The Quizbowl Resource Center

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence is pleased to announce that this year’s NSC will be taking place at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD on June 8-9, 2013.

Like last year’s tournament, the 2013 NSC will be directed by Matt Weiner, formerly of VCU, and head edited by Eric Mukherjee of UPenn’s medical school.

The field is capped at 64 teams. Once registration opens, I’ll be maintaining a list of registered teams on our website. Platinum-qualified teams may register here beginning December 1, gold-qualified teams on January 1, teams that have qualified at two or more affiliated tournaments on January 15, and teams that have qualified at one affiliated tournament on February 1.

UPDATE: This year's fee structure is posted on our website.

The tournament will also use the same game format as last year. Games will continue to consist of 20 tossups and up to 20 bonuses, with missed bonus parts bouncing back to the other team. The All-Star Game will once again be played on academic questions.

Teams are welcome and encouraged to stay for finals, awards, and the All-Star Game and are consequently advised not to book flights departing earlier than 7 PM on Sunday.

Once we have hotel recommendations prepared, I’ll edit a link to them into this post.

If you have any questions about the NSC or PACE in general, please e-mail me (Sarah Angelo), PACE’s Vice President of Communication, at [email protected].

We hope you’ll join us in College Park.

Travel Information:

Some hotel recommendations for this tournament:

PACE's official staff hotel for the 2013 NSC is the Marriott Inn and Conference Center http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/w ... y-college/

This hotel is located on the University of Maryland campus and is within walking distance of the tournament. PACE has made arrangements with the Marriott to allow teams to stay there at a special group rate of $99 per room per night (plus tax). In order to receive this rate, teams should call the hotel and ask to reserve rooms under the "PACE Team Block."

Other hotels in the area which may be of interest include:

The Clarion Inn College Park:
http://www.clarionhotel.com/hotel-colle ... land-MD169

Comfort Inn and Suites:
http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD611

Quality Inn:
http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD021

The carless should be aware that the posted hotels on route 1 are easily walkable to the campus. More options in the greater DC area are available for those who are driving to the tournament each day. We can provide feedback on the accessibility to the tournament of a given town or, when possible, on the quality of a given hotel. In general staying closer to the tournament and somewhere easily accessible via either Beltway or local road is suggested; there is no conceivable reason for an out-of-town team to stay in Virginia or anything like that.

*Parking: If we are in the buildings we expect to be in, then the Regents Drive garage (located soon after turning right at the large M roundabout after entering the campus from US-1) is the place to park. It will charge either nothing or exactly $5 on weekend days, depending on whether other events are taking place nearby. Those who are staying at the on-campus hotel or nearby may wish to avoid the issue by walking to the tournament if possible.

*Driving: Expect traffic on Friday evening in the DC area. Those coming from the south should use a local route via 295, Kenilworth Ave, and Paint Branch Parkway for quickest access to the campus, but allot extra time for Friday travel in any case. On Saturday and Sunday, it will not be as bad, though if you are coming in on Saturday morning from outside of Maryland, some stop-and-go on I-95 or the Beltway is possible.

*Getting to campus without driving: See the bottom of http://www.international.umd.edu/oip/332 for airport-to-College Park metro options. Reagan/National is probably the easiest airport to do this from as you don't need to take any intermediary forms of transportation to get into the Metro system. For those using Amtrak, you can take the red line from Union Station towards Glenmont, switch to the green line towards Greenbelt at Fort Totten, and arrive at College Park metro similarly. From the College Park stop, it's about a mile walk to the campus or to the US-1 hotels. Some people claim that the Maryland shuttle bus, which runs regularly on weekdays, does not check IDs. PACE officially disclaims support for engaging in the very easy and free practice of riding the shuttle directly from the metro stop to the campus.

For $1.75, you can ride the C8 or J4 MetroBus lines from the Metro stop through the campus, including to the intersection with University Boulevard, which is where the Marriot is.

The various buses do not regularly run on weekends at an hour early enough for you to get to the tournament on time. If you are arriving on Saturday morning on public transit, you should plan to walk or call a cab, allowing time for its arrival.

*Eating: Standard fast food selections, places that will deliver pizza, and local favorites such as Cluckster's and Plato's are in College Park. Essentially all of your food options are along US-1. Those looking for finer dining should be prepared to travel out to Silver Spring or Bethesda.

Last night I sent out an e-mail to all teams that have qualified for the NSC in affiliated tournaments that have sent in their results. If you think your team should have qualified at a tournament and didn't receive that e-mail, send me a message at [email protected] with the name of the tournament and I'll try to investigate what happened.

And don't forget that teams that qualified at Platinum certified tournaments can start registered on 12/1. We'll be announcing the details of how exactly you register soon.

This year, we'll be asking that teams make their registration official via a $100 down payment to help us confirm that registered teams are indeed seriously planning to attend. We are happy to refund said $100 once full payment is received if teams are being paid for by their school district. Dan Goff, our VP of Technology, is in the process of setting up an online payment system for us, the specifics of which will be announced before registration opens. We will also continue to accept checks. Thanks!

The updated fee structure is now available on our website. I'll edit both this link and the link to our registration form into the first post of this thread. I apologize for the delay; please note the handful of changes from last year. Registration opens for platinum-qualified teams in just about four hours.

In case it wasn't clear, Sarah's link to the payment structure also has a link to the form where you can register teams.

Just an FYI: You have Kellenberg's LIFT tournament of October 20th listed as a Platinum qualifying tournament, but it appears that none of the 7 teams that finished as actual qualifiers at Kellenberg on your list of teams eligible to register starting today, December 1st, on your current PACE website.

Edward Powers wrote:Just an FYI: You have Kellenberg's LIFT tournament of October 20th listed as a Platinum qualifying tournament, but it appears that none of the teams that finished as actual qualifiers on your list of teams eligible to register starting today, December 1st, on your current PACE website.

Mike Bentley wrote a script that's handling this this year, which is ideally more efficient than any of us humans could be; I've emailed him about this and it should hopefully be taken care of soon. The script not being able to think for itself has resulted in some things such as schools being listed on the site multiple times under slightly different names; I'll clean that up manually after finals, if you all will excuse me two weeks of no spare time. In any case, as with last year, not being listed on the website does not indicate that you are unable to register. If you've received email notification about platinum status, you're good to go.

Thanks Sarah. Good luck on your finals!

One other note: we realize that it may be hard to get the down payment sent from the school quickly, in which case the coach may choose to pay it out of his or her own pocket. Should a team choose this option, and should the school then pay the full registration fee, we will be happy to reimburse the coach the full amount of the down payment.

I.E. Suppose team A's registration fee is $450, and the coach pays $100 out of pocket to secure registration. If the school sends PACE a check for $450, we will then return $100 to the coach.

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:

Edward Powers wrote:Just an FYI: You have Kellenberg's LIFT tournament of October 20th listed as a Platinum qualifying tournament, but it appears that none of the teams that finished as actual qualifiers on your list of teams eligible to register starting today, December 1st, on your current PACE website.

Mike Bentley wrote a script that's handling this this year, which is ideally more efficient than any of us humans could be; I've emailed him about this and it should hopefully be taken care of soon. The script not being able to think for itself has resulted in some things such as schools being listed on the site multiple times under slightly different names; I'll clean that up manually after finals, if you all will excuse me two weeks of no spare time. In any case, as with last year, not being listed on the website does not indicate that you are unable to register. If you've received email notification about platinum status, you're good to go.

I see the problem here. Due to a bug, the TD wasn't sent the form to enter the top teams at the tournament. I've fixed this and the results will be posted on our website once we get a response from the TD. Sorry for the glitches here. Overall this allows us process certifications much faster than in the past, but we're still ironing out a couple of bugs in the system.

The field for this tournament is being tracked here.

Teams that have qualified in gold-affiliated tournaments can now register for the NSC.

The registration form can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... VXR5N1E6MQ
Full info on payment can be found here: http://www.pace-nsc.org/?p=2547

Schools that have qualified at two or more affiliated tournaments are now welcome to register using the form in Mike's post above this one.

All teams that have qualified for the 2013 NSC are now welcome to register.

We are also now accepting wildcard applications from interested teams who have not qualified by other means. If you are interested in pursuing a wildcard bid, please send a summary of your team's performance this year (including links to stats if you can) to Fred Morlan (fredmorlan AT gmail DOT com).

I'll just post it plain, because those attempts to trick spammers don't work any more and Gmail is good at keeping my address clean as is: my email is [email protected] . If you wish, you can also private message me on this board.

Some hotel recommendations for this tournament:

PACE's official staff hotel for the 2013 NSC is the Marriott Inn and Conference Center <http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/w ... y-college/>

This hotel is located on the University of Maryland campus and is within walking distance of the tournament. PACE has made arrangements with the Marriott to allow teams to stay there at a special group rate of $99 per room per night (plus tax). In order to receive this rate, teams should call the hotel and ask to reserve rooms under the "PACE Team Block."

Other hotels in the area which may be of interest include:

The Clarion Inn College Park:
http://www.clarionhotel.com/hotel-colle ... land-MD169

Comfort Inn and Suites:
http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD611

Quality Inn:
http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD021

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:Some hotel recommendations for this tournament:

PACE's official staff hotel for the 2013 NSC is the Marriott Inn and Conference Center <http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/w ... y-college/>

This hotel is located on the University of Maryland campus and is within walking distance of the tournament. PACE has made arrangements with the Marriott to allow teams to stay there at a special group rate of $99 per room per night (plus tax). In order to receive this rate, teams should call the hotel and ask to reserve rooms under the "PACE Team Block."

Other hotels in the area which may be of interest include:

The Clarion Inn College Park:
http://www.clarionhotel.com/hotel-colle ... land-MD169

Comfort Inn and Suites:
http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD611

Quality Inn:
http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-college ... land-MD021

I've now edited this and further travel information/recommendations into the first post.

As we approach 64 teams having filled out our registration form, I want to remind all teams of this year's policy that they are not considered officially registered until Aaron Rosenberg has received their deposit (or full payment). Remember that payment should be mailed to:
Aaron Rosenberg
901 W. Springfield Avenue
Apartment 17
Urbana, IL 61801
and that this address is different from last year, as Aaron has moved. Payment via Google Checkout is also possible; contact Aaron Rosenberg at [email protected] for details or if you need your invoice re-sent.

Please note in accordance with this policy that the first 64 teams to submit a deposit and/or full payment will be considered the initial full field for the tournament, regardless of the order in which they submitted their online form. All other teams will be placed on a waiting list.

Does PACE publish their packet distributions and sub-distributions? The last I could find was a discussion made about changes for the 2010 distribution. Is 4/4 for each of the big 3, 3/3 for RMP and Fine Arts with 1/1 for Geog/Cur.Events/Pop Culture and 1/1 for Social Science still the current distribution? Are sub-distributions ever published?

Thanks!

Last year they posted the distribution here; I do not know if it has changed for this year.

Mewto55555 wrote:Last year they posted the distribution here; I do not know if it has changed for this year.

I am pretty sure that it hasn't changed, but I'll confirm.

The 2013 NSC field is currently full at 64 teams. Because of our room limitations, it will not be possible to expand the field. A waiting list has been started for all other interested teams. Teams who have already filled out the registration form can join the waiting list by mailing in their $100 down payment; these checks will not be cashed unless their teams enter the field and will be returned in the event that their team does not enter the field. Teams will join the waitlist in the order in which a check is received.

Also, we have decided to move the payment deadline back. All registration fees must now be postmarked by May 1*. For every day after that, a $15 late fee will be added. If your complete registration fee is not received by May 8, PACE reserves the right to drop your team from the tournament.

*Unless I have made a special arrangement with you.

Anyone interested in signing up a standby team for this tournament should contact me (Sarah Angelo) at [email protected].

Official Waitlist:

EDIT: The waitlist is now empty due to the field expansion!

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:Anyone interested in signing up a standby team for this tournament should contact me (Sarah Angelo) at [email protected].

By the way, the role of a standby team is to fill in for any last minute drops in the field. Standby teams do not have to pay the registration, but are not guaranteed a spot in the tournament. They're usually reserved for local teams that are able to attend on short notice.

Mike Bentley wrote:

Mewto55555 wrote:Last year they posted the distribution here; I do not know if it has changed for this year.

I am pretty sure that it hasn't changed, but I'll confirm.

The only thing different in the distribution from last year to this year is that this year the tiebreakers will consist of questions evenly distributed from all categories, and not just history/literature/science.

One more thing. We'll continue to use this program for handling bonus replacements/protests: http://www.doc-ent.com/quizbowl/PACEBouncebacks.exe.

If anyone out there is interested in staffing this tournament and haven't already heard from us, please send an e-mail to Jacob Wasserman at [email protected] for more information. We're especially interested in staffers within driving distance.

Staffers will be provided lodging and some meals. We can also offer a small amount of monetary compensation to local staffers.

Can someone clue us in about how the field expansion is working?

An updated format and some other info is located here. If you have other specific questions, go ahead and someone will answer them.

This post contains important information about various aspects of tournament logistics. If any questions or concerns remain unanswered after you have read this message, please feel free to contact our tournament director, Matt Weiner ([email protected]).

SCHEDULE OUTLINE

Most importantly, the basic when and where is as follows:

All registration & meeting activities will take place in the Physics Building (http://www.umd.edu/CampusMaps/bld_detai ... d_code=PHY). The team meeting will be in lecture hall 1412 and signs will be posted in and near that room regarding where to line up for registration & so forth.

Instructions on accessing the Maryland campus through various means of transportation are found at the bottom of this post: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 55#p252055

Some important information is recapped here:


For teams staying at the on-campus Marriott: You can get to the building by walking about one mile east (i.e., towards Route 1) on Campus Drive or Fieldhouse Drive. If weather or other circumstances prevent you from walking, you should drive south to the Campus Drive roundabout and turn left (north) to reach the Regents Drive parking garage.

For those staying at Route 1 hotels or traveling to the tournament from outside of College Park using the Metro system or the interstate, you will enter campus from the Campus Drive/Paint Branch Parkway/Route 1 entrance, travel straight (west) to the large Campus Drive roundabout with the M on it, and turn right (north) at the roundabout to reach the Regents Drive parking garage. Do not use the University Boulevard entrance on Route 1 if you are coming from the north; continue moving south to the Campus Drive entrance and you will have a much quicker & easier time finding the buildings from there.

The Physics building is just across the street and a few dozen feet south of the parking garage.
Anyone who is staying outside of College Park and using the Metro on Saturday morning should have a backup plan. The system does not open until 7 AM on weekends. This means that your first opportunity to depart at the College Park station and walk to the campus is somewhat later than 7 AM, with how late being determined by where exactly you are coming from. If you miss the first train or there is a delay in the system, be prepared to call a cab so that you do not arrive late.

Registration will begin at 7:00 AM on Saturday, June 8 and run until 8:15 AM, when the team meeting will begin. Round 1 begins at 9:00 AM. Ample time will be allotted to run the team meeting and for teams to walk to games taking place in other buildings by 9:00.

To be very clear, this means, not only, that teams need to be present in their rooms by 9:00, but that they need to get to the registration desk before 8:58--if a team shows up two minutes under the wire and finds out their building is a ten minute walk away, we will NOT hold the game for them. Teams arriving at any point after 8:15 are considered late and risk missing part or all of the prelims.

Please make sure that, if your contact cell phone number has changed since you filled out the registration form, you send us the new number. If it is past 8:00 and you are on your way to the tournament but not yet there, call George Berry at (804) 201-3213 to let us know what's going on; we will call you using the number we have on file for your team if we don't hear from you by 8:15. At9:00 AM, any team that has not shown up to Round 1 and has not been in contact with us by phone (either by calling us or by answering our call at the provided number) about the reasons for the delay will be replaced by a standby team, and will NOT have an opportunity to participate in the tournament even if they arrive later.

There will be a lunch break on Saturday at a time announced on-site. There are a limited number of fast food establishments in the on-campus student union that will be open, as well as many off-campus restaurants on Route 1 within walking distance during lunch. We will provide directions on-site for suggested lunch options. Saturday gameplay is expected to end by 6:30 PM with no additional meal break.
There will be no general meeting on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, and you will return directly to your scheduled Round 13 game room on Sunday by 8:15. We will begin calling after absent teams at that time; the "round starts with or without you" time is 8:30.

Please be advised that all team-provided buzzers will be available to retrieve starting at 11:30 AM in Physics. Teams remaining as participants or spectators in the superplayoff rounds and beyond may leave the buzzers with us until the conclusion of the tournament. Buzzers will NOT be available for retrieval before 11:30 AM on Sunday. Please do NOT make travel plans that depend on you picking up buzzers before this time. Teams who leave before 11:30 or forget to pick up their buzzers at the designated time before leaving will be responsible for paying the shipping on buzzers that we send back to you after the fact.

All teams except those in the top tier of the playoffs will be done by 11:00. All teams are invited and encouraged to watch the remainder of the superplayoffs and the finals after your own participation is complete.

We especially encourage teams to stay (or return) for the final events on Sunday: the tournament finals, the all-star game, and the NSC awards presentation. The finals have traditionally been riveting. There will also be many awards that your team members may be eligible for, and the all-star game will feature audience participation with book and gift card prizes for spectators. This proved to be a very popular and enjoyable event for the audience last year.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

The prelim format will be 9 seeded brackets of 8, with the top two going to the championship playoff group of 18, the next two to the second playoff group of 18, the next two to the third group of 18, and the last two to the fourth group of 18. The playoff groups will each be divided into three brackets of six and play round robins. After the conclusion of the playoff round robins in round 12, teams in the second, third, and fourth tiers will play crossover superplayoffs based on whether they finished in the top two, next two, or bottom two of their playoff group, over rounds 13-16, and then those teams will be done. Teams in the top tier will play crossover superplayoffs based on finishing in the top or bottom three of their playoff group, which requires six games plus a bye and will extend to round 19 for those teams only. The championship superplayoff teams will be ranked by record against other superplayoff teams and then play an ACF-style final (clear by 2 wins outright, ahead by 1 gets advantage in weighted best-of-three, tie played off on one game).

All ties determining which playoff tier you make out of the prelims and which superplayoff group you make out of the playoffs will be played off on half packets. Ties for final placement within the top playoff tier will be played off on half packets. Only ties after prelims and then ties within the top playoff tier will be broken on half-packets; ties for superplayoff groups in tiers 2-4 will be broken on playoff PPG, and ties for final place in those superplayoff groups will stand as ties. Ties for entrance into the final will be played off on half or full packets as applicable to the size of the tie. Thus: All teams will play through round 16 on Sunday morning regardless of prelim performance. The top 18 teams will play through at least round 19. During round 20, ties for spots 3-18 will be broken.


Out of respect for both teams who were excluded from the tournament based on the field cap and your scheduled opponents, it is very important that you play out the entirety of your schedule even if you are not in contention for the championship. Please do not fail to show up on Sunday or otherwise leave early.
Please let Matt know if you have any questions about the tournament format.


ROSTERS & PROGRAM INFORMATION

If you have not yet filled out your team information form, please do so here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GZIh7E ... 0/viewform. The deadline for filling out this form is Sunday, 6/3. If you need to amend your entry or review what you filled out, please let Mike Bentley ([email protected]) know. Also, we could still use team pictures if you want those included in the team program. Send them to Mike if you have any such photos.
We posted the complete sub-distribution of the tournament at viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11994.

There have been no changes to the tournament rules since last year. The 2012 rules and a list of major changes from 2011 can be found here: http://www.pace-nsc.org/?p=1717.

PAYMENT & DISCOUNTS
Please contact PACE Treasurer Aaron Rosenberg at [email protected] if you have not yet paid for the tournament. Also, if you wish to sign up a team-provided scorekeeper for a discount (or you indicated 1 or more scorekeepers when you registered but did not follow up with their names and contact information) get in touch with staff coordinator Jacob Wasserman at [email protected].

We look forward to your participation in this year's NSC. Please get in touch with Matt if you have any questions.

If you are staffing this tournament and didn't get an update from me by e-mail just now, let me or Jacob know.

Will someone be liveblogging games?

AlexLiu wrote:Will someone be liveblogging games?

We don't plan on having an official live blog this year, although we are tentatively planning on streaming some of the top bracket games.

Anybody want to post the pools?

ether a go-go wrote:Anybody want to post the pools?

DIXON:

AMSA A
Carbondale
Detroit Catholic Central A
Harmony
High Tech A
Hunter B
Maggie Walker B
Norcross

BIAS:

Belvidere North
Bloomington
Cistercian
Detroit Catholic Central B
Dorman B
Manheim Township
Sharon
Wilmington Charter B

SMITH:

Auburn
Bergen
Detroit Country Day
Fort Osage
Kellenberg
LASA A
Lisgar
Raleigh Charter A

VASQUEZ:

Blacksburg
Dunbar B
High Tech C
Oakland Mills
Norman
Ridgewood
"Robert E. Lee"
Stevenson A

LUCAS:

Divine Child
Dublin Scioto
Ladue
Northmont
Pikeville
Raleigh Charter B
Thomas Jefferson A
Torrey Pines

MCMILLEN:

AMSA B
Dunbar A
Gonzaga
Hanover
Hickman A
LASA B
Loyola
Thomas Jefferson B

WILLIAMS:

DMHS
Dorman A
George Mason
IMSA B
Richard Montgomery
Sidney
Thomas Jefferson C
Wilmington Charter A

KING:

Hickman B
High Tech B
IMSA A
Maggie Walker A
Metea Valley
Olmsted Falls
St. Anselm's
Walnut Hills

ELMORE:

Centennial
Hunter A
LASA C
Montgomery Blair
Mountain Lakes
Richard Montgomery B
Stevenson B
Summit North

Staff and teams have been dispersed to rooms and round 1 is about to get underway.

Will today's results be posted this evening?

Prelims & tiebreakers have concluded and teams are on their way to their first playoff game. We will have prelim stats up in a few minutes. Here are the seeds/tiers.

Teams who earned playoff seeds 1-18 comprise Tier 1 and are still in contention for the championship.

1 Ladue
2 LASA A
3 DCC A
4 Dorman A
5 Robert E. Lee
6 Maggie Walker A
7 Montgomery Blair
8 LASA B
9 Cistercian
10 Thomas Jefferson A
11 Raleigh Charter A
12 High Tech A
13 Richard Montgomery A
14 Ridgewood
15 IMSA A
16 Hunter A
17 Loyola Academy
18 Dorman B
19 Torrey Pines
20 Auburn
21 Norcross
22 DMHS
23 Stevenson A
24 Olmsted Falls
25 Mountain Lakes
26 Hickman A
27 Belvidere North
28 Northmont
29 Detroit Country Day
30 Carbondale
31 Wilmington Charter A
32 Oakland Mills
33 High Tech B
34 LASA C
35 Dunbar A
36 DCC B
37 Pikeville
38 Bergen
39 Maggie Walker B
40 IMSA B
41 High Tech C
42 St. Anselm's
43 Richard Montgomery B
44 Gonzaga
45 Manheim Township
46 Raleigh Charter B
47 Kellenberg
48 Hunter B
49 Sidney
50 Blacksburg
51 Metea Valley
52 Centennial
53 AMSA B
54 W. Charter B
55 Dublin Scioto
56 Lisgar
57 Harmony
58 George Mason
59 Norman
60 Walnut Hills
61 Summit North
62 Hanover
63 Bloomington
64 Divine Child
65 Fort Osage
66 AMSA A
67 Thomas Jefferson C
68 Dunbar B
69 Hickman B
70 Stevenson B
71 Thomas Jefferson B
72 Sharon

Stats are here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... standings/

The following four top scorers have clinched spots in the all-star game:

Max Schindler (Senior, Ladue, 169 PPG)
Dylan Minarik (Senior, Belvidere North, 139 PPG)
Siddhant Dogra (Senior, Detroit Country Day, 113 PPG)
"Carson Davis" (Junior, "Robert E. Lee", 106 PPG)

What relationship do the above playoff seeds have with playoff pools? It's pretty clear from a number of comparisons that that list isn't teams ranked by win-loss, then PPB or PPG or any other metric.

The rankings are all dependent on the PPG of the top team in the bracket--e.g., "the team that finished fourth in the bracket where the top team was the third-best top team" goes to a pre-defined place. This was a good compromise between trying to rank every team (creates delays as in past years) and entirely abandoning ranks and pre-setting which brackets get which playoff spots (can toss the top 2 teams into the same pool or create similar undesirable outcomes).

So, then, are the playoff pools constructed by snake-drafting the teams 1-18 into 3 pools? (If so, LASA B and Loyola are going to play each other again?)

Part of the pre-determined seeding was making sure that teams from the same prelim bracket do not play each other in the initial playoff pools (though of course both can end up in the same superplayoff group). The pools for the top tier are:

A:
Ladue
Maggie Walker A
Montgomery Blair
High Tech A
Richard Montgomery A
Dorman B

B:
LASA A
Robert E. Lee
LASA B
Thomas Jefferson A
IMSA A
Hunter A

C:
DCC A
Dorman A
Cistercian
Raleigh Charter A
Ridgewood
Loyola

The top three from each pool move on to the championship side of the superplayoffs.

The lack of a liveblog or any kind of live statistics is very disappointing. I was hoping to follow the tournament as it happened, but I've completely given up at this point.

Through round 10 in the top tier:

Group A: Ladue 3-0, Montgomery Blair 3-0, Maggie Walker A 2-1, Dorman B 1-2, High Tech A 0-3, Richard Montgomery A 0-3
Group B: LASA A 3-0, Thomas Jefferson A 2-1, LASA B 2-1, Robert E. Lee 1-2, IMSA A 1-2, Hunter A 0-3
Group C: Dorman A 3-0, DCC 2-1, Cistercian 2-1, Loyola 2-1, Raleigh Charter A 0-3, Ridgewood 0-3

Through round 11:

Group A: Montgomery Blair 4-0, Ladue 3-1, Maggie Walker A 3-1, Dorman B 1-3, High Tech A 1-3, Richard Montgomery A 0-4
Group B: LASA A 4-0, Thomas Jefferson A 3-1, LASA B 2-2, Robert E. Lee 2-2, IMSA A 1-3, Hunter A 0-4
Group C: Dorman A 3-1, Cistercian 3-1, Loyola 3-1, DCC A 2-2, Raleigh Charter A 1-3, Ridgewood 0-4

Round 12 matchups:
Ladue v High Tech A, Richard Montgomery A v Dorman B, Maggie Walker A v Montgomery Blair
LASA A v Thomas Jefferson A, IMSA A v Hunter A, Robert E. Lee v. LASA B
DCC A v Raleigh Charter A, Ridgewood v Loyola, Dorman A v Cistercian

Montgomery Blair, Ladue, Maggie Walker A, LASA A, and Thomas Jefferson A have clinched championship superplayoff spots.
LASA B, Robert E. Lee, Dorman A, Cistercian, DCC A, and Loyola are the six teams still in contention for the other four spots in the championship superplayoff.

Championship superplayoff division with carry-over record:

Detroit Catholic Central A 1-1
Dorman A 1-1
Ladue 1-1
LASA A 2-0
LASA B 1-1
Loyola 1-1
Maggie Walker A 1-1
Montgomery Blair 1-1
Thomas Jefferson A 0-2

Match schedule for championship superplayoffs tomorrow:



Full superplayoff seeds for all teams & the playoff stats will be posted tonight.

Charles Martel wrote:The lack of a liveblog or any kind of live statistics is very disappointing. I was hoping to follow the tournament as it happened, but I've completely given up at this point.

With several control rooms, it would have been difficult to be posting stats on a consistent basis tournament-wide, and liveblogging frequently is more fluff than information because we can't discuss question content. However, now that we're in the superplayoffs tomorrow morning, I will make sure that each score of a top-18 game is tweeted either on the PACE twitter or with hashtag #pacensc as soon as possible, keeping in mind that our primary concern is the on-site organization and pace of the tournament. I'll see what I can do to get stats for Tier I posted after every round, but I'm not sure what needs to happen to get that onto the right entry on HSQB/DB.

But, of course, our priority is the people who are actually at the tournament, competing. All else comes second.

Hey, I'm having connectivity problems from the campus wifi, so I'll post seeds and stats when i get back to the hotel in a little while. They will also be printed and posted tmw morning.