A couple matches are missing from the top bracket. As Kunle said, we both thoroughly checked that we had all the matches of the qualifying brackets before I them to Greg, but he says he doesn't have a couple of them.

[Edward Powers]

Thanks for posting the final stats, but there seems to be a NEW problem.

The final standings mix 3 separate brackets---the 16 team Championship bracket, the 8 team playoff bracket for 9th place among the 8 teams eliminated in the Championship Octofinals, and the bottom 16 Consolation bracket--- into one final result, with the effect that teams that won in the first round of the Championship Playoffs end up finishing BEHIND teams they eliminated. For example, Dorman B defeated East Brunswick in the Octofinals and then defeated Dorman A in the Quarterfinals, before losing to Bergen A in the Semifinals and then losing to Kellenberg in the 3rd/4th place match. So, Dorman B finished 4th in the Championship bracket, but in the rankings just posted, it finishes 10th, behind East Brunswick & Dorman A, two teams it defeated. There are other examples, but this should suffice.

Further, the records of the bottom Consolation bracket are also intermixed with the brackets that decided national qualifiers, with the result that it seems that Livingston B, which went 4-0 in the non-playoff single elimination bracket, finishes 3rd overall in the field, which I am sure is as surprising to Livingston B as it is the actual 3rd place finisher, Kellenberg A. And there are other examples of these misleading results as well----to cite only one more among several, a 1-0 Chatham displaces the actual second place finisher, the 3-1 squad from Bergen Academies.

So---it is important that the proper Championship results be reported to NAQT & PACE, otherwise the teams that actually qualified for Nationals---like Dorman B among others, might be left off the list while others might be inaccurately placed on it.

And, as of this moment, NAQT still has your playoff results listed as "Pending", so if it were to use these playoff standing as a guide, it would make some serious errors. So I trust that precautions will be taken to make sure that this depiction of the final results is not the one used by NAQT & PACE and that the actual 9 qualifiers are accurately reported.

Of course, if these concerns have already been taken care of, then this part of my concern about the results is now moot. But is there anyway to separate reporting of brackets so that brackets are not intermixed in this confusing way?