Pre-Nats Poll

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deserto
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Pre-Nats Poll

Post by deserto »

RESULTS BELOW

Good evening,

I've emailed out a pre-nationals poll and will post the results in this space next Wednesday or Thursday. If you'd like to submit a ballot but are not on my contact list, please shoot me an email at g.brisontrezise AT gmail. Coaches, TDs, active players, and other knowledgeable community members are all eligible to contribute to the poll. I hope this will be a fun and instructive exercise, with the results a valuable addition to the work Fred Morlan and Jakob Myers have undertaken.

Cheers,

Gabe

RESULTS:

TOP 25:

1. Detroit Catholic Central (Novi, Mich.) — 398 POINTS (14)* — HIGH: 1, LOW: 2
2. Hunter (New York, N.Y.) — 373 (2) — 1 <-> 5
3. Stevenson (Lincolnshire, Ill.) — 358 — 2 <-> 7
4. Barrington (Barrington, Ill.) — 352 — 2 <-> 7
5. James E. Taylor (Katy, Texas) — 322 — 3 <-> 9
6. Naperville North (Naperville, Ill.) — 311 — 5 <-> 9
7. Westview (San Diego, Calif.) — 301 — 3 <-> 14
8. Chattahoochee (Johns Creek, Ga.) — 279 — 3 <-> 24
9. Ithaca (Ithaca, N.Y.) — 268 — 4 <-> 16
10. Davis (Davis, Calif.) — 216 — 9 <-> 22
11. LASA (Austin, Texas) — 199 — 8 <-> 21
12. St. John's (Houston, Texas) — 186 — 8 <-> UR
13. Dorman (Roebuck, S.C.) — 171 — 9 <-> UR
14. Lehigh Valley Academy (Bethlehem, Pa.) — 169 — 9 <-> UR
15. Thomas Jefferson (Alexandria, Va.) — 165 — 8 <-> 21
16. Montgomery Blair (Silver Spring, Md.) — 161 — 8 <-> UR
17. Washington (Washington, Mo.) — 158 — 10 <-> UR
18. Lexington (Lexington, Mass.) — 144 — 9 <-> UR
19. High Tech (Lincroft, N.J.) — 124 — 9 <-> 24
20. St. Mark's (Dallas, Texas) — 118 — 10 <-> UR
21. IMSA (Aurora, Ill.) — 69 — 9 <-> UR
22. Homestead (Cupertino, Calif.) — 61 — 17 <-> UR
23. Richard Montgomery (Rockville, Md.) — 59 — 12 <-> UR
24. Canyon Crest (San Diego, Calif.) — 45 — 11 <-> UR
25. Harker (San Jose, Calif.) — 43 — 16 <-> UR

Also receiving votes: Wayzata (Minn.) 37, Darien (Conn.) 24, Southside (S.C.) 20, Dublin Scioto (Ohio) 18, Centennial (Md.) 12, Hoover (Ala.) 8, La Jolla (Calif.) 7, Rockford (Ill.) 6, MICDS (Mo.) 5, Northview (Ga.) 5, Bellarmine (Calif.) 3, Early College at Guilford (N.C.) 2, Beavercreek (Ohio) 2, Great Neck South (N.Y.) 1

* first-place votes

I compiled this ranking on the basis of ballots submitted by the following 16 members of the high school quizbowl community: Michael Borecki (senior, Darien), Harris Bunker (Michigan State University), Colin Cantwell (senior, Lexington), John Crawford (senior, St. Mark's), Todd Garrison (coach, Glasgow [Ky.]), Christopher Gismondi (coach, Detroit Catholic Central), Alistair Gray (junior, Homestead), Jakob Myers (senior, Naperville North), Jacob O'Rourke (coach, Washington), Brian Owen (coach, Dorman), Michael Powers (sophomore, Louisiana [Mo.]), Nick Rommel (sophomore, Lexington), Colton Sanden (senior, Camp Hill [Pa.]), Peter Schmidt (coach, Lehigh Valley Academy), Eric Seifter (coach, Centennial), Casey Wetherbee (senior, Ithaca).

I decided to invite active high school players to participate in this iteration of the poll, and am pleased so many submitted ballots. Thanks to our returning voters as well. This is the last poll I'll be running this spring; I plan to conduct another at the beginning of the next academic year. It would appear DCC is the championship favorite entering HSNCT weekend. However, Hunter, Taylor, and the Illinois triumvirate of Stevenson, Barrington, and Naperville North trail not far behind. Good luck to all players attending HSNCT, NSC, and NASAT in the coming weeks!

I've posted voters' individual ballots here. While not inherently problematic, I thought it worth mentioning that 10 of the 12 voters who included their own teams placed them higher than they ended up in the final rankings, and the other two — Gismondi and Owen — assigned their teams the exact ranking they ultimately received.
Last edited by deserto on Wed May 24, 2017 5:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Antrobus63 »

I do believe that several polls, conducted with different methodology and perspectives, yield a more complete picture than a single poll based mostly on PBB, even one as scrupulously researched as Fred's. Still, it's only right to be open about what criteria we are applying in our own evaluations. So, here are mine:

- I relied more on recent results than on 2016 numbers. I dropped teams that didn’t play much against very tough competition in 2017 or whose fall success didn’t translate to the spring. I know that life intrudes into the lives of our kids, especially the seniors, but I believe that teams that pushed to get to more tournaments against tougher teams--like the two-day slugfest in Houston--deserved credit for it.

- I put a lot of weight on wins and losses and tournament finish. For instance, in Fred’s final poll, Ithaca moved up to third, while we dropped to 19th. According to PBB, that’s fine. However, we split with Ithaca, 3 -3, over our last three tournaments together--and we won the last tournament—so I ranked us slightly above them.

- Naturally, I have more familiarity with teams in my own regions, but I made a conscious effort NOT to favor teams from my own region.

- I did not take into account who was playing and who wasn’t on a given day. If a team was listed as itself or “A,” then I counted the result as legit.

That's pretty much it. Since my criteria are admittedly subjective, I look forward to hearing how other coaches go about this.
Last edited by Antrobus63 on Wed May 24, 2017 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Scottietodd »

So I just posted my ballot. While I'm pretty sure I did a better job this time than in the midseason poll (I was unaware of hdwhite. What a great resourse!), I'm still pretty sure that I hosed somebody. This was HARD. There are so many good teams and it is very difficult to cross compare them. In any case, best wishes to all teams competing at HSNCT and at PACE. While graduation is keeping us from HSNCT, Glasgow is really looking forward to competing in only our 2nd PACE tournament.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

For my ballot I put a lot more weight than I think others did on my personal experience of various teams. For teams I haven't encountered, I relied on results front they're matches against teams I have. If this caused me to over/underrank your or any other team, please accept my sincerest apologies. Message me with any specific complaints.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by browen »

Antrobus63 wrote:I do believe that several polls, conducted with different methodology and perspectives, yield a more complete picture than a single poll based mostly on PBB, even one as scrupulously researched as Fred's. Still, it's only right to be open about what criteria we are applying in our own evaluations. So, here are mine:

- I relied more on recent results than on 2016 numbers. I dropped teams that didn’t play much against very tough competition in 2017 or whose fall success didn’t translate to the spring. I know that life intrudes into the lives of our kids, especially the seniors, but I believe that teams that pushed to get to more tournaments against tougher teams--like the two-day slugfest in Houston--deserved credit for it.

- I put a lot of weight on wins and losses and tournament finish. For instance, in Fred’s final poll, Ithaca moved up to third, while we dropped to 19th. According to PBB, that’s fine. However, we split with Ithaca, 3 -3, over our last three tournaments together--and we won the last tournament—so I ranked us slightly above them.

- Naturally, I have more familiarity with teams in my own regions, but I made a conscious effort NOT to favor teams from my own region.

- I did take not into account who was playing and who wasn’t on a given day. If a team was listed as itself or “A,” then I counted the result as legit.

That's pretty much it. Since my criteria are admittedly subjective, I look forward to hearing how other coaches go about this.
Regarding your first and last points, I have always wanted to see how a golf style ranking would play out in quizbowl, where depending on the difficulty of the question set and strength of field would assign a point value for the tournament victory and subsequent placings. Winning a novice event would give your team 10 points, while finishing 3rd at the Texas Invitational or Harvard Fall main site would give you 80 points. Points gained in the spring semester would count double (In golf points gained after six months are reduced by half, and after a year are reduced by a quarter, they use a two year cycle). This allows teams not at full strength to still attain points while not fielding their strongest team. Missing your best player in a certain subject can tank the PPB by 3 points which (judging from the entire list of 250 teams) can easily drop you 100 spots.

I found it really difficult to rank Chattahoochee despite the fact they are another very strong team in our region. We never played them this year which I'm almost certain hasn't happened since before 2005. They were hosed by the Delta flight mix-up which caused them to miss Texas, and only have individual stats from this semester for a tournament on VTACO (a set with few data points) where they lost to Hoover (Hooch were at three-quarters strength).

Stats recording and the overall number of tournaments have improved in California so while it isn't easy you can compare Western teams like Davis, Westview, Canyon Crest, etc., much easier than in years prior. Before, you had to do roughly what Jakob described in his response by judging head-to-head performances which were normally dependent on performances at the Texas Invitational where you could have a single West Coast school playing multiple East Coast/Great Lakes' schools.

Lastly, a sole set of rankings are hard to create when the national championships are held on two very different question sets which suit some teams better than others. As Fred mentioned in his update, basically anything can happen at HSNCT. St. Mark's victory at the Texas State Championships on SCT, which very few people would have predicted, is an example of NAQT chaos combined with your luck with the card system, can lead to surprise runs and top teams playing early on in the loser's bracket. PACE is much more "processional" where the better teams almost always float to the top barring a three-way 6-1 record in the prelims due to an upset or incorrect seeding (like the Barrington, Singapore American, and Thomas Jefferson group of death scenario from last year).
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Antrobus63 »

I really enjoy hearing what you guys think. I believe we can have different criteria, but it does help to know how other people look at things. The more we talk to each other the better the poll will get.

- Jakob, since you talk about teams you haven't played... does that mean the next students survey will result in a national poll this time? The regional survey was interesting all by itself--and I actually referred to it when I made up this ballot--but a national poll would be great.

- I, too, actually had a lot of trouble with Chattahoochee. Hdwhite is great but doesn't have everything, so I asked Fred what numbers he was seeing; he was able to tell me about the New Trier results, which are no longer accessible, so I bumped them up a bit but still had them well below where Fred has them. Now that I know that they were prevented from going to Houston by flight trouble, I feel extra crappy for dropping them. I had a lot of trouble with Davis, too. But it's just one person's opinion, and I did the best I could.

Thanks, again, Gabe for putting this together.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Scottietodd »

Lots of good comments here. I ran into some of the same problems with how to rank teams for which I had a hard time finding data. I am actually less worried about ranking an actual #4 team too low at say #9, than I am about leaving someone out of the top 25 who probably should have been there. As others have said, I certainly apologize if I mishandled the data for any particular team, but I did my best and spent a lot of quality time trying. I think this is why it would be great to have lots of folks do this so that we can more easily discard outlier mistakes. At least I don't have a dog in this hunt so to speak. I think that would be more stressful.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by deserto »

I just posted the poll results above. Feel free to use this thread to share comments, questions, or suggestions, or to inveigh against your pollster. As I write above, good luck to all players and coaches gearing up for nationals! Your performance there is what counts ;) Peter, to respond to your question of Jakob, I invited him and a handful of other active high school players to contribute ballots to this poll.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by deserto »

In addition, Harris Bunker wished to note: "I highly valued recent results on NAQT state level sets, Texas Invitational, Eisenhower Memorial and other hard or collegiate sets over early season results. Head to head was also highly valued. I also valued powers--and to that extent, elite players-- over just strict PPB because the best teams are going to have get questions first or second line to beat the best teams at a tournament like HSNCT."

And Jacob O'Rourke writes, "Washington A, MICDS and Ladue A are the top 3 teams in the state by far. Washington A and MICDS are the only teams that should be on a top 25 ballot, though."
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by High Dependency Unit »

I'm going to take some time to explain any significant differences (10+ spots) my ballot has with the overall poll.

LASA (#11 actual, #21 my ballot): LASA is good, but I was not particularly impressed by their statistics and they were 4th at TQBA states (I still ranked them above St. John's).

St. John's (#12, #22): Going back and looking at it, I whiffed on this one (my apologies, Andy, Shomik, & co.) They had a lot of tournaments with only one of Andy or Shomik.

High Tech (#19, #9): Some people probably didn't notice because they were under a pseudonym, but they won Prison Bowl. They've generally been the second-best team in the northeast and I ranked them as such.

St. Mark's (#20, #10): This is solely because they won TQBA states, and, to a lesser extent, SSNCT. Stats weren't that impressive, but they beat Taylor and LASA while splitting a pair against St. John's.

Darien (UR -- #27, #13): Not going to fault anyone for not ranking us due to us (mostly) not playing tournaments/fielding a full team (I'll note we were ranked by both Schmidt & Wetherbee but only 2 ballots outside the northeast), but ranked us a spot ahead of Ithaca due to our 2-3 record against them on housewrites, which leans towards their strengths vs. ours, and results at Prison Bowl (60-point loss to High Tech, 260-point win over Lehigh Valley).

Great Neck South (1 point, #25) -- good team in the northeast that deserves some recognition. Lucia has played maybe 1 tournament this year but they should be fairly legit with a full team.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by browen »

deserto wrote:
I've posted voters' individual ballots here. While not inherently problematic, I thought it worth mentioning that 10 of the 12 voters who included their own teams placed them higher than they ended up in the final rankings, and the other two — Gismondi and Owen — assigned their teams the exact ranking they ultimately received.
Gotta undersell. I believe it was Luke Tierney who posted earlier in the year wondering if people over/under rank themselves and teams in their region, and almost every ballot has some degree of "homerism" in it (myself included in respect to Southside compared to the other voters).

P.S.: Canyon Crest, I still believe in you.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Stained Diviner »

Antrobus63 wrote:...the New Trier results, which are no longer accessible...
The URL changed. Those results are now here. Sorry that they were difficult to find for a while.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by dnlwng »

P.S.: Canyon Crest, I still believe in you.
Thanks man, I appreciate it.

I think that these national polls are insanely hard to do, as there are so many mostly-isolated regions that are really hard to gauge (looking at California), so thank you to everyone who took the time to do their research and fill out a ballot. Additionally, we (and probably many other teams) play mostly NAQT IS sets, which are great packets, but not really good predictors for performance on harder packets. I remember that our best adjusted PPB last year before nationals was around 4 points lower than DCC's, but our PPBs at PACE were essentially identical. This could be a distributional thing, but I think that it is just really difficult to tell which teams "scale up".

On a related note, I definitely think that Canyon Crest overperformed/got lucky at PACE last year (although we did lose some close games in superplayoffs), so we are definitely not expecting another top 8 result. Hopefully SoCal can establish itself as a legit region (https://gyazo.com/02d164c59152e138080632efc702f13d) if us and La Jolla and Rancho Bernardo finish top 24 though, because I feel like we're definitely a better region than we are given credit for.
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by Panayot Hitov »

Remember, at the end of the day it's not about PPB, it's about PPL...PeoPLe
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Re: Pre-Nats Poll

Post by AKKOLADE »

Big Y wrote:
Antrobus63 wrote:...the New Trier results, which are no longer accessible...
The URL changed. Those results are now here. Sorry that they were difficult to find for a while.
Could you update the IHSSBCA listing?
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