The Quizbowl Resource Center

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence is pleased to announce that the 2015 National Scholastic Championship will once again be taking place at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA, part of the DC metro area, on June 6-7, 2015.

This hotel is located near the Dulles International Airport in a “town center” setting alongside several restaurants and other shops. The hotel’s website is located here: http://www.reston.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html. PACE is pleased to be able to offer a discounted room rate of $129/night for a room with either two double beds or a king bed. The discount rate can be accessed by going to this link and making a reservation.

The 2015 NSC will be directed by 2014 TD Sarah Angelo, and the set will be edited by Auroni Gupta.

The field will again be capped at 96 teams. Last year's NSC drew 96 teams from around the US, plus teams from China and Singapore.

The hotel is located near Dulles International Airport, and will run a free shuttle from that airport as well as another shuttle from the new Wiehle/Reston East Metro station on the Silver Line. Though Dulles will be the most convenient airport to fly into, the new metro station will also allow teams flying into Reagan National to reach the hotel without a car through any of several methods.

Tournament Schedule (game times in bold)
Saturday, June 6, 2015
7:00 – 7:45am Team Check-in (for teams that did not check-in Friday)
8:00 – 8:30am Opening Meeting
9:00am – 1:00pm Preliminary Rounds (1-7)
1:00 – 1:40pm Tiebreaker A
1:40 – 3:00pm Lunch
2:30pm Playoff seeds will be posted
3:00 – 6:00pm Playoff Rounds (8-12), time subject to change
6:00 – 6:30pm Tiebreaker B
7:00pm Super-Playoff and placement seeds will be posted

Sunday, June 7, 2015
8:15am Teams report to Round 13 room
8:30 – 10:15am Placement Rounds (13-15)
8:30am – 12 pm Super-Playoff Rounds (13-18)
11:00am – 12 pm Junior Varsity and Small School Finals (17-18)
12:00 – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm Tiebreaker C, all times below subject to change
2:15pm Tournament Finals
3:15pm All-Star Game
3:50pm Awards Ceremony
4:30pm Tournament ends

If you have any questions about the NSC or PACE in general, please e-mail Ryan Rosenberg, Director of Communications, at [email protected].

We hope to see you in DC in June!

PACE has decided on the following fee structure for this year's NSC:

-- Base fee: $575 per team (note that this is per team, not per school)

-- Buzzer systems: -$10 each per school, no limit

-- Staffers: -$50 each per school, max 2 per school

-- Hosting a gold-certified tournament: -$10 each per tournament, no limit

-- Hosting a platinum-certified tournament: -$20 each per tournament, no limit

-- Early payment discount: -$25 from total fee for paying by March 1

In addition, PACE would like to emphasize that in order to claim a buzzer discount, teams must provide a system with at least eight fully working buzzers (defined as having lockout capabilities and functional identifying lights). Buzzer systems will be tested at buzzer check-in and teams who provide non-working systems will be required to refund the discount.

As a reminder, registration for NSC will begin this Saturday, November 1st, for for teams that have qualified at a Platinum tournament.

Registration for the 2015 PACE NSC is now open! Teams that have qualified for NSC at a tournament PACE has awarded Platinum qualification status may now register. A list of qualifying tournaments may be viewed here, and a list of qualified teams may be viewed here.

In order to register for NSC, teams should fill out this form. After you have filled out our registration form, an invoice will be emailed to you.

The second step of registration is to send in either your full registration fee or a $100 down payment to PACE. The fee structure for the 2015 NSC may be found here. Teams are not considered officially registered until we receive the down payment or full payment.

The PACE mailing address is:
PACE
c/o Michael Bentley
5603 125th Ave SE
Bellevue, WA 98006

Please note that this address has changed from last year, and that this address should be the only one that registration checks are sent to. PACE cannot guarantee that checks sent to addresses other than the one listed above will be accepted for registration. Please make checks payable to “Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence” or “PACE”.

Teams may choose to pay the full registration fee as soon as you register, or to pay a $100 down payment at registration. PACE will count the $100 down payment towards the registration fee.

If a registered team withdraws from the tournament:
- The down payment is fully refundable (minus $5 processing fee) until March 14th, 2015.
- The down payment is half-refundable (minus $5 processing fee) until March 28th, 2015.
- After March 28th, 2015, the down payment is non-refundable.

All registration checks must be postmarked by May 7. For each day your check is not postmarked after May 7, a $15 fee will be added to your entry fee. If your check is not received by May 18, PACE reserves the right to drop your team from the tournament.

If you have any questions, please contact PACE Director of Communications Ryan Rosenberg at [email protected].

Registration for the 2015 NSC is now open to Gold-qualified teams! Information on how to register is in the above post.

Any team who has qualified for the PACE NSC can now register! To register, teams should fill out the official NSC registration form. After registration, an invoice will be sent to registered teams to facilitate payment.

Additionally, the wild card application process for the 2015 NSC is now open! The procedure for submitting a wildcard bid is as follows:

Teams that wish to submit a wildcard bid for the 2015 PACE NSC should send an e-mail to PACE member Jason Loy at [email protected]. Please include the following information in the e-mail:
1. Team name (i.e. Smith High School B).
2. Expected team roster, including grades of players. Note: you are not bound to keep this roster.
3. Link to stats with top performances this school year.
4. Does your school meet the PACE small school definition? See the PACE website.
5. Brief summary of why your team deserves a NSC bid.

New in 2015:

• PACE is now guaranteeing a seven-day review period for all wild card applications. If your team applies for a wild card and does not receive a reply within seven days, applicants may treat their team's bid as accepted and register as such.
• PACE will automatically approve wild card bids from teams which finished highly enough at events that meet our standards for qualifier status, even if those events are not officially listed on the PACE website.
  • Example: If "City High School A" finished in first, second, third, or fourth place at the "City Invitational Tournament," a 20-team tournament which was run on an NAQT Invitational Series set, offered eight games to all teams, and kept team statistics – within the 20 percent cutoff of a Gold qualifier – their bid would be automatically approved regardless of whether the "City Invitational Tournament" chose to join the official list of qualifier events.

48 teams have now registered for NSC, putting our field at half-full. Spots are going fast, so register now if your team is planning to come!

The Predictable Consequences wrote:48 teams have now registered for NSC, putting our field at half-full. Spots are going fast, so register now if your team is planning to come!

Just to be extra clear, 48 teams have signed up on the registration form. However, teams are not officially registered and do not have their spot guaranteed until they get their deposit or full payment in. Thus, if you've filled out the form, please make sure that you get your checks mailed as soon as possible to guarantee your spot in the field.

65 teams have now filled out the NSC registration form! 30 teams did so in the past month, and PACE anticipates that over 100 teams will have completed Step 1 of registration within the next six weeks.

Teams wishing to attend the 2015 NSC are advised to fill out the registration form and submit a deposit as soon as possible. As a reminder, your spot in the field is not confirmed until PACE has received a deposit from your team.

An update on NSC registrations:
82 teams have completed Step 1 of NSC registration by filling out the registration form. 30 teams have confirmed their place in the field by submitting a deposit. Teams that are planning on attending NSC but have not yet submitted their deposit or full payment are encouraged to do so as soon as possible to avoid being shut out of the field.

The PACE policy on filling the NSC field is as follows:

• When 96 teams have completed the NSC registration form, the form will remain open and teams should continue to register if they plan on attending the NSC.
• The NSC field will not close until 96 teams have completed registration by submitting a deposit to PACE.
• When the field closes, the teams that have filled out the registration form but not submitted a deposit will be removed from the wait list until their deposit is submitted. Those teams should submit deposits to ensure their place on the wait list. The deposit will not be cashed unless the team is added to the field.
• If a team drops from the NSC field, they will be replaced by a team on the wait list that has submitted their deposit.
• Teams will be taken off the wait list in accordance with the following procedure and tiebreakers:
  • The team whose deposit was received first will be added to the field.
  • If two or more deposits were received on the same day, the team whose deposit was postmarked first will be added into the field.
  • If two or more of those deposits were postmarked on the same day, the team that filled out the NSC registration form first will be added to the field.

PACE's policy on deposit refunds is as follows:

• The deposit is fully refundable (minus $5 processing fee) until March 14th.
• The deposit is half-refundable (minus $5 processing fee) until March 28th.
• After March 28th, the deposit is not refundable.

Any questions about either of the above policies should be posted in this thread or directed to [email protected].

PACE has elected 2014 NSC TD Sarah Angelo as the new Vice President of Tournament Direction for the 2015 NSC.

48 teams have confirmed their spots at the NSC, meaning the field is now half-full! Your spot in the field is not confirmed until we receive a deposit or full payment, so teams that have registered but not yet paid are advised to get payment in as soon as possible.

96 teams have filled out the NSC registration form! As a reminder, if you have filled out the registration form and PACE has not yet received your deposit, you are not officially in the NSC field. The list of teams that are at each stage of NSC registration is on the PACE website.

In terms of getting into the NSC field, no matter if your team is the 1st team, the 97th team, or the 200th team to fill out the registration form, if you submit one of the first 96 deposits PACE receives, you are guaranteed a spot in the NSC field. There may be additional spots available if teams submit deposits and then drop, but this is not guaranteed. Teams that have not yet filled out the form and submitted deposits should do so as soon as possible, as the field is filling rapidly.

PACE will continue to accept deposits until we have received 96 and the field is closed. After that, any teams submitting deposits will be placed on the wait list. If there are drops, teams will be taken off the wait list in order of first deposit received, then first deposit postmarked, then first to fill out the registration form.

The NSC field is now 2/3 full. At the rate the field has been filling, PACE anticipates closing the NSC field by the end of the month.

84 teams have submitted deposits or full payment to PACE, meaning only 12 spots remain in the 2015 NSC field.

92 teams have submitted deposits or full payment to PACE. There are four spots remaining in the field for the 2015 NSC.

A schedule for the 2015 NSC has been edited into the top post.

At this point, all 96 spots in the 2015 PACE NSC field have been filled! The full list of registered teams can be found at our website: http://www.pace-nsc.org/2015-nsc-registered-teams/

Qualified teams that still wish to play can send in their registration fee to be placed on the waitlist. Teams will be placed on the waitlist in the order in which their payment is received. We will not cash any registration checks from waitlisted teams until a team has been guaranteed a spot in the field (should such a spot open up). For questions on the waitlist, please contact PACE Treasurer Mike Bentley at [email protected].

Teams can also still sign-up to be a standby team. See http://www.pace-nsc.org/2015-nsc-standb ... formation/ for details on the standby team procedure.

We will not be expanding the field beyond 96 teams.

Thanks to all of the teams that have registered. We look forward to seeing you compete in a few weeks!

PACE is pleased to announce that we will be selling T-shirts at the 2015 NSC! Students, parents, coaches, and fans will now be able to take home a souvenir of their NSC experience. T-shirts will be available in adult small, medium, large, and extra-large sizes, and will be in white with the PACE logo on the front and information about the NSC on the back.

A couple of important points:

• Supplies are limited! This is PACE's first time selling T-shirts, so we may not have enough for everyone who wants one. Get yours fast, but don't worry if we sell out; PACE will have additional T-shirt sales if there's significant demand.
• You must be at NSC to purchase a T-shirt. Unfortunately, PACE cannot ship T-shirts or take online orders.

Boo for no size XXL shirts, hooray for yet another reason to hit the gym this summer!

Does anyone know of a Mass being offered Saturday evening after the rounds conclude? I would appreciate any information about it. You can PM me if you like!

Thanks,

All of our registered teams should have just gotten an information email from me. Please let me know ASAP if this is not the case.

Seminal art-punk band Wire is playing at the Black Cat (in DC) on the 6th, BTW, if anyone's searching for fun activities.

Is anyone live blogging this when it happens?

pranjal245 wrote:Is anyone live blogging this when it happens?

There is no official live blog planned for the NSC this year. If spectators desire to live-blog the score of matches that they are observing as it changes, they may do so; however, absolutely no question content may be conveyed to social media by any live communications as the tournament is ongoing. (This ban includes a ban on even mentioning the categories of questions as they go by; i.e. do not even say things such as "Bob gets a power on science" or "history TU goes dead".) It is never permissible for players or coaches to use phones or other electronic devices during a match.

Participants at NSC have been instructed not to share answers in-person or through electronic means until at least one round after that round has concluded (e.g. no answers from Round 3 may be discussed until Round 5 has started).

There will be some amount of tweeting of match results to the Twitter hashtag #pacensc throughout the weekend.

The Stately Rhododendron wrote:Seminal art-punk band Wire is playing at the Black Cat (in DC) on the 6th, BTW, if anyone's searching for fun activities.

Also Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will be performing at the DAR Hall. His Sufi devotional music is the original trap music. The tickets are pricey tho.

2015 PACE NSC Team Schedule.

Stats will be posted regularly at this link.

jonpin wrote:Stats will be posted regularly at this link.

The link for Prelim D stats returns an error message.

Charbroil wrote:

jonpin wrote:Stats will be posted regularly at this link.

The link for Prelim D stats returns an error message.

These have not been uploaded yet; they will be soon.

Updated through the first set of games (the first seven games).

Playoff seeds are posted here.

Your 2015 NSC All Stars based on prelim performance are:

Henry Hawthorn (Harmony) and Eric Xu (Western Albemarle) with 178.57 PPG each, they are now tied for second all-time and will be added to our Records page after the tournament;
Bruce Lou (Saratoga) with 161.43 PPG, now 7th all-time and bound for the webpage;
and Sam Blizzard (Northmont) with 157.14 PPG, now 8th all-time.

The remaining 4 All Stars for the All Star Game will be decided tomorrow based on Super-Playoff Play.

Joining Henry, Eric, Bruce, and Sam on the Records page will be Caleb Kendrick of Norman North, whose 148.57 PPG makes him 10th all-time.

The teams competing for the national championship tomorrow are:
Rockford Auburn A, Western Albemarle, University of Chicago Lab, High Tech A, Detroit Catholic A, Maggie Walker A, LASA A, and Montgomery Blair.

Here are the rest of the brackets. We will update later tonight with Small School and JV title scenarios. The first team in each of the Tier I pairs carries over a win.

9-16: Northmont, Early College; Richard Montgomery, Bloomington; Bellarmine, Solon; Arcadia, TJ (VA)
17-24: High Tech B, Carbondale; Rancho Bernardo, Davis; DCC B, Norman North; Harmony, Quince Orchard

25: Hinsdale, Centennial A, Saratoga, CCA
29: Chattahoochee, St. John's, Sidney, Wilmington
33: Hunter A, Palo Alto, Manheim A, Singapore A
37: Glasgow, Fisher Catholic, Bergen County, Shanghai A
41: Johns Creek, Detroit Cath. C, Paul Dunbar, Adlai Stevenson
45: Copley, St. Joseph, Marist, Southside

49: Loudoun County, Mountain Lakes, Barrington, Dorman A
53: State College A, Rockford Auburn B, Albemarle, Ithaca
57: Flowery Branch, Singapore B, Berwyn, Lusher
61: Cinco Ranch, Divine Child, Simon Kenton, Novi
65: Christiansburg, Waterloo, Manheim B, Hannibal
69: Valley Christiab, HHH East, Maggie Walker B, Taft

73: LASA B, TJ (VA) B, St. Anselm's, Leland
77: Centennial C, George Mason, Rappahannock, Haarlem
81: Shanghai B, State College B, Washington A, TJ (NC)
85: Hunter B, Dorman B, Providence, Washington B
89: Phillips Andover, DCC D, Del Norte, PALCS
93: North Kansas City, Centennial B, Centennial D, Souderton

As the only team in the top tier, Harmony Science Academy has secured the small school title. Teams in contention for 2nd and 3rd place are Glasgow, Southside, and Mountain Lakes.
A minimum of nine places ahead of the next team, Chattahoochee has clinched the JV title. Teams in contention for 2nd and 3rd place are Dunbar, Barrington, and Ithaca.

Here are some top-10 all-time-NSC performances achieved today:
Individual points in a game: 250, Eric Xu (Western Albemarle, R3 vs Hannibal); 220, Henry Hawthorn (Harmony, R6 vs Berwyn); 220, Bruce Lou (Saratoga, R3 vs Lusher). Two performances of 210 were also recorded, but all the 210s on the standings will fall off.
Powers in a game: 9, Eric Xu (R3 as above); 8, Connor Wood (Maggie Walker, R3 vs Hinsdale); 8, Caleb Kendrick (Norman North, R4 vs Hinsdale).
Individual Powers/Game, prelims: 5.57 (4th place), Eric Xu; 5.43 (5th), Henry Hawthorn; 4.43 (7th), Sam Blizzard (Northmont); 4.29 (t-8th), Connor Wood.
Individual Power percentage, prelims: 72.00% (7th place), Alex Denko (18/7, LASA); 70.59% (8th), Will Overman (12/5, Maggie Walker).

Total points in a game: 890, DCC A 660-230 St. John's (R6)
Points in a loss: Rancho Bernardo 410-470 Richard Montgomery (R8, OT)
Powers in a game, one team: 13, Arcadia vs. St. Anselm's (R5); 12, Arcadia vs. Glasgow (R3); 12, DCC A vs St. John's (R6)
Powers in a game, both teams: 16, Arcadia 13 vs. St. Anselm's 3 (R5)

All 20 tossups in a game: DCC A vs Del Norte (R1)
Earned bonus points in a game: 450 on 19, DCC A vs Haarlem (R2), 450 on 18, LASA A vs Flowery Branch (R2)
Bounceback bonus points in a game: 160 of 190, Chattahoochee vs. Del Norte (R7); 120 of 190, Maggie Walker vs Leland (R1)

Prelim points per game: 607.1, Detroit Catholic A
Prelim powers per game: 8.86, Arcadia; 7.86, LASA A; 7.86, Rockford Auburn A

Finally, attached is a schedule for the 8-team championship round-robin to begin tomorrow morning at 8:30am.

jonpin wrote:Powers in a game: ...8, Connor Wood (Maggie Walker, R3 vs Hinsdale); 8, Caleb Kendrick (Norman North, R4 vs Hinsdale).

:(

The finals series of the 2015 PACE NSC will begin in Grand Ballroom D at 1:30 PM.

Maggie Walker A and LASA A, who both finished 5-2 in the Championship superplayoffs, will play each other in a play-in game. The loser of that game will be guaranteed 3rd place; the winner will advance to a final against Detroit Catholic Central A (6-1), who will hold the advantage (I.e. DCC need only win one game to claim the championship, whereas their challenger would have to win two).

The finals series will be followed immediately by our All-Star Game and Awards Ceremony. Teams that need to leave early and have awards can pick those up at our Info Desk.

Please tell me there will be some sort of live blog or streaming of the finals

Kilroy Was Here wrote:Please tell me there will be some sort of live blog or streaming of the finals

I can tweet score changes for the play-in game and final but nothing about question content because we have other tiebreakers occurring concurrently on the same packets. I'll be using the PACE Twitter account and will try to remember to use the #pacensc hashtag, but I'm an old person by internet standards and bad at Twitter, so forgive me if I forget.

Maggie Walker places third. An advantaged finals series is taking place now between DCC A and LASA A, with DCC holding the advantage and needing to win one of the possible two games to win the tournament.

At the half of game 1, DCC is up against LASA 290 to 120

DCC wins 470 to 370

Congratulations to Detroit Catholic Central A, the 2015 NSC Champions!

Full statistics and results should be posted later this evening. Any stats corrections should be emailed to Jon Pinyan at [email protected].

Thank you to all of our teams and staff for attending this year's NSC; I had a great time, and I hope you did too.

Any lost and found items have been handed off to the hotel. Please contact them at 703-709-1234 if you are looking for anything. Thanks.

Echoing those above, congratulations to DCC and the rest of an amazing top 8 on their performances. Please give me a few days to merge all the stat files together and clean up the data. I'll post my corrections policy in the morning along with the stat final containing all tiebreakers and the final. Stat corrections will take a bit of time for us to verify the data; any name, grade, or spelling answers I should be able to make quickly.

I have uploaded all my PACE photos to flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tiwonge/s ... 1895407923

(I removed two photos that were a bit blurry, but otherwise they're there, unedited and unculled, for good and for bad.)

I have no problem with any team or individual associated with quiz bowl teams in attendance using my photos.

What method did PACE use to seed the teams and create the twelve prelim pools?

no ice wrote:What method did PACE use to seed the teams and create the twelve prelim pools?

Seriously though because I fell kind of weird about winning 11 games in a row and coming 49th. Because the people in my pool that beat us 3 were in the top 26, and one we lost to on the last tossup. And yes I want some pepper with this salt.