IHSA

[mlaird]

Warren: 108
Orangeville: 149

Stockton: 122
Scales Mound: 84

How are these scores even possible???

Only because of villainy!

They're probably using the old scoring rules. Guh.

Stop posting while you are reading our Regional finals.

[the return of AHAN]

Barrington scored 400 points against Fremd. And lost 405-400. Given the new scoring rules, that HAS to be a new record for a losing team in State Series play.

[Mike Wong]

After TU 11. Nolan negs with an attempted fraud, breaking Loyola's streak.

I just wanted to say that I'm loving these "liveblog" comments. Oh and congrats to Marcel on the comp math.




Edit: Removed extraneous quotes that didn't matter.

[the return of AHAN]

Fox Lake Grant 375, St. Viator 235

Wait, what? Who knew Grant was so good at IHSA scholastic bowl?

[Martha Dreyer]

so what exactly was sandwich if it went 170-200 against plano?

[abnormal abdomen]

So that was, uh, interesting.

[Dominator]

Well, today officially marked the first time I've thought, "I wish I were playing Masonic questions instead."

[thrillhouse]

So, Score Zone is being a jerk, so I will post the Bloomington Regional results here. Hopefully, these will be up officially on the IHSA page at some point.

Congrats to all the winners and best of luck at your respective Sectional.

Match 1
W (350) Bloomington vs (230) LaSalle-Peru
Match 2
W Normal Community (300) v Normal West (200)
Match 3
W U-High (415) vs. Princeton (240)
Match 4
W Streator (375) vs. Central Catholic (170)

Match 5
W Bloomington (445) vs. Normal Community (175)
Match 6
W Streator (315) vs. U-high (285)

Match 7
W Bloomington (350) vs. Streator (100)

Champion: Bloomington

[tintinnabulation]

Well, today officially marked the first time I've thought, "I wish I were playing Masonic questions instead."

The answer lines in particular were rather disappointing. I ditto you, Dr. Prince.

[in on these shenanigans]

It's not the first time in recorded history, at least; Aegis Masonics were probably better than the IHSA of those days, though my memory's fuzzy and I don't care to try to remember tonight.

Congrats to everyone who won; let's hope they buried a significant portion of the crappy questions in tonight's sets.

[Dominator]

Any good stories at least? Barrington's 405-400 loss was heartbreakingly close. On a different note, I had a player neg six times in Round 2. The first to guess said player gets fifteen points, as per IHSA standard.

[jonah]

Any good stories at least? Barrington's 405-400 loss was heartbreakingly close. On a different note, I had a player neg six times in Round 2. The first to guess said player gets fifteen points, as per IHSA standard.

Buzz. Adam.

Crap, I only get ten though.

[African threadfish]

Final Round for IHSA Class "A" Rockford Keith Regional:

Keith Country Day 395 - Rockford Lutheran 60.

On to Sectionals on Saturday which we are also hosting!

We had my middle school team playing gophers, chalkboard scoring, and working "security" outside the rooms. A fun night for both teams!

[Golden-bellied Starfrontlet]

Any good stories at least? Barrington's 405-400 loss was heartbreakingly close. On a different note, I had a player neg six times in Round 2. The first to guess said player gets fifteen points, as per IHSA standard.

Kadam Alinich?

I generally enjoy quizbowl, but the only real fun I had today was mocking the bad questions and guessing what would come up next? I can't believe I'm saying that I'd rather play Masonics now, easily.

[Cubfan125]

Wow -- Those questions were o-f-f-a-l.

[tintinnabulation]

Wow -- Those questions were o-f-f-a-l.

At least there weren't any language arts, Alex.

EDIT: Yeah, I got the pun. Lucky for me, no vocab.

[in on these shenanigans]

EDIT: Yeah, I got the pun. Lucky for me, no vocab.

Did you not hear the transom question?

[tintinnabulation]

EDIT: Yeah, I got the pun. Lucky for me, no vocab.

Did you not hear the transom question?

I usually have my vocab radar on, but I didn't pay too much attention to that vocab part because about an hour before the matches started, our coach told one of my teammates to "lower the blinds to the transom" and proceeded to explain to us what a transom is. Said teammate proceeded to get the question. Best question of the night.

[jonah]

Stats from the Loyola Academy regional

The regional questions were basically just awful. Science and social studies were mostly okay, except for one or two clunkers each, but the math was nothing short of an abomination. There were multiple incorrect answers in the packets; questions that were terrible because they were far too difficult (Emilie Chatelet?!), poorly worded, confusing, trivial, in the wrong category, etc.; missing alternative answers and prompt directives; and assorted other problems.

This problem occasionally cropped up in the fine arts category too (the theory questions) and was endemic to the inherently bad subcategories under miscellaneous and language arts, but none of these were nearly as egregious as the misery that was the math.

[Charles Martel]

In general, the bonuses contained far too few clues. Bonuses would go, "Part 2:This (sport) athlete was given so-and-so award by the president in (date)." History and Literature bonuses would give almost no clues, turning what might have been a good bonus into a very difficulty bonus. Not to mention the number of times terms in mathematics I had never heard of came up, and not for having not taken the class, but obscure vocabulary in trigonometry and geometry that is never used by mathematicians was being put in bonus parts.

[cornfused]

This problem occasionally cropped up in the fine arts category too (the theory questions)

For the record: the fine arts was me except for the theory/jazz/music theater.

[the return of AHAN]

EDIT: Yeah, I got the pun. Lucky for me, no vocab.

Did you not hear the transom question?

I usually have my vocab radar on, but I didn't pay too much attention to that vocab part because about an hour before the matches started, our coach told one of my teammates to "lower the blinds to the transom" and proceeded to explain to us what a transom is. Said teammate proceeded to get the question. Best question of the night.

[Susan]

EDIT: Yeah, I got the pun. Lucky for me, no vocab.

Did you not hear the transom question?

I usually have my vocab radar on, but I didn't pay too much attention to that vocab part because about an hour before the matches started, our coach told one of my teammates to "lower the blinds to the transom" and proceeded to explain to us what a transom is. Said teammate proceeded to get the question. Best question of the night.

Do coaches have access to the questions before the matches are played?

[jonah]

They're not supposed to, but in practice the answer is very often "yes".

[MissIrene]

Hmmmm. As a follow up question, do the hosting coaches get to pick the order of the match packets, or did everyone play all the questions in the same order yesterday?

[jonah]

Hmmmm. As a follow up question, do the hosting coaches get to pick the order of the match packets, or did everyone play all the questions in the same order yesterday?

The packets are labeled with the rounds in which they are supposed to be used. Was there an issue with that?

[MissIrene]

Hmmmm. As a follow up question, do the hosting coaches get to pick the order of the match packets, or did everyone play all the questions in the same order yesterday?

The packets are labeled with the rounds in which they are supposed to be used. Was there an issue with that?

No, not that I know of, just wondered. After hearing the hosts may have access to questions, it made me wonder if they could pick which packet would best suit their strengths for the final.

[Charles Martel]

Even if a coach doesn't give any hint to his players of the questions, and he doesn't manipulate packets to suit his team strengths, it still affects his decisions as coach. If a coach knew which categories were coming, it might affect his choices of who to put in.

If a coach really did just look at the packet before the tournament and tell his team info to get one of the questions, it's completely unacceptable, and should be investigated immediately.

[Kanga-Rat Murder Society]

Even if a coach doesn't give any hint to his players of the questions, and he doesn't manipulate packets to suit his team strengths, it still affects his decisions as coach. If a coach knew which categories were coming, it might affect his choices of who to put in.

If a coach really did just look at the packet before the tournament and tell his team info to get one of the questions, it's completely unacceptable, and should be investigated immediately.

This is an ethical dilemma that is all too common in Illinois Scholastic Bowl which I have discussed before. Many different conferences (as well as the IHSA, obviously) give their coaches access to questions before meets. Sometimes, they even have it several weeks in advance. This makes it remarkably easy for coaches to cheat and not get caught.

For example, if a coach saw that there was a question in an upcoming match on "Antietam", and there was a question in practice on "Vicksburg" that went dead, a coach could simply tell his team to makes sure to study Civil War battles. This coach will obviously never get caught as they gave perfectly reasonable advice, but they still clearly gamed the system. The cheating could get even more forthright, such as telling people to study a specific answer line that they know will come up, and they will never, ever get caught. Illinois needs to stop the practice of having teams get packets long before events, because it makes cheating stunningly easy. As we have unfortunately learned over the years in quizbowl, if it is easy to cheat, some teams probably will.

Also, handing out questions ahead of time could also lead to an unfortunate case where a certain answer line gets stuck in a coach's head to the point where they might use the answer line unintentionally. If that was the case, I sure hope that the coach would concede the tossup, but it is important to remember that this may not have been some sinister plot. In fact, considering that Peoria Christian was clearly the best team in their regional, I presume that it likely wasn't. If this is what indeed happened, it is yet another reminder of why coaches should not be allowed to see questions ahead of time. The fact that Illinois still allows this simply behooves me.

[garciaja]

I suppose the solution, in any IHSA event, is to name the tournament director as the Athletic Director or other administrator who could download, copy, and seal the question packets before the round. There should also be a moderators' meeting with closed doors to prevent any accidental coach interference with questions. These are both things that prevented me from being able to cheat. This assumes, however, that coaches are not opening up sealed envelopes with questions to get an edge on another team.

With everything going digital, couldn't question providers simply password protect their question sets until the day or time of the match? NAQT or QG could then email the document password to the TD or moderators just before the match. This would prevent more undetectable and probably more rampant underhanded cheating. Maybe this is too easy of a solution...

[tintinnabulation]

To clarify, the coach who told us about the transom was not the TD and had been in the ICU most of the weekend. I highly doubt that he saw the questions or would have told us about the answer if he did. I understand the suspicion surrounding this but believe that my coach has more integrity than that.

That said, I do have some concerns about question security, especially the practice (don't know if it's standard) of sending the questions to the moderators ahead of time, especially when some of the volunteering moderators are parents. After the super-secret question writing/editing process, I'm surprised that IHSA lets that happen. Shouldn't the questions stay in an envelope until a few hours before the match?

[jonah]

That said, I do have some concerns about question security, especially the practice (don't know if it's standard) of sending the questions to the moderators ahead of time, especially when some of the volunteering moderators are parents. After the super-secret question writing/editing process, I'm surprised that IHSA lets that happen. Shouldn't the questions stay in an envelope until a few hours before the match?

There are a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies associated with IHSA question security. Keep in mind that MYSTERY PERSON is in charge of coordinating writers and getting the questions to the IHSA, the IHSA is in charge of distributing questions to schools, and schools (theoretically ADs, but in practice usually coaches) are in charge of distributing questions to moderators, so there are lots of people involved who have different ideas of what is appropriate.

I am tentatively in favor of giving questions to moderators well in advance, which is pretty common. The rationale is twofold: most regionals use at least some inexperienced moderators, and it is to their benefit to be able to go over difficult pronunciations, etc., in advance; while other regionals use very experienced moderators who are able find and fix problems with the questions. The list of errata that the IHSA sent out was, I believe, based almost entirely on a collaboration between several extremely experienced moderators in two specific regionals.

[mrgsmath]

I can only speak for my school, but the tournament director for our site has always been the Superintendant from the neighboring school district (unitl this Saturday due to a family issue). I manage logistics, such as arranging the facilities, lining up staff, preparing materials,and making contact with teams and coaches. The Director handles the actual questions, moderator meetings, posting results and any decisions once the meet begins. I also direct the office staff to wait until the day of the meet, or inthe case of Sectionals late Friday, to actually print out the questions and put them in the appropriate envelopes and seal them. They are then lockuped up until the Director takes possession. sicne one ofthe office secretaries is also a scorekeeper for the meets, she handles the transfer. This Saturday we will have a different Director but the process will remain the same. I hear the questions when the team does. (assuming I am paying attention)

And I would add that the questions are used in the order as assigned. Since we only had 3 rounds (eight teams) the Round 0 questions were not used.

[ether a go-go]

While it would be nice if there was somebody other than the coach to handle questions for conferences, invitationals, and IHSA, that is often not the case. For many years, the official Tournament Director for IHSA Regionals and Sectionals was our Assistant Principal who had no idea what Scholastic Bowl was. He would get a box full of questions and would let me know that he had received it. He had no interest in doing anything beyond that. I would pick up the box and eventually hand it off sealed to one of the Moderators, but I, then a coach, would often be in possession of the box for several days. The process was changed this year or last year so that there is no longer a box--somebody with an administrative password has to print them out. However, the person with the administrative password generally has no interest in Scholastic Bowl, so they often tell the coach the password or print out the questions and give them to the coach. It's not a secure system, but the alternative is getting somebody other than the coach at each school interested in running the tournament, which generally doesn't happen. The IHSA does its part for question security, but they can't watch the questions to make sure they stay away from the coach.

Question security for conferences generally is worse--the host coach generally prints and copies the questions. This often happens for invitationals as well. The coach does this because otherwise the questions don't get printed and copied (or downloaded and password protected for tournaments that have gone paperless).

Coaches generally don't want to see the questions ahead of time--it creates a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation whenever you tell a student that something is interesting or try to connect it to something else, since you are either helping them too much or not at all.

The situation is further complicated with the IHSA, since they admit that the questions are supposed to be reviewed by the moderators in order to fix problems. When you tell them that some other question sets are good enough to use as is, they take it the wrong way.

[the return of AHAN]

Any good stories at least? Barrington's 405-400 loss was heartbreakingly close. On a different note, I had a player neg six times in Round 2. The first to guess said player gets fifteen points, as per IHSA standard.

All right, so I wasn't there, but here is what I've had explained to me what transpired in the Barrington-Fremd semifinal...
Barrington scored TU 12, and on the subsequent history bonus, the captain, John, offered answers of "Constantine, Alexei I, and Justinian." Silence from the moderator as he stared at the paper for a lengthy period of time, relative to how a moderator usually responds. He finally ruled no parts correct. Fremd's captain, according to one BHS player, appeared confused momentarily before offering "Constantine I" and "Justinian I," which were ruled correct for 20 points. The Barrington captain, a very good history player, was irate and interjected that his answers were correct or at least should've been promptable if more information were needed. It was now halftime, so a lengthy discussion ensued on why John wasn't at least prompted. Ultimately, the moderator decided to award 10 points for John's answer of Alexi I since the answer did say to accept anything reasonable. However, no discussion of the matter on the part of the Barrington varsity coach seemed to move the moderator towards either throwing out the question or awarding the points. Moreover, the Fremd coach allegedly asserted that, at the State Series level, the moderators shouldn't have to prompt for that type of information. This sort of buffaloed the Barrington coach as he never knew of such a rule, but he assumed the Fremd coach must know what he was talking about. Once the match was over, further discussions of the matter were fruitless as it was pointed out that the moderator's decisions aren't subject to later appeal or protest, rather disputed decisions had to be fixed before the match moved on.

On a personal note, I'm pleased I wasn't there, as I'm not sure I would've handled it with the grace and class that Mr. Baker apparently did, though I would've needed a rule book to find which rule contravenes the moderator. Of course, I looked up the rule right away ...

4-C-1
Moderators may ask for additional information to be given ("prompt") if the answer given is correct but is ambiguous. The moderator
will prompt with the word, "prompt." Situations include, but are not limited to, the following:
4-C-1a. Names: Under normal circumstances, last names will be sufficient. If a question asks for a name, and does not specifically
ask for both first and last names, and if the printed answer requires both first and last name, then the player should be
prompted for the missing information. For persons who are historically known primarily by their first name only or by a
nickname, that name is sufficient (e.g. Moses, Dante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Pele)

And this is why I NEVER use a building staff person to moderate for my own team when hosting an IESA State Series tournament. I always hire at least one moderator from outside the school district to read for my team to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

[EDITED: Amended remarks appear in italics above]

[ether a go-go]

When that question was sent from the Social Studies Editor to the Head Editor, it said

Justinian I (accept Justinian the Great, prompt Justinian)
Alexios I (accept Alexios Komnenos or Alexius Comenus, prompt Alexios, Komnenos, or Comenus)
Constantine I (or Constantine The Great, prompt Constantine)

In the actual packet, it said

1. [Accept either.]
Justinian I
Justinian the Great
2. [Accept anything reasonably similar; “Alex” is wrong.]
Alexios I
Alexios Komnenos
Alexis Commenus
Alexius Commenus
3. [Accept either.]
Constantine I
Constantine the Great

This is very unusual, since it is much more common for IHSA Editors to add directives rather than remove them.

IHSA Rule 4-C-1d states

Royal Succession and Titles: If a question asks for the name of a king, pope, or other proper name, and does not specifically ask for the title or ordinal number, and the printed answer requires title or ordinal number, the player should be prompted for same.

IHSA Case #1 for Rule 4-C-1d states

The moderator reads the following question in Social Studies/History:
"Which English monarch was famous for having six wives, only one of which outlived him?"
The printed answer is: HENRY VIII
Player #1 on Team X rings in. The moderator properly recognizes him.
Player #1 answers: "King Henry"
The moderator should respond: "I need more information."
As long as the player can come up with some indication of “8” in three seconds, the answer will be considered correct.

That being said, nothing will come of this for two reasons. One reason is that the IHSA is not interested in reviewing moderator decisions, even when those decisions are worse than this one. Another reason is that moderators generally do not memorize every single rule and case in the book, and moderator error is part of the game. In fact, Term & Condition VIII.M.12 states

Question writers and/or editors are encouraged to consider and research alternative correct answers and/or common, similar, or related incorrect answers and to list them with instructions to the moderator to “accept also”, “do not accept”, or “prompt on.”

There is a general expectation on the part of many moderators that promptable answers will be explicitly listed with each question, and in some years the IHSA has done a good job of including all such promptable answers. It is reasonable to believe that an objective moderator would have made the same decision based on this expectation of IHSA packets and the fact that details in the Rule Book generally are not memorized.

[Dominator]

That being said, nothing will come of this for two reasons.

Nothing will come of this except a general perception that the Fremd coach in question is a classless liar capable of doing anything to get a "win" and who, therefore, must not be allowed to host regionals, or any other tournaments for that matter.

[in on these shenanigans]

That being said, nothing will come of this for two reasons.

Nothing will come of this except a general perception that the Fremd coach in question is a classless liar capable of doing anything to get a "win" and who, therefore, must not be allowed to host regionals, or any other tournaments for that matter.

An investigation needs to happen because what Dr. Prince is describing is already happening -- they deserve a chance to clear their names before this goes much further. Sure, the IHSA won't give Barrington their rightful win or Wauconda their rightful opponent in the Regional Final, but we still need to uncover the truth.

[the return of AHAN]

I haven't spoken with him, but I'm certain the Fremd coach doesn't feel great about how it went down. I've always known him to be decent and honorable, and with a state championship under his belt, he certainly knows how to train a team to excel. It's frustrating, though, because Barrington had the chance to pull the upset but didn't do so due to a mistake that the IHSA rule book supposedly protects against. It also makes a case that NAQT & ACF's method of noting the protest and revisiting it at the end of the match, if necessary, is a far better approach. Midway through a match, no one could know that those 40 points would swing the match. Why hold things up if Fremd winds up winning by 200? Then the moderator error is incidental and this discussion never occurs. It's unfair to both parties to adjudicate every controversy immediately, IMO.
Secondly, in light of Reinstein's comments, the real focus should be on what sort of reform is needed to get consistency throughout the question set, particularly since so many moderators have never taken the IHSSBCA certification test and are not as intimately familiar with the rule book as we would hope they'd be. I can't see a real possibility of requiring all State Series mods to at least take the test, but it'd be great if we somehow saw some gains in that department.

[jonah]

It is reasonable to believe that an objective moderator would have made the same decision based on this expectation of IHSA packets and the fact that details in the Rule Book generally are not memorized.

One should not, however, expect that the moderator would uphold that decision upon review (which should include consulting the rule book's section on prompting), or that as experienced a coach as the relevant one would lie about the rules when there is a completely reasonable expectation that he know better (or if he doesn't, say nothing rather than lie).

The editing team is slightly at fault for removing the prompt directive, but they were acting reasonably in the sense that there is a rule about handling these situations (namely, you prompt on a partial name) and thus they probably felt that the prompt instruction was implied. (The extensive regionals errata sheet that the IHSA sent out nine hours before the first matches were supposed to begin said for one question "As usual, prompt an incomplete answer" when reversing prior directions to not prompt.) They should know better, however, than to expect moderators to be competent.

My point is that the initial decision was not too far from reasonable; the follow-up discussion, in which the decision was upheld, is the problem.

Nothing will come of this except a general perception that the Fremd coach in question is a classless liar capable of doing anything to get a "win" and who, therefore, must not be allowed to host regionals, or any other tournaments for that matter.

Knowledgeable people already have that perception; other people will continue to bury their head in the sand, and the problem will continue.

[Dominator]

On a different note, a miscommunication has left me one moderator short for IMSA's Sectional this Saturday. I already have Mike Perovanovic. Is anyone else available? Perhaps recent graduates who go to college in the area? Maybe Greg Dz....o?

[jonah]

On a different note, a miscommunication has left me one moderator short for IMSA's Sectional this Saturday. I already have Mike Perovanovic. Is anyone else available? Perhaps recent graduates who go to college in the area? Maybe Greg Dz....o?

The Maine South sectional has, I believe, five moderators. You might email Tom Egan asking if you can steal one of us. I am willing to be the stolen one.

[jonah]

On a different note, a miscommunication has left me one moderator short for IMSA's Sectional this Saturday. I already have Mike Perovanovic. Is anyone else available? Perhaps recent graduates who go to college in the area? Maybe Greg Dz....o?

The Maine South sectional has, I believe, five moderators. You might email Tom Egan asking if you can steal one of us. I am willing to be the stolen one.

I emailed you following up on this.

[tinioril]

Can we have Brad Fischer for the WWS IMSA match?

[in on these shenanigans]

Can we have Brad Fischer for the WWS IMSA match?

Honored, but Kristin and I are helping Keith's sectional.

[cornfused]

Pools for State:

AA: [Champaign Centennial, Macomb, Buffalo Grove, Carbondale], [IMSA, Providence Catholic, New Trier, Auburn]
A: [Chicago Christian, Carterville, Litchfield, Warrensburg-Latham], [Peoria Christian, Cumberland, Athens, Keith Country Day]

[dtaylor4]

Predictions:

IMSA over Carbondale
Auburn over Macomb

Peoria Christian over Litchfield
Keith Country Day over Chicago Christian

[garciaja]

Pools for State:

AA: [Champaign Centennial, Macomb, Buffalo Grove, Carbondale], [IMSA, Providence Catholic, New Trier, (Auburn winner)]
A: [Chicago Christian, Carterville, Litchfield, Warrensburg-Latham], [Peoria Christian, Cumberland, Athens, Keith Country Day]

Last year didn't the pools change during the week? Stevenson and Auburn were split up about Monday.

[Golden-bellied Starfrontlet]

Auburn won their sectional, just for reference.

[the return of AHAN]

Looking it over, this could be the most powerful Class AA field I've seen. No shame in going 0-3 in pool play on Friday, IMO.