The Quizbowl Resource Center

Joshua Rutsky

I look forward to seeing the stats from this tourney, and I know Chandler is already on that. Without getting into specifics, I would love to hear people' s opinion of the set used overall. My understanding is that the questions were VERY long, even for an event housewritten by a college, and that t...

Joshua Rutsky

Trent, I'm not sure what you'd like the rest of the state to do for you here. ASCA has a southern regional site for state, and a southern district site as well. We've reached out to SAACA for years to try to bring more South AL teams into the fold, and we have been met with silence. There aren't a h...

Joshua Rutsky

FIELD UPDATE: Varsity (15/24 slots filled) CCA Dorman A Dorman B Evangel Classical Christian Good Hope Hewitt-Trussville Itawamba MS LAMP A LAMP B Northridge Springville Springwood West Point Woodford County A Woodford County B JV (10/14 slots filled) CCA Good Hope (D. hulsey) Hewitt-Trussville Itaw...

Joshua Rutsky

Very true. Additionally, however, I think the reason I would point to that the analogies don't hold is that we don't have the right value system in those situations, Lee. Sadly, a coach in high school is hired or fired based on wins, not on what they do or don't do correctly. We saw that in Hoover f...

Joshua Rutsky

This is not something that should ever be in question. If you hear your player give what you know to be an incorrect answer, as the coach, you MUST recognize that and say something. Anything else is undermining the very basis of the game we are playing. Even if you want to make some sort of argument...

Joshua Rutsky

Chandler - I've PMed a bracket to you.

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Joshua Rutsky

I've got two readers if you need them. Both are coming. If you have three pools of six, then playoffs, that ought to be a pretty good day. Thanks for adding the space.

Joshua Rutsky

Cool. We will bring two teams and at least one reader. We may have two available.

Joshua Rutsky

Lee, let me know if you have any extra players lying around. I don't know exactly how many i have who plan to attend this, but maybe we can put together a joint spoiler team.

Joshua Rutsky

I will try to get two teams together. This should be doable. In that case, you would be best served with three pools of six playing and then a playoff in the afternoon. Three pools of six means a total of nine rooms to staff. How many readers do you have at this point?

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Joshua Rutsky

Big plus: A tourney that, from my understanding, ran pretty solidly on time and with good readers. One minus that has returned, however: lack of trophies. I understand wanting to minimize costs, but if you are hosting a high-school level tournament and charging $50+ per team to attend, you need to h...

Joshua Rutsky

I don't know if this falls into the necessity bracket, but it is something I think is worth mentioning. If you are hosting a high-school level tournament and charging $50+ per team to attend, you need to have trophies or plaques for the winning teams. You don't have to break the bank on this, but a ...

Joshua Rutsky

Chandler-

Hoover is interested in bringing a team if space permits. We can supply buzzers and a reader.

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Joshua Rutsky · Re: West Point Winter Invitational - 12/5/15 (IS-151A) Hoover's in.

Hoover's in.

Joshua Rutsky

New this year - online fee payment! To pay for your Hoover Invitational Scholars Bowl entry visit myschoolfees.com and follow these simple steps: 1)Select “Register” and enter profile information OR “Sign In” for existing users 2)Select School: Hoover High School 3) Select “Public Items” and select ...

Joshua Rutsky

Also, this tournament is still UNOFFICIALLY known as Lee Henry's House Party.

Joshua Rutsky

If this tournament isn't renamed "Lee Henry's House Party", I'm not sure I can come.

Joshua Rutsky

Last year, I put up a Google Form for interested candidates to fill out. I think we would probably do that again, and possibly ask coaches to nominate a player or two. This would let us get a base to invite to a formal tryout. The main problem for us is that Alabama is a BIG state. Online practice i...

Joshua Rutsky

Not necessarily. There are a couple of players I think would be no-brainers for that squad -- Justin Kelley from Gadsden City comes to mind, as do Venu Reddy and Sharath Narayan from Springwood and James Clemens respectively, although I'm not sure a squad with all three is particularly balanced in a...

Joshua Rutsky

Well, here we are - Now, where are we going? A couple of notes for the coming year and this thread-- If you have a tournament date you'd like Alabama teams to be aware of, please e-mail our ASCA website with details at sharon DOT daily44@gmail.com with your date, the question set, and details! You c...

Joshua Rutsky

Once again, Hoover would like to mirror this set on November 21st.

Joshua Rutsky

Joshua Rutsky

The 11th Hoover Invitational Tournament will be held at Hoover High School on 11/21/2015, and will feature fields for varsity, JV, and novice competition. We will be using BASK this year as our Varsity set, and will be using the SCOP Novice as our JV/Novice set. Pricing is as follows: $70 for the fi...

Joshua Rutsky

Kristin, I don't suppose you are interested in speeding production on this for an earlier event in November 2015?

Josh Rutsky
Hoover HS

Joshua Rutsky

Apparently, some Alabamians suck. I am SHOCKED by this. On the synagogue quiz issue, I have had lots of fun with rounds like "Who is more likely to know X - the rabbi or a ________?" with obscure words from hebrew, yiddish, or anything that sounds like it might be Talmudic. It isn't hard, ...

Joshua Rutsky

Such help as I can offer is at your disposal.

Joshua Rutsky

Trent, you should absolutely consider coming up to Tuscaloosa for ACE Camp this summer. With the level of interest you've expressed here in improving your team, you would be someone who could really benefit from the high-intensity study it offers. See www.aceqb.com for details.

Joshua Rutsky

To all the folks at PACE and in quiz bowl nationwide: I wanted to apologize for being unable to attend the PACE tourney this year, especially in light of the very great honor PACE bestowed upon me. It was a big surprise (I found out about the award from Nick Clusserath, who texted me something on th...

Joshua Rutsky

This seems to me like one of those impossible situations to resolve. Let's say that we did something like, oh, I don't know, adopting a set of rules that specify time allowable for a response. This then produces the next problem -- who counts the time? So we add rules to say that the moderator must ...

Joshua Rutsky

I completely agree. You should go ahead and send the letter, especially given that for many of us, the summer is the time when we are not overwhelmed with paperwork. Letting the teacher know up front that you are interested AND OFFERING TO HELP WITH RECRUITING so you have seven or eight kids right o...

Joshua Rutsky

I know I'm a little late to the party, but next year, Bayside Academy is ready to break into the top of the state scene. We had a 30-5 record this year in our league (which we won over Spanish Fort, who had won it the last few years), the Enterprise Weevil Bowl (our first major tourney - 3rd behind...

Joshua Rutsky

I agree with pretty much everything Jon and Eric said upthread, but as a coach, I feel like my colleagues and I have a particular burden to make sure cheating is something we emphasize as unacceptable in this game. What disturbs me a little is that while I think there are very few coaches out there ...

Joshua Rutsky

I feel a little out of place commenting here, since I am a high school coach, but this discussion interests me because we see a lot of the same issues crop up at the high school level with teams leaving early for various reasons or not showing up at all. One question I have is whether the phenomenon...

Joshua Rutsky

Just a note for those looking ahead: Spain Park, the 2015 runners-up, will return all six players they brought to State. Buckhorn High School will return all six players they brought to State. Gadsden City will return two of their strongest players, Harry and Justin. Huntsville will return their ent...

Joshua Rutsky

Full stats with bonus conversion, etc. in SQBS format:

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... ey_report/

Joshua Rutsky

He is good. That's Sharath Narayan, who was nearly the MS scoring champ at Liberty Middle last year. He's made some good strides since last year, and took advantage of QB camp as well to continue to climb. I agree he can be a factor, but I still think those teams are pretty even right now.

Joshua Rutsky

Two reasons I don't totally agree with you on pool D, Lee: 1) Sparkman and James Clemens are 1-1 each head to head this year. Both beat the other team by a significant margin one time. 2) If you compare performance on IS sets, not A sets, you have no data for Sparkman (unfortunately), but James Clem...

Joshua Rutsky

Predictions? No.

I will say two things.

1) If Hoover, Spain Park, West Point, and Gadsden City don't advance to the playoffs, it will mean a MAJOR upset has taken place.

2) Pool D is almost completely up for grabs, and I have no idea who will emerge from it.

Joshua Rutsky

Help you with stats? I can tell you Gadsden hasn't released them yet. I will look into it. The numbers may not be entirely useful, however, as they played GSAC but using Alabama's State format, meaning that they played two bonuses per toss-up with bounceback.

Joshua Rutsky

Results are up on the QRC tournament database for all three of this weekend's events: AL JV, Small School, and Middle School Championships. Congratulations to Spain Park (JV), Cordova (Small School), and Pizitz (MS) on their wins!

Joshua Rutsky

Is there any way to output rosters to a text file (or equivalent)? I don't know of a "proper" way to do it, but if you open up a copy of the SQBS data file in Notepad (or whatever), I think you'll be able to trim it down to the relevant parts without too much difficulty. If anyone develop...

Joshua Rutsky

Sorry about the delays in posting stats for Districts. We are STILL waiting on one site. I have already passed on what we have to NAQT and it should be posted soon, so just hang tight.

Joshua Rutsky

That makes sense, Jennifer. Even so, I would suggest that you are going about this in the wrong direction--bottom up instead of top down. Establishing a quiz bowl team by way of student interest is a good thing, and it often works, but having a faculty member at the other schools that WANTS to do th...

Joshua Rutsky

OK, so dumb question here, but why would you want many, many rounds of JUST science and math tossups in order to attract students to quiz bowl? I understand that you might be trying to pull in a specific crowd, but let's say you're successful, and you recruit a bunch of really hardcore math/science ...

Joshua Rutsky

With ASCA HS starting in a few weeks, I think that this is an appropriate time to consider this sort of move. I have no problem with being part of a group of coaches helping to identify these students, and I think that there are ways to deal with a few of the issues involved, like the commitment/int...

Joshua Rutsky

SS State Bids are going to

Ashville
Brindlee Mountain
Cordova
Elkmont
Good Hope
Lexington
T.R. Miller
W.S. Neal

JV State Bids are going to

Altamont
Buckhorn
Hoover
Indian Springs
James Clemens
LAMP
Spain Park
Springwood

Joshua Rutsky

Walker graduated? Wow. Didn't know that. That does change my analysis of Buckhorn a little, in that it was a team playing at full strength, but even so, I think that they are solid candidates for the Elite Eight. Excellent play from a younger squad that has lost a couple of key players.

Joshua Rutsky

I was thinking about this last night, and one of the things I'm really grateful for in my life is having found quizbowl. It's odd, perhaps, given that I actually wasn't good enough to make my school's team back in high school, but even then I really loved the idea of quizbowl. I love the idea that a...

Joshua Rutsky

I agree, Lee, that making the shift from A set to regular IS requires some rejiggering of your team's mental state going in. It has been really hard to get our squad to the point that they are willing to be aggressive on an A set in a serious way, but even then, A sets really feel more like speed ch...

Joshua Rutsky

Not really sure what to add to this thread after the West Point Invitational this weekend. The takeaways are pretty clear: 1) Buckhorn, Gadsden City, Hoover, and West Point are all favorites to make the elite eight of the state playoff this year. 2) Of those four teams, only West Point played with t...

Joshua Rutsky

Thank you to everyone over at Brookwood! Here are the stats if you want to peruse them.

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