2018 PACE NSC: Congratulations to Thomas Jefferson HSST!

[slothslothsloth]

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence is proud to announce that the 2018 National Scholastic Championship (NSC) will be held at the Hyatt Regency Reston on June 2-3, 2018.

The Hyatt Regency Reston has been the site of the 2015 NSC, as well as numerous quizbowl national championships. PACE looks forward to continuing our partnership to bring teams a high-quality tournament in the NSC tradition.

The tournament will be directed by Ryan Rosenberg, and the set will be head edited by Rob Carson.

More details can be found on the PACE website about the tournament, qualification guidelines, and how to register once qualified.

Registration opens on November 1 for all qualified teams. The tournament field has historically filled up to the cap of 96 teams, so we encourage teams to start the registration process as early as possible.

We look forward to seeing you in Reston!

[Deviant Insider]

Happy new year! We remind qualified teams to register soon if they have not already. We now have 42 teams registered, so we are close to half full.

Wildcard bids are now open for teams who have not qualified through qualifier tournaments. To submit a wildcard bid, email PACE’s Wild Card Coordinator, Ian Drayer, at wildcard@pace-nsc.org with the following: team name, contact information, and a summary of the team’s accomplishments throughout the year.

[Mike Bentley]

Happy new year! We remind qualified teams to register soon if they have not already. We now have 42 teams registered, so we are close to half full.

One point of clarification: these are teams that have filled out the registration form. Teams are not guaranteed in the field a spot until they get their deposit in.

[Deviant Insider]

As of now, we have identified 264 qualified teams, had 62 teams fill out the form to express interest, and received deposits from 31 teams. We expect all of those numbers to increase significantly over the next month. We are not at the point where teams need to send in their deposit today to get a spot in the field, but we will get there in the next month or two. If your team has not yet decided whether or not to play NSC, it's something you should figure out soon. If your teams wants to play NSC, you should figure out how to get the deposit in.

[Deviant Insider]

As of now, we have identified 349 qualified teams, had 70 teams fill out the form to express interest, and received deposits from 33 teams. If your team has not received an invitation but wants to play the NSC, send an email to wildcard@pace-nsc.org. You can either request a wildcard spot or, if you think that your team qualified but is not on our list, explain why you think your team already qualified.

Also, we have added a tournament description to our Tournament Announcement so that teams have more information about NSC.

[cat]

Small thing: the 'whether your team has qualified' hyperlink on that page links to http://www.pace-nsc.org/2018-nsc-qualified-teams/, which doesn't exist, instead of http://www.pace-nsc.org/2018-nsc-qualifying-teams/.

[Deviant Insider]

Thanks for the heads up. That is now fixed.

The past NSCs link is also currently wrong and will be fixed soon.

[100% Clean Comedian Dan Nainan]

How long does PACE usually take to make decisions about tournament certification? I submitted the form for the Auburn Invitational Tournament (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20694) before Christmas, and I never heard anything back about whether or not we're a PACE qualifier.

[Thiccasso's Guernthicca]

How long does PACE usually take to make decisions about tournament certification? I submitted the form for the Auburn Invitational Tournament (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20694) before Christmas, and I never heard anything back about whether or not we're a PACE qualifier.

Where can one find this form? The website said that there was no need for a form, as the certifiers would just look through the forums to find qualifiable tournaments, although I may be wrong.

[Mike Bentley]

How long does PACE usually take to make decisions about tournament certification? I submitted the form for the Auburn Invitational Tournament (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20694) before Christmas, and I never heard anything back about whether or not we're a PACE qualifier.

Where can one find this form? The website said that there was no need for a form, as the certifiers would just look through the forums to find qualifiable tournaments, although I may be wrong.

I go through the tournament certifications about every week or two. If you haven't heard back, send me an e-mail and I'll take a look at what happened.

Tournaments that are posted to the HSQuizbowl Tournament DB should also get a mail to start the process. If you've posted one and haven't received it, let me know and I'll make sure you receive it.

[Deviant Insider]

As of now, we have identified 383 qualified teams, had 75 teams fill out the form to express interest, and received deposits from 41 teams.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I've created a running list of declared and/or putative side events here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20995&p=341469#p341469

This is not official, and I don't claim to be speaking for NSC in any way/shape/or form. It's just to help organize information.

I don't remember what PACE's official policy on side-events is, but it might be helpful for someone to dig that up again as well.

[Geriatric trauma]

I don't remember what PACE's official policy on side-events is, but it might be helpful for someone to dig that up again as well.

PACE's current side event policy is:

1) PACE does not officially organize or sanction side events.
2) NSC staffers cannot volunteer PACE-provided hotel rooms for use at side events. PACE-provided hotel rooms are intended as sleeping spaces, and they must remain available as such for NSC staffers.
3) Team-provided buzzers are also not generally available for use at side events, since they are locked away overnight.
4) People other than core control room staff are welcome to play in side events.

[Mike Bentley]

We're now up to 90 teams having filled out the first step of registration and 46 teams having secured a spot by sending in a deposit. If you haven't filled out the registration form and sent your deposit it in yet, you should do so soon to make sure that you have a spot in the tournament.

Also a reminder that the early payment deadline is coming up on March 1st.

[Joshua Rutsky]

I went to the Reston web site to try to reserve hotel rooms, and have gotten a "nothing available" response. Does PACE have a block of rooms reserved, and if so, what is the procedure for getting them? Should I be looking for another hotel in the immediate area (which there does not appear to be on first glance)?

[Aaron's Rod]

I went to the Reston web site to try to reserve hotel rooms, and have gotten a "nothing available" response. Does PACE have a block of rooms reserved, and if so, what is the procedure for getting them? Should I be looking for another hotel in the immediate area (which there does not appear to be on first glance)?

PACE does have a block of rooms available. There are details on the registration page on our website, but our direct link is https://aws.passkey.com/go/PACE2018. I just tested it out and it seems to be in working order.

[Mike Bentley]

80 teams have now sent in a deposit, leaving only 16 slots available.

[Mike Bentley]

We are down to one open slot pending any drops. There will be a wait list after that.

[Mike Bentley]

And now we're full.

We have not plans to expand the field, but in previous years there have been a couple of teams that have dropped after the field filled up. Thus, we expect (but cannot guarantee) that at least a few of the teams on the waitlist will make it in. Teams still need to send in the deposit and/or registration fee to secure a spot on the waitlist, but we won't deposit it (or will refund it in case of Paypal) until the team gets a spot in the field.

If you have any questions, e-mail me at treasurer@pace-nsc.org.

[Aaron's Rod]

The tournament format for the 2018 NSC will be the same as last year. A full description of that format is available here (PDF).

[Deviant Insider]

We now have shirts available for sale. If you want to order online, place your order by Friday, May 18. We will also have a limited number of shirts available for sale at NSC.

[Mike Bentley]

Due to some drops we now have 1 open slot for the NSC for a last-minute registration.

[theMoMA]

I have 15 packets of varying sizes (about 200 tossups total) of "Let's Remember Some Guys." I won't be at NSC, but if anyone wants to organize some kind of informal reading of these packets, let me know and I'll send you the set.

[Deviant Insider]

We have several links up here if you want to follow the NSC from a distance.

[Deviant Insider]

Results are going up here.

[Deviant Insider]

Here are playoffs. The first four are Tier I, the next four are Tier II, etc.

[Deviant Insider]

This isn't completely official, but I believe that...

Top 8: Beavercreek, Canyon Crest, Crystal Springs Uplands, Dublin Scioto, Stevenson, Taylor, Thomas Jefferson A, Wayzata
9-16: Battle Ground, DCC A, Ladue, LASA, Montgomery Blair, Plano West, Richard Montgomery, Thomas Jefferson B
17-28: Centennial, DCC B, Dorman, Downingtown STEM, Georgetown Day, High Tech, Hunter, Ithaca, Lehigh Valley, Robinson, St. John's, Strake Jesuit

[Deviant Insider]

Results are continuing to go up here.

[Deviant Insider]

Congratulations to the top teams in the Small School Division:
1. Lehigh Valley
2. Island Trees & AMSA
3. Plymouth Regional

EDIT: Due to a mistake on PACE's part, there are two 2nd place teams in our Small School Division.

[Deviant Insider]

Congratulations to the top teams in the JV Division:
1. Miami Valley
2. Canyon Crest B
3. Ed W. Clark

[Deviant Insider]

In case my previous posts did not have enough stats, feel free to use this page.

[Deviant Insider]

Dublin Scioto and Wayzata will have a play-in to the championship at 1:30 ET in Grand Ballroom D. TJ will have the advantage in a final against the winner of that match. The All-Star Game will follow. Livestreaming will be on our YouTube channel, and if you can't find it there look for it using #pacensc or our Facebook page.

EDIT: Livestream here

UPDATE: Dublin Scioto wins the play-in and will be disadvantaged against TJ.

[Deviant Insider]

TJ has the advantage over Dublin Scioto. Livestream here.

One of the livestreams: https://twitter.com/PACENSC_RR

[Deviant Insider]

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology A is the 2018 PACE NSC Champion!

[Deviant Insider]

The same livestream will also have the All-Star Game, which is getting started.

[Aaron's Rod]

Wayzata G (Tora Husar, Clark Smith, Max Shatan, Fred Zhang) beat Insular Back-Biting (William Golden, Jack Lewis, Alex Schmidt, Jeffrey Qiu) in the All-Star Game with a very normal score of 100-72.

[Auks Ran Ova]

In a turn of events nearly as unprecedented as a 100-72 final score, both teams chose to play for the Bounceback Foundation, which thus received a $500 donation from PACE. Thanks for looking out for each other, kids.

To anticipate and answer your questions, discussion threads and the set itself should be posted within the week, after we're all done traveling and decompressing.

Thanks to everyone for playing, staffing, attending, everything; I hope you all enjoyed the set and had a great time here.

[Deviant Insider]

Feel free to use this thread to discuss any aspect of the tournament except for comments on a small number of questions or a specific part of the distribution, which should wait until Rob starts a thread for that and the questions are posted.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I appreciated that the schedule/records was online, in an easy to access format. I did overhear some teams complaining that their schedule online didn't match their paper schedule, so perhaps it might have been useful to leave space on the site for disclaimers or misc info for each bracket.

The late lunch on Saturday was also tougher than expected for staffing, especially those that had to read tiebreakers. In retrospect, perhaps ordering pizza would have been more useful on Saturday, and letting people go out to eat on Sunday?

I hadn't been to NSC in a while, and I found it very enjoyable and noticeably improved since years ago.

[alexdz]

The late lunch on Saturday was also tougher than expected for staffing, especially those that had to read tiebreakers. In retrospect, perhaps ordering pizza would have been more useful on Saturday, and letting people go out to eat on Sunday?

I'll second this. There may have seemed to be enough time, but with whatever delays ended up happening Saturday morning, I personally lost about 45 minutes out of the planned lunch time and I wasn't even reading tiebreakers. Combined with all the teams eating at the same time, I ended up having time to find a bag of Chex Mix and make it back to my control room at the time I was told to return, only to further wait for another 15-20 minutes that I could have used to find a more filling lunch.

If we're going to play games all day Saturday, then providing lunch for us then would have made a lot more sense. Most of us had plenty of free time on Sunday and could have used that time to take a leisurely lunch break.

[Deviant Insider]

I agree that Saturday lunch was problematic for some teams and staffers. We made some small improvements this year to try to improve the problem, but the improvements we made were too small, and I apologize.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

I'd like to thank PACE for making the experience of staffing this tournament a really positive and enjoyable experience. Communication was timely, people were professional and answered any questions, and things moved as smoothly as could be reasonably expected for such a large event. Also, shout-out to the folks behind the excellent livestream, including cool features such as tossup/bonus category and author callouts.

I'd like to especially thank Mike Hundley for going out of his way to get rooms for side events. You're a hero.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I'd like to especially thank Mike Hundley for going out of his way to get rooms for side events. You're a hero.

[Aaron's Rod]

Players, coaches, staffers, spectators, and others are encouraged to fill out our survey about 2018 PACE NSC:
http://tinyurl.com/nscsurvey2018

[tabstop]

Things that should have been fixed in the stat update that just happened:

• Missing game in Harrington bracket added to prelims.
• TJ B no longer has bonus points ending in 6 (which also affected Chattahoochee B's bouncebacks).
• Carryover games no longer duplicated.

If you see other issues, let me know; I'm not in possession of scoresheets so it may take a bit to check on things.