Indiana 2018- 2019

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CurlyJoe
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Indiana 2018- 2019

Post by CurlyJoe »

Seeing as the Indiana Quiz Bowl Season is just starting up, here's a board for any Indiana discussions.
Joseph Furfaro
Mishawaka High School 2019
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L.H.O.O.Q.
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Re: Indiana 2018- 2019

Post by L.H.O.O.Q. »

Sad to see that this thread didn't get any responses, but as someone who watched Indiana Quiz Bowl happen this year, I'll offer some of my thoughts from each Indiana tournament I staffed.

1: The Indiana Kickoff

I don't know if it's possible for a tournament to be simultaneously super-competitive and top-heavy, but I do know that even if you took away the extremely impressive statlines put up by Harrison's and Saint Joseph's A teams, this would still have been a pretty high-scoring year for the Indiana Kickoff. Unfortunately, we also saw the smallest Kickoff field in quite some time, despite the addition of two schools who had not attended the tournament before.

I got to read for Harrison A, who performed incredibly on bonuses. (They posted 23.88 PPB over the whole tournament, and in one of my rounds, they had a streak of something like five 30's in a row.) I was also impressed by Saint Joseph B, comprised of a pair of young generalists with high skill ceilings, and Zionsville B, whose Chris Robinson I firmly believe will be the next Tomás. My room never saw Zionsville A, unfortunately.

2: The Boilermaker Buzzathon

We (Purdue Quiz Bowl) made a mistake by running SCOP Novice in favor of IS-A, plain and simple. Our reasoning was that we estimated SCOP and IS-A to be roughly the same difficulty, but for SCOP to use longer questions and cost far less. We were very wrong, and that's why Tomás and Song ended up playing on those questions.

This thread isn't about that, though, so I will instead focus on the performance of Saint Joseph B, once again comprised of a trio of very young players. As :Dillon mentioned in his writeup, they scored 215 unanswered points to start their game against eventual champions Saint Joseph A during the playoffs, not to mention decisively beating Zionsville A (led by the aforementioned Chris Robinson, who easily outscored his already-varsity teammates).

3: NAQT State Championship

I could not be more thrilled by the results at State. For the first time in several years, this year's State had a better turnout than the year before, and that larger field evidently resulted in the most fiercely competitive bloodbath I've ever witnessed.

Carmel A, who had earlier this season shocked people by signing up for the Uber-Competitive division of New Trier Varsity (which is played on collegiate-level questions), stood their ground against 7-time champion Saint Joseph A. Harrison A, missing their two best players, nearly snuck into a 3-way tie for first, but were upset by Carmel's insurgent B team. Newcomer North Central's Joe, who had faced difficulties at SCOP Novice, lit up the boards with 60 points per game, second among qualified varsity players. Culver A, perennial contenders, were overtaken by North Central and suffered an upset by the giant-killer Mishawaka (who have also taken down eventual state champion Saint Joseph twice in the past two years).

What made me happiest to see was the overall increase in production among all teams. In years past, individual players have noticeably underperformed at State; this has especially been prevalent in the lack of powers. This year, every returning team put up way better buzzing numbers, which I think has a lot to do with the insane number of upsets at the tournament.

4. Other notes

I wasn't able to staff nationals, but congratulations to Saint Joseph and Carmel for their performances at HSNCT and Saint Joseph (again) for their performance at PACE NSC. Every nationals finish by an INQB team this year was in the top 50%, which is phenomenal.

I don't want to sound too dramatic, but this is the first year in quite some time that I'm excited for the future of Indiana Quiz Bowl. If you haven't heard yet, the Indiana Association of School Principals is now working to establish a statewide NAQT circuit, which will hopefully continue the improvement INQB saw this year. Purdue Quiz Bowl hopes to use this circuit to make pyramidal quiz bowl easier for Indiana schools to regularly access without quashing the local conferences that have already been established.

In addition, this probably doesn't quite count, but Indiana University is starting its own quiz bowl team next year, courtesy of grad student and former elite player for University of Maryland Justin Hawkins. I know IU has a ton of in-state students, so if you're an upcoming freshman who enjoyed quiz bowl, you have the option to keep playing! Collegiate quiz bowl is a lot of fun.

That's my collection of thoughts on the matter. We at Purdue Quiz Bowl (and hopefully soon at IU!) are going to keep working to support and improve the INQB scene, and now that I know this gets posted every year, I'll probably update it more regularly next year instead of just adding one long reply at the end of the year.
Sarah Benner
Avon HS 2013-17, Purdue 2017-21
Unofficial QB Advisor for Purdue, Ohio State, and the State of Indiana

May refer to herself in the third person.
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L.H.O.O.Q.
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Re: Indiana 2018- 2019

Post by L.H.O.O.Q. »

Bumping again to add that NAQT has officially announced their partnership with the IASP, so we now have a better idea of what their vision for quiz bowl next year looks like.

It doesn't appear that the current state circuits will be jeopardized in any way; instead, the IASP will run four simultaneous regional qualifiers on an A set, and high-performing schools at regionals will advance to the state championship on an IS set. From surveying the IASP website, it appears that coaches will sign their school up at the beginning of the year for a flat $200 fee (which is the lowest among IASP-sponsored academic competitions), and then be allowed to attend regionals and state (if they qualify) for free.

I am personally a big fan of allowing teams to attend the championship for no extra cost, but I do have questions about schools who wish to send additional teams; it appears to be a flat $200 per school, so whether that will cover NAQT's per-team-in-attendance fee remains to be seen. (Though, for the 2019-2020 season, they offer free questions for all high-school tournaments hosted by Indiana high schools, which is awesome.)

Coordinating with this, Purdue Quiz Bowl plans to host a new-schools-oriented mirror of SCOP Novice sometime in the window from late October to November. The idea is still very new, so I won't make any announcements in this thread, but keep your eyes on the Regular Season Tournaments forum as the new academic year rolls in for an announcement.
Sarah Benner
Avon HS 2013-17, Purdue 2017-21
Unofficial QB Advisor for Purdue, Ohio State, and the State of Indiana

May refer to herself in the third person.
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