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HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 8:42 am
by AKKOLADE
I'm pleased to announce that for the first time, HSQBRank will be naming All-World Teams. These teams will recognize the best individual players in high school quiz bowl for the 2014-2015.

Ten people will be announced to the All-World First Team. Ten more will be named to the All-World Second Team. The existence of Honorable Mentions has not been determined at this time. The teams will be announced in May.

I will be naming the teams myself, though this is not so much solely derived from statistics like the rankings would be.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 10:09 am
by AKKOLADE
added clarification

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:24 pm
by heterodyne
Just wondering, why not wait until nationals is over? It seems like that is the best way to compare players against each other.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:49 pm
by Kilroy Was Here
I've thought for a long time that a pro-bowl esque thing would be a fun thing to see. Perhaps some version of this that includes "fan voting" could be done.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 10:06 pm
by AKKOLADE
Western Leader wrote:Just wondering, why not wait until nationals is over? It seems like that is the best way to compare players against each other.
Because I can do it in May, and we already have a "announce best players after nationals" award.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 10:13 pm
by heterodyne
Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon wrote: Because I can do it in May, and we already have a "announce best players after nationals" award.
Right. Forgot that existed.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:47 am
by AKKOLADE
If you'd like to throw your two cents in on this, feel free to email me at [email protected] or post in this thread.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:21 pm
by Peter13
Can you make some sort of shortlist with names derived from stats. I feel that I might forget a player not found in the top 10 or so teams, but has a much larger contribution.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:08 pm
by AKKOLADE
I won't be doing that before the awards. If you send in duplicate suggestions, that's fine.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 10:59 pm
by The Formiddable Dark Skeik
I am only including players from Illinois, since that is the only place I am confident about naming rankings for. The players listed below are those I feel could be on the first list or the second. They are in no particular order.

Jennie Yang
Cole Timmerwilke
Evan Pandya
Matthew Lehmann
Andrew Salij
Adam Fine
Mahir Morshed
Brad Mclain
Sam Blizzard (I know he's from Ohio, but he has played in some Il tournaments)
Correction: Alston Boyd (I completely forgot about him the first time, somehow)

If you think my rankings are stupid, don't make sense, or you don't disagree with them, I just ask that you don't crucify me.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 12:43 am
by TylerV
The Formiddable Dark Skeik wrote:I am only including players from Illinois, since that is the only place I am confident about naming rankings for. The players listed below are those I feel could be on the first list or the second. They are in no particular order.

Jennie Yang
Cole Timmerwilke
Evan Pandya
Matthew Lehmann
Andrew Salij
Adam Fine
Mahir Morshed
Brad Mclain
Sam Blizzard (I know he's from Ohio, but he has played in some Il tournaments)

If you think my rankings are stupid, don't make sense, or you don't disagree with them, I just ask that you don't crucify me.
Honestly if we're going to nominate Illinois players I think that we should at least use the All-State team as a base.
Alston Boyd, Bloomington
Sunny Chen, Hinsdale Central
Adam Fine, University Lab (Chicago)
Matthew Lehmann, Barrington
Jakob Myers, Naperville North
Evan Pandya, Auburn (Rockford)
Andrew Salij, IMSA (Aurora)
Cole Timmerwilke, Auburn (Rockford)
Jennie Yang, Fremd (Palatine)
James Zhou, Hinsdale Central
Notable exclusions from your list: The Hinsdale kids(who have placed 2nd in two different state tournaments) and Alston Boyd who have proven himself to be a strong generalist. I am also under the impression that Jakob Myers is quite good but I haven't seen him play myself.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:44 pm
by The Formiddable Dark Skeik
TylerV wrote:
The Formiddable Dark Skeik wrote:I am only including players from Illinois, since that is the only place I am confident about naming rankings for. The players listed below are those I feel could be on the first list or the second. They are in no particular order.

Jennie Yang
Cole Timmerwilke
Evan Pandya
Matthew Lehmann
Andrew Salij
Adam Fine
Mahir Morshed
Brad Mclain
Sam Blizzard (I know he's from Ohio, but he has played in some Il tournaments)

If you think my rankings are stupid, don't make sense, or you don't disagree with them, I just ask that you don't crucify me.
Honestly if we're going to nominate Illinois players I think that we should at least use the All-State team as a base.
Alston Boyd, Bloomington
Sunny Chen, Hinsdale Central
Adam Fine, University Lab (Chicago)
Matthew Lehmann, Barrington
Jakob Myers, Naperville North
Evan Pandya, Auburn (Rockford)
Andrew Salij, IMSA (Aurora)
Cole Timmerwilke, Auburn (Rockford)
Jennie Yang, Fremd (Palatine)
James Zhou, Hinsdale Central
Notable exclusions from your list: The Hinsdale kids(who have placed 2nd in two different state tournaments) and Alston Boyd who have proven himself to be a strong generalist. I am also under the impression that Jakob Myers is quite good but I haven't seen him play myself.
The exclusion of Alston was a typo (I was looking at a post of his while typing my ranking, I somehow forgot about him). As for Jakob, I saw him play twice when I was in eighth grade. He was a great player then, and I based my view on him from when I saw him play. However, I didn't believe he was at a high enough caliber to be of the top players in Illinois. Obviously, he has improved from last year, but because there is only one stat for him on NAQT, I was not comfortable enough to put him on my list. As for Sunny and James, my list was getting a bit long (I wanted to keep it below nine). Brad should be on your list, his performance at Loyburn (not on NAQT), which was 107.5 ppg on GSAC, convinced me.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 1:29 pm
by schen
The Formiddable Dark Skeik wrote: Brad should be on your list, his performance at Loyburn (not on NAQT), which was 107.5 ppg on GSAC, convinced me.
Hey, a lot of quizbowlers (including James and I) could put up >100 ppg in a standard div. field, especially without experienced teammates competing for points.

In any case, the only Hinsdale player who should even be in consideration for an All-World team is Ankush Bajaj, who pretty much carried us throughout NAQT State.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:00 pm
by no ice
I feel the need to apologize for adding on to an apparent Illinois hijacking of this thread, but I just wanted to contribute my opinion on this.

Something that everyone needs to consider is to look at this objectively and without regional biases: just because a player can dominate local competition does not mean he/she should be considered for the top 20 in the nation. In Illinois, Auburn is really the only team whose players should even be considered for the First Team. In fact, I believe that the majority of the two All-World Teams should be drawn from teams in the HSQBRank top 10 or so; the role of third or fourth scorer on a team like LASA A or DCC A, while less glamorous than the role of top scorer on a one-man team ranked in the 20s, definitely requires more ability and hard work. This is a concept that I wish more coaches in Illinois would understand when they vote for the IHSSBCA All-Sectional and All-State teams, as generalists on mediocre teams are overwhelmingly rewarded compared to some of the best specialists in the state.

Here is a very rough estimate of how many players from each top 10 team deserve to make it: 3-4 from LASA, 2-3 from DCC, 2-3 from Arcadia, 1 from Western Albemarle, 1-2 from Chattahoochee, 2-3 from Richard Montgomery, 1 from Northmont, 1-2 from Colonel By, and 1-2 from Maggie Walker.

This already takes up between 14 and 21 of the 20 spots, and there are certainly several players outside of the top 10 teams who deserve a spot, too, though it would be very difficult to make a case against any of the players from the above teams who have brought their teams to such an elite level of competition. Either way, some difficult decisions will have to be made in selecting just 20 players (plus Honorable Mentions).

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:53 pm
by heterodyne
Ultimately, it comes down to what you set your criteria as. If you choose one on one on PACE questions then obviously specialists take a major hit. If you choose theoretical contribution when added to a team, then all but the highest-level generalists are going to take a hit. Since this is Fred's project, I assume he is determining the criteria and I don't think that one is necessarily superior to another.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:10 pm
by The Formiddable Dark Skeik
Well, this is embarrassing, looks like I've led an Illinois takeover of the thread. Just to say one last thing and then I'll be quiet. I know perfectly well that there is no way half of the players on the list(s) would be from Illinois (heck, LASA alone could probably take up a fifth of the total spots). I only proposed the first ten players that popped into my head who I think could be considered for the all world team, which is not to say that there are no other players in the state of Illinois who could be considered, I only named ten. My views are probably flawed anyway, since I've only played quiz bowl for four years, while all of you have played it for at least twice as long.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 5:13 pm
by AKKOLADE

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 7:21 pm
by AKKOLADE

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 8:01 pm
by Great Bustard
Fred, can you explain a bit of your methodology here? There are a number of ways a list like this could be compiled, and I think this whole exercise is much more interesting if we know where you're coming from. For example, this could be done on the basis of:
a) if you wanted to form the actual best team from all players, who would you pick? (an approach which would favor subject specialists
b) if all players were playing on solo teams against each other, who would be most likely to win
c) who has put up the highest PPG this year over the course of the year
d) who is currently putting up the highest PPG (this accounts for improvement over the course of the year)
e) which players are "clutch" - have proven their ability to help their teams win tournaments.
f) some of all of this or some other approach altogether
I know that people are going to reference these lists in their voting for the National Quizbowl Awards (post forthcoming), so I think that rather than just tossing out names, some context is needed for this to be useful commentary.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 8:23 pm
by AKKOLADE
I picked the best players from the best teams as best as I could.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 12:44 pm
by AKKOLADE
The All-World First Team selections are up at http://hsqbrank.com/2015/05/27/all-world-first-team/.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 9:20 pm
by blizzard
Stefan HSQBRankovich wrote:I picked the best players from the best teams as best as I could.
What is this supposed to mean? Dave's request was very reasonable and logical, and I'm sure expresses a sentiment that basically anybody looking at these lists shares.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 8:13 am
by Hyrdofluoric_Acid
So congrats to Eric Xu from Western Albemarle for being Fred's favorite highschooler. :party:

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 10:48 am
by AKKOLADE
I looked at the top teams in the final rankings, and tried to pick out the best players from them, and ranked them as best as I could. The above response wasn't sass.

If you were the leading scorer for a top 10 team, you were getting picked somewhere. If you were by far the top scorer on a top 50 team, you were a candidate for honorable mention at least.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 1:39 pm
by Hyrdofluoric_Acid
It was only sort of sass. He is an absolutely amazing player.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 4:01 pm
by AKKOLADE
Congratulations to Eric Xu, this year's HSQBRank Player of the Year! The full announcement can be found here, as well as a short write-up of his career.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 5:58 pm
by Harpie's Feather Duster
First off, congratulations to Eric Xu on a well-deserved player of the year award.

Second, I'm going to go out on a whim and defend Fred here: while it would be nice to have a detailed explanation of every player's placement, it's simply not possible to discern a lot of the things Dave Madden asks about (all signs of good players) from just looking at stats. Even in the college circuit, which is orders of magnitude smaller in scale, we hit multi-page threads every year trying to decide on who the best 25 players are for the year. Unless Fred is somehow both omnipotent and omnipresent, there's not really much he can do from looking at stats except say things like "man, that Sam Blizzard guy is really good at buzzing in and saying the correct answer." I don't know about you guys, but I'm not too interested in hearing Fred repeat variations on that for some 20-odd players.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 6:01 pm
by Cheynem
Ideally (and this is not really something Fred can do by himself), the awards would be accompanied by some information about the player being honored. Dylan is correct in that we don't want endless "so and so is good at quizbowl" pabulum, but indicating "blank is lockdown on science" or "blank hadn't even picked up a buzzer until this year" or other such tidbits might be interesting, and that perhaps the players being honored or coaches or whoever could offer some greater context in future iterations.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 7:01 pm
by AKKOLADE
I appreciate people sticking up for me, but I really don't think either Dave or Sam were being overly critical of me. Dave asked a reasonable question (though for some of those things, there's no real way to measure what he's looking for) and Sam thought I either didn't answer the question clearly or was sassing Dave (or both).

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 7:08 pm
by blizzard
Stefan HSQBRankovich wrote:I looked at the top teams in the final rankings, and tried to pick out the best players from them, and ranked them as best as I could. The above response wasn't sass.
My bad, I (incorrectly) assumed you were using a strictly-numbers formula/process similar to the team rankings for individuals as well.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Thu May 28, 2015 8:13 pm
by AKKOLADE
It's okay - this is a lot more subjective. I'm sure that somebody could reasonably put together a First Team with, say, 5 different people on it. And they wouldn't be wrong! I just wanted to launch an award to offer recognition to individual players before nationals.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 7:54 am
by The Formiddable Dark Skeik
I will echo everyone and agree that Eric is the rightful winner. I also extend congratulations to everyone who made the lists, especially Alston and Sam. I was always impressed by Sam's ppg, some of them are truly insane.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:38 pm
by Lo, Marathon Ham!
I was just wondering why such awards were created? (Especially considering this is not based on statistics and is done by what I assume is a one-man committee.)

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:40 pm
by AKKOLADE
I did review statistics (didn't just pick the first players that popped in my head on a random day). I decided to start it because quiz bowl does a crap job of rewarding people and because this could be used for PR.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:49 pm
by Lo, Marathon Ham!
I think its fantastic that your rank has allowed for some players to gain the respect and attention they deserve. That being said, I feel (just like in my post on the National Quiz Bowl Awards thread) that you should have some method of polling (again perhaps the adults from each region involved in the HSQB poll) as this would allow for the thoughts of a wider array of people to be displayed. I'm not sure what this undertaking would require logistically, so please forgive me if it sounds preposterous, I just wanted to give my thoughts on the matter with the hopes that it encourages discussion for positive change (and if this has been brought up before or is already in use then again forgive me as sometimes I get distracted before reading the myriad of posts before the current one in a thread).

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 2:40 am
by Cody
Why do we care what a "wider array" of people think? Polls on HSQB have shown time and time again that the more people that're involved, the more bad votes get submitted. Keeping this confined to a select person or persons is absolutely the way to go about it.

Is it not possible to appreciate the work Fred does on HSQBRank without incessant complaints that he should find some way to do it better?

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 9:08 pm
by Peter13
I have to agree with Cody I am afraid. While the college circuit can be done like this because of its (relatively) small size, the high school circuit is just too diverse. You could have players from certain regions (i.e. SoCal or Illinois) be over/underrepresented based on the number of people who play them. I know that in smaller regions where there are less tournaments, you would more likely see nonrepresentational of great players because there are less teams getting exposed to them.

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 11:06 am
by yankees12071222
Will you be making All-World teams for this year?

Re: HSQBRank All-World Teams

Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 11:58 am
by AKKOLADE
Yes. Probably the same number, almost definitely the same method.