The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hi everyone, I just thought I'd get the discussion for this coming year started. I'd like to see what everyone thinks the quiz bowl scene will look like for next year. There seems to be quite an abundance of tournaments on the schedule, which is a good sign. The two NJ Players of the Year (Alex from St. Joe's and Grace from High Tech) have graduated, and it seems like there will be quite a few changes in the area. On my end, I am the only remaining member of last year's Ranney A-team, so it may take us a little while to recover from the loss of science knowledge. I am not sure which teams will be successful this year, but I'll give it a shot.
Judging from the results of RSI, Bergen, High Tech, and St. Joe's all look like they will be bringing good teams, even though they all have lost a few of their top players from last year. From what I know, I believe that Seton Hall Prep still has most of its good players, so they might be a top contender. I don't know if East Brunswick will be as strong, that depends on how many of their top players graduated. J.P. Stevens and Mountain Lakes, both of which were new to the circuit last year, may be good depending on who is returning and how many tournaments they attend. Ridgewood also has a lot of potential, and Millburn also could be quite good.
These are my thoughts, but what does everyone else think?

New Jersey will probably be wide open this year with no pre-season favorite. Seton Hall has one of the best players in the state with J.P. Gilmartin returning, and if he can get any help, SHP could be dangerous. The same is true for Ranney---Roey is a two-time All-State performer, but as Roey himself has said, everyone else on his A Team has graduated, so its future is uncertain. But even without help Roey will keep Ranney dangerous. At the recent Ridgewood tournament, High Tech showed that it will be a force to be reckoned with again. Tech brings back Kevin Zhou, who might be the best Science player in the state, and it also has Patrick LeBlanc and Rohan Kodialam to provide a great tandem in History, so Tech has a strong foundation already. If their other players can help in Lit & the Humanities, they will remain a very dangerous team, possibly the best in the state. Meanwhile, Bergen has at least two very talented players returning in Boris Lepinskiy and Abhiram Gogate, as does Ridgewood with Kara Vo and Esther Sun, so if either of these squads gets help from their remaining players, they too can be quite formidable. My very own St. Joe's also performed creditably at the RSI as well. Jack Mehr is a rising Junior who is a very strong generalist and who is quite gifted in History, and Mike Ploch is a returning A Team player who is an excellent Science player. If Soph Greg Burton and Senior Dan Curley continue to improve, SJHS's rebuilding could be quick and it too could be a dangerous team again. Meanwhile, Millburn has an outstanding player returning in Andrew Brod, but I know little else about his supporting cast. If he gets help, it too will be in the competitive mix all year. And I seem to recall that MAST has a couple of gifted underclassmen, so do not be surprised if MAST makes some noise this year. Other than this I do not know too much, but given past history I would not be surprised if East Brunswick and Livingston fielded strong teams. Further, Mountain Lakes graduated most of its gifted team from last year, but I gained the sense that it enjoyed its year last year and was dedicated to the idea of remaining a force within the state. Other teams that could be good? In no particular order, JP Stevens, Delbarton, Pingry, Chatham and Newark Academy have all fielded talented teams in the past, so it certainly would not surprise if they did so again.

What is clear is that NJ has no pre-season favorite and that this year will be as wide-open as it has been in years, making it both unpredictable and exciting.

Can anyone add to this analysis and provide keener insights into any of the teams mentioned here? For example, will SHP provide help for JP? Does High Tech have strong Lit & Humanties players to join with their formidable talents in History & Science? Do Boris & Abhiram have help at Bergen? Or Kara & Esther at Ridgewood---any help for this gifted pair? What of Millburn---will it be the Andrew show, or does he have help returning? And are there any dark horses out there who I have perhaps overlooked?

Does High Tech have strong Lit & Humanties players to join with their formidable talents in History & Science?

Grace was very good at lit. So i have no doubt that some of her knoledge has rubbed off. Lukas on High Tech will probably round out the A team. Don't really know what his strengths are (asides from sports knowledge) but he seemed to round out the B team well last year.

Or Kara & Esther at Ridgewood---any help for this gifted pair?

Did Justin graduate? He's the only science player they have and I hope for their sake he's staying. Apparently Mark Chung is a good player, but he hasn't come to a lot of tournaments and seems to lack drive. Matt on Ridgewood seems to have a decent amount of Social Science knowledge, having talked to him and like Esther, seems to have the will to play.

will SHP provide help for JP?

Did the rest of the A team graduate? Stats seem to show he had decent support but I've never played SHP.

St. Joe's really impressed me at RSI, and I'm sure they will get better. One thing to me is quite clear though, asides from Hunter A, New Jersey looks way more promising than New York this year.

No, I did not graduate. The three Ridgewood captains, Kara, Zoe and myself are all rising seniors. Esther is a rising junior so she'll be staying for a while.

It's because Justin never goes to tournaments.

But I think the St. Joe's and High Tech are the season favorites this year. St. Joe's has Jack Mehr who is extremely knowledgeable. I was moderated for him a couple of times and he is very impressive. I can't find enough words to describe it, but he knows a lot. High Tech has a really stable subject split, Kevin Zhou with Science, David with Lit, Lukas with RMP/Fine Arts/other things and Patrick with history. I think they will be very strong this year again, Grace has taught them well. Also, did Adam from East Brunswick graduate? But they still have that one guy, I don't know his name but he was the one that keeps shouting YOLO. He has potential too.

But this is just my opinion from who I've played and watched from one year so it may not be accurate.

I feel like the new old standbys of St. Joseph and High Tech are likely favorites for 1-2 in the state (edit to add: oh, and Ranney, because I forgot that Roey hasn't graduated yet). Beyond that, all the established teams are likely in some sort of morass where I wouldn't be surprised if any given Team X beat any other given Team Y, at least through New Year's.

ProfessorIanDuncan wrote:

Or Kara & Esther at Ridgewood---any help for this gifted pair?

Did Justin graduate? He's the only science player they have and I hope for their sake he's staying. Apparently Mark Chung is a good player, but he hasn't come to a lot of tournaments and seems to lack drive. Matt on Ridgewood seems to have a decent amount of Social Science knowledge, having talked to him and like Esther, seems to have the will to play.

A couple of the question marks for Ridgewood are the coaching situation which is what it is and hopefully administration doesn't get in their way, and whether David, their spectacular eighth-grader, plays with the A team and is able to deliver similar results at the high school level. It's also a selfish hope of mine that this is the last year David is playing with Ridgewood.

Adam from East Brunswick graduated, so they'll be at a bit of a drop off this year although they'll probably still do respectably at tournaments. Will and Tackin graduated from Millburn, but Andrew and the seemingly interchangeable players whose names all start with J return. High Tech still has Kevin, which is good for them considering it just seems like NJ teams don't know science as well as other categories. Mountain Lakes loses their top two scorers, I don't know how much their returning players will be able to pick up the slack. Ridgewood is hard to peg because it seems like they played with different lineups at every single tournament, and also seemed to have inconsistent results. At any rate, there will probably be much more parity this year, which coupled along with the fact that Hunter maybe actually be beatable this year should make for some interesting tournaments.

As far as who is good at the beginning of the year, that will largely depend on who put in the most study time in the summer. At least off the bat, I think the following teams will all be at the top level of NJ:
Ranney (Roey's undoubtedly the early candidate for player of the year)
High Tech (lots of raw talent, but will they keep up the studying without Grace?)
Millburn (probably the most improved team from start to finish last year)
St. Joe's (Ed can easily build a solid team around Jack and Mike)
Seton Hall (if JP gets some help, watch out)

Bergen, Ridgewood, and Mountain Lakes will probably be close behind. MAST would probably fall into this category too (if Reuben didn't graduate and gets some help), but I just don't know much about them. Same goes for JP Stevens.

jonpin wrote: A couple of the question marks for Ridgewood are the coaching situation which is what it is and hopefully administration doesn't get in their way, and whether David, their spectacular eighth-grader, plays with the A team and is able to deliver similar results at the high school level. It's also a selfish hope of mine that this is the last year David is playing with Ridgewood.

As to the coaching situation in Ridgewood, basicallly, I will act as more of a chaperone and facilitator this year than anything. Partly this stems from the fact that Ben Bechtold (rising 10th grader with a lot of potential) is a legitimate threat to make the final rounds of the History Bee Nationals in JV, and I want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest as much as possible. And of course, I have a lot of other things to do, and will be out of the area 90% of the time. In terms of local tournaments, Ridgewood can in most cases get themselves there - for tournaments (HFT, HSNCT, possibly NSC) farther afield, I can help out with chaperoning as long as my schedule works out. But in any case, Ridgewood is very self-motivated at this point, and I don't expect the coaching situation to hold them back at all. I'm delighted how much they've caught the quizbowl bug, which was my #1 goal as a coach last year. My role going forward is really going to be to make sure that Ridgewood continues to field a solid team that attends many tournaments for years to come more than being a coach in the normal sense.

Yes I graduated, but I honestly have know idea which "YOLO" kid you are referring to, because we had several kids like that last year.

How many players on last year's Hunter A and Hunter B teams have graduated? Will Hunter A finally be beatable?

How many players on last year's Hunter A and Hunter B teams have graduated? Will Hunter A finally be beatable?

5: Lily Chen, York Chen, Richard Yu, Paul Moschetti, and David Xu. Hunter A will be Zihan Zheng Marianna Zhang Wilton Rao/Willie Ha/ WIlliam Dou most likely. They will be beatable if Roey has a fantastic game, gets good support, or Hunter A is missing a couple of people.

Thank you. Does anyone know how the last rounds will be run on Saturday? By naqt rules five teams will qualify for the nationals. Will teams who place 5-8 simply tie for 5th or will they have to play off?

Jake wrote:Will teams who place 5-8 simply tie for 5th or will they have to play off?

This is at the discretion of the tournament host.

ProfessorIanDuncan wrote:

How many players on last year's Hunter A and Hunter B teams have graduated? Will Hunter A finally be beatable?

5: Lily Chen, York Chen, Richard Yu, Paul Moschetti, and David Xu. Hunter A will be Zihan Zheng, Marianna Zhang, Wilton Rao/Willie Ha/William Dou most likely. They will be beatable if Roey has a fantastic game, gets good support, or Hunter A is missing a couple of people.

As for local tournaments, it seems that the A team will not be making full appearances often for varying reasons (work, Columbia shp, lack of transportation, parental disfavor).

Assuming the field stays at 32, all teams will play 7 prelims, 3 playoffs, and a final placement game. Each team will play 11 full games. Rank for 1-32 will be established.

Now that the first major tournament in our area has been completed, I am very interested in what everyone thought of the results and how the teams matched up. With a full tournament done, it should be easier to compare the teams for the 2012-2013 year.

In general, I thought that this tournament showed that, instead of having one or two unbeatable teams in our area, there are now several teams that comprise the top tier. Several teams that, while still delivering effective results, were not powerhouses at this tournament like they were last year, and if this competition proved anything, it's that no team is now untouchable and that any team can be beaten.

From what I have seen so far, it seems that most of the playoff teams were on relatively equal ground. Ranney narrowly defeated High Tech A 370-350 and won against Mountain Lakes A 510-230. Yet against Kellenburg A, who beat Mountain Lakes by a much slimmer margin, we lost in a game decided upon by the last three questions. In our prelims, we lost to Ridgewood A by 75 points, yet beat them very narrowly in our last game. Kellburg, meanwhile, lost to St. Joe's A on the last question in the finals. To me, it seems that (even though St. Joe's was undefeated) several of the top teams could have conceivably won, and that the top spot at tournaments will now be much more contested. Hunter A was not in contention today, but I don't know if they simply got much weaker from losing players or if their regular A team could not compete today.

Thoughts?

First, there's no reason to start a new thread for this. Just add it to the New Jersey Discussion.

That sounds like a fine idea. --Mgmt.

Secondly, my team probably came the closest to beating St. Joe's so they definitely were beatable as was everyone else. Because it was an A set, it shouldn't be read into too much. I can say for sure that on an IS set Irvington would not have done as well and differentiating teams would be much easier because the questions aren't such that one person can cover all the subjects as well. Hunter A was not even close to full strength. I honestly expected a lot of teams on even ground in NJ for the 2012-2013 year.

For anybody looking at FAcT results, the High Tech team there that won was more or less High Tech C, not A. They're very good in their own right, and deserve to be ranked separately.

We're about halfway home, and in my opinion we've got a clear favorite for state champion. High Tech has certainly weathered the loss of Grace and then some, regularly qualifying 2 or 3 teams to the top brackets. If they put their best players together (although looking briefly at their stats, I'm not sure that's an easy task), they've got a great chance to repeat as champions. St. Joseph is probably the most likely to keep them from that task. Ridgewood has gotten very good quickly and wouldn't surprise me if they made the finals at states.

Livingston, Bergen, High Tech "B" (whatever "B" is), Ranney are all on the next tier.
I don't know much about where Millburn or SHP are at present. Mountain Lakes could beat a second-tier team, but probably wouldn't contend for top four.

I may revise and extend my remarks at a later time.

Absolutely no doubt in my mind that High Tech and St. Joe's are the top two team in the State. 3rd and 4th are High Tech w/ Rohan and Adithya and Ridgewood. Livingston put up some amazing bonus numbers at Scarsdale and Millburn seems to put up similarly impress bonus conversion. However, they seem to be just a step behind the aforementioned teams in terms of prestige and winning the tossups are key for these teams. Mountain Lakes seems to be a good team but like Irvington suffers from a SERIOUS case of PLS (Post Lunch Slump). I see Ranney as a team that pulls an upset that will change the brackting for states completely because if Roey get a good packet watch out but i dont think they can maintain that same consistency throughout the tournament. Bergen played very well at Scarsdale and with a full team will be able to contend with any of these teams. SHP has not impressed me in particular this year but they are by no means a team to be written off.

Ridgewood is at least the 3rd best team in the state on HSAPQ/mACF, but possibly behind Ranney and comparable to Mt. Lakes on NAQT. Not sure how other schools vary in strength due to format changes, but the irony is that after revamping Ridgewood's team last year, their strongest subjects are my personal weakest and vice versa.

From our games at Seton Hall last September, it looks like Ranney and Ridgewood were evenly matched on NAQT (Though it was an A set, but still.) In our prelim game, RIdgewood beat us very narrowly. In a playoff game we had later in the tournament, we defeated them by the same margin. Those two games were probably the closest two matches Ranney has had all year. Only thing I could be missing was if Ridgeood didn't have all of their top four players (Ranney did.)

Jake wrote:From our games at Seton Hall last September... Only thing I could be missing
was if Ridgeood didn't have all of their top four players (Ranney did.)

Again, this was an A level set from September. Anything can happen.

I'd like to publicly apologize to St. Joe's for what we put them through during LIST at Columbia, where they basically played our school the whole day:

Prelims: High Tech D, plus 4 others
Playoffs: Hunter A, High Tech C, Bergen A, High Tech B, Ridgewood, High Tech A
Semifinals: High Tech A
Finals 1: High Tech B
Finals 2: High Tech B

At least... we decided against bringing an E team? I can't imagine how much y'all hate seeing our maroon jackets by now!

On a more serious note, this has got to be the most evenly matched circuit in the country. Lots of extremely close PPBs, and it looked like any team in the playoffs could beat any other, depending on how good a day they had. I started drawing graphs of score differential over time during playoffs, and it doesn't look like easy victories for anyone, but more like random walks. We seem to be alright in everything as a state except for science, which we still lack many specialists in; Livingston and Bergen look like they're the strongest in that. Being a stereotypically aloof co-captain, I didn't even realize High Tech B was getting so good, so now that's another team to add to the clump of 6ish top teams!

Livingston's NAQT this Saturday should be interesting; expect High Tech C to pull some amazing wins on packets that feel like 5/5 geography, as High Tech A has learned the hard way.

expect High Tech C to pull some amazing wins on packets that feel like 5/5 geography, as High Tech A has learned the hard way.

I personally really want to play those guys Saturday now. We'll see what happens then.

I personally really want to play those guys Saturday now. We'll see what happens then.

Unfortunately, Livingston conflicts with the Jersey Shore Science Fair, so High Tech C won't be at anything approaching full strength.

Will there be recognition again thus year for the best players in NJ? I remember last year people were given surveys of various players' results and asked to rank the top four. Will this be given again at State's tomorrow?

So with the state championship behind us, what do people think the NJ teams will achieve at nationals? High Tech is ridiculously deep, and St. Joseph's should also go far. Mountain Lakes was a surprise runner-up at states, but Andrew said IIRC that they finally had their A team all together, so maybe we'll see a similar performance at nationals. And of course Ridgewood could do quite well.

For whatever reason, Mountain Lakes just seems to do better on NAQT than housewrites. I don't know why considering that current and events and geography are not strengths of ours, but it is what it is. We got destroyed by Ridgewood at UPenn, but are 3-0 against them on NAQT which each win being by at least 115 points. The only times we've beaten High Tech this year, it's been on NAQT (twice against a mixture of the A/B/C team at Bloomfield and once against their B team on Saturday). As for our performance on Saturday, a few things happened. The full A team was together for an IS-set, we got a little lucky (we trailed High Tech B 180-25 before coming back to win 400-245), and we didn't lose any games we should have won.

As far as HSNCT goes:
I think the following teams have a very good chance of making playoffs and could potentially go 7-3 or 8-2: High Tech A, St. Joseph's
I think the following teams have a pretty good chance of makings playoffs: High Tech B, Ridgewood, Mountain Lakes, Millburn, Ranney, Livingston
MAST has an outside chance of making playoffs, Reuben's been putting up more ppg as the year has gone on, he'll need to play well and get some help from his teammates.