The Quizbowl Resource Center

The ASCN website is updated with the 2005 tournament information at http://www.amschol.org/

Savannah will be here... anyway we are very much out of the mainstream quizbowl area in the east/southeast, but we have an ok team. I can't wait for nationals to meet the big name teams I read about on here. Good luck for the remainder of your seasons.

LAMP will be at ASCN, then NAQT. 11 days in Chicago basically expense free. Fun.

Anyone else going?

Tippecanoe will be there, and I think Copley and Defiance from Ohio will also be in attendance.

It was realistically the only one we could go to that was compatible with our schedule. The team most wanted to attend NAQT, but there was no way three of our seniors could miss graduation.

This was always the national tournament I heard the least about when I played. Is the format similar to the Questions Unlimited NAC? I'm pretty sure I'll be an assistant coach next year and just want to know what the perception of this tournament is. I know PACE and NAQT are on one end of the quality spectrum and Chip's on the other. Where does ASCN fall?

ASCN has good questions written for speed oriented teams. They are very heavy in the humanities, with a good deal of science and very little math. In my opinion, the quality of ASCN is very good. It is well ran, and has moderators who actually will know a good deal of the subject matter covered, as well as being very familiar with the format making the matches run smoothly.

ASCN is a well-run and fairly-run tournament. The folks who run it love high school kids and love academic competition. They are good people.

The match format is straightforward in a 4-quarter format. Questions are mainly one-liners with no pyramiding or turns in them.

I took teams there for 14 straight years, 1989-2002.

As to which nationals are best, THAT is totally a matter of opinion. I like all of them except PAC. People vote with their feet, so to speak, as to which nationals they like. NAC and NAQT remain the most popular.

Thanks for the replies. My team (Edmonson County (KY)) went to NAC my junior and senior years ('98-'99) and I've always wished we had tried at least one of the others.

LAMP will be flying up to Chicago today, I guess, since it's 2 AM. Good luck to everyone at ASCN and NAQT, and we look forward to seeing you all there.

Just got a live report from ASCN. Seems there are 24 teams in this year's tournament. That's the smallest since year one back in 1987. Just my opinion, but I predict this is the last ASCN national tournament.

GA/SC teams at ASCN include Walton, Dorman, and James Island.

Any word on the complete field?

jrbarry wrote:Just got a live report from ASCN. Seems there are 24 teams in this year's tournament. That's the smallest since year one back in 1987. Just my opinion, but I predict this is the last ASCN national tournament.

If that's true, that's a great shame.

ASCN has been held in and around Chicago for many years. However, the only Illinios teams that have participated were generally from downstate (and even those have been few and far between). The entry fee is very steep, mostly because of the insistence that all teams have to "room" with the tournament. There was simply no way to justify spending that kind of money for a tournament that we could drive to every day. As a result, the tournament had virtually no local support. I know every year or so a few local teams would beg and plead: "we want to enter, but don't force us to room.....let us travel every day". The tournament organizers refused, and as a result a lot of local coaches never even considered sending a team. Around here there is far more support for NAQT and KMO than for ASCN, and considering it is a long standing tournament, it really shouldn't necessarily be that way.

The shame of it is, this tournament could have cultivated a larger field, and more importantly gotten a lot of grassroots support from the Chicago area, if the organizers had chosen to be more inclusive vs. exclusive. I would bet that this tournament could have easily worked up to drawing 4 or 5 top Illinois teams every year (or more). It could have gone a long way to helping ensure the touranment's health.

The problem is not few to zero Illinois teams. ASCN had 60+ teams in the 1990s even with no Illinois teams.

jrbarry wrote:The problem is not few to zero Illinois teams. ASCN had 60+ teams in the 1990s even with no Illinois teams.

I know the tournament used to be bigger, and enjoyed wide spread support for some time.....but it seems to me that the really successful tournaments have support locally at some level (PAC is more at the corporate/state level....PACE seems to be more local or regional....NAQT is more national because it moves its championship around, but it seems that at most sites it receives support from local schools).

I was merely noting that ASCN did not enjoy that relationship in Illinois, and as an Illinois coach, I felt it a shame that we had a national tournament in our backyard that many of us couldn't see spending the money to attend; and as a result, we generally didn't give it any support.

I'm certain the reason the tournament is on harder times now is not because of anything that happened in Illinois. I am just noting that it is a shame that the tournament seems to not be as popular as it once was.

from today, i heard that Savannah beat Dorman by a lot, James Island scored 600+ on someone, and Walton beat LAMP by over 100. Also heard that the questions are a lot more one-linerish than ever before. Just hearsay, though.

jrbarry wrote:Just got a live report from ASCN. Seems there are 24 teams in this year's tournament. That's the smallest since year one back in 1987. Just my opinion, but I predict this is the last ASCN national tournament.

GA/SC teams at ASCN include Walton, Dorman, and James Island.

The website lists 28 total teams.

Scores are also posted up to R2 (as of 11:00 AM ET Saturday).

Dr Chuck is correct. There are 28 teams playing at ASCN and not the 24 I reported. Mrs. Meek (James Island coach) corrected her error of yesterday today when she called me.

Jame Island (SC), Benton (AR), Walton (GA), Savannah (MO), Edmond Santa Fe (OK) were the undefeated teams she listed for me. She said someone alse was undefeatred but she could nbot rec all who it was. She said the top 4 seeds in the 16-team playoff should be decided by 10am on Sunday.

I think that the other undefeated team at ASCN is Spotswood.

Mac Hanna

as of 5pm CDT, the top 4 seeds are as follows:

1. Benton (AR) and Walton (GA) are TIED and will need to flip a coin to decide that one.

3. Jame Island (SC) beat Spotswood on a tiebreaker...has 5 points less than Walton/Benton.
4. Savannah (MO)

The next five will PROBABLY be

5. Dorman (SC)
6. Spotswood (VA)
7. Copley (OH)
8. Tippecanoe (OH)

5-8 are in the process of being determined this evening.

Playoffs start on MONDAY afternoon.

jrbarry wrote: 1. Benton (AR) and Walton (GA) are TIED and will need to flip a coin to decide that one.

Is the concept of tiebreaker rounds lost on these people?

ASCN was flipping coins before anything like a tiebreaker round was invented!

Personally, I would rather a tiebreaker round as well.

Flip a coin? What??

On your first day at this tournament, does Rod Serling come up to you and say "There is a fifth dimension. . . beyond that which is known to man?"

You know, this whole spirit of games of chance, paired with the excessive amount of hold em played at quizbowl camp (not that I'm complaining, I love hold em) leads me to believe that we will see NAQT HSNCT 2008: MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

Come to town, play a few matches, drop a grand or two. All in a day's work.

I think there already was a hs national in Las Vegas. 1996? Mr. Barry's team was even there if I recall correctly.

Las Vegas, 1996! Hosted by UNLV. We (Brookwood) beat Edison (CA) in the finals and won $5000.00 cash as I recall.

DumbJaques wrote:Flip a coin? What??

On your first day at this tournament, does Rod Serling come up to you and say "There is a fifth dimension. . . beyond that which is known to man?"

You know, this whole spirit of games of chance, paired with the excessive amount of hold em played at quizbowl camp (not that I'm complaining, I love hold em) leads me to believe that we will see NAQT HSNCT 2008: MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

Come to town, play a few matches, drop a grand or two. All in a day's work.

Since Vegas already had one, why not have one at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City?

The problem with Vegas is that you run the risk of 2AM dorm evacuations because someone brings back a hooker, who ends up macing him (and it gets into the ventilation system).

Ahh, there was a money prize? Congrats. We didn't fare so well in the other semifinal from y'all.

Do we have any updates?... they seem to take their sweet time updating the website and I'm curious to see how everything turned out...

Quarterfinals tomorrow at ASCN

Walton (GA) versus Edmond Santa Fe (OK)
Dorman (SC) versus Savannah (MO)

Benton (AR) versus Spotswood (VA)
James Island (SC) versus Copley (OH)

Word is that any of seven of those teams (not Santa Fe) could win it and no one there would be surprised. Very even performances so far.

We (tippecanoe) just got home from ASCN.
I think that Walton, Dorman, Spotswood, Copley or Savannah will win it.
James Island was good, but not overwhelming. Benton really didn't play anyone good in the prelims so its yet to be seen if they are good enough to win it.

Benton does have one real advantage going for it, though: the format. In Arkansas, this is the format they're accustomed to for their regional and state championship. It was all the difference in Northside (Fort Smith, AR) winning over a heavily favored Eisenhower (Sterling Heights, MI) team back in 2001. Nobody really gave Northside a chance, but they were good on the format and won over a very talented field.

That said, yes, Benton really hasn't had much competition thus far. But don't count them out just yet.

Dorman came from six questions down to defeat James Island in the finals of the ASCN.

Byko:

Many of us at ASCN in 2001 were not surprised when Eisenhower lost to Northside in the quarterfinals that year. Northside had a great and experienced team. BTW, Northside beat my team (Brookwood) in the championship match that year.

Dorman beat James Island in an awesome come-from-behind, and Walton was 3rd, Spotswood 4th.

Some interesting upsets in the bracket...
Round of 16, all higher seeds won except for #9 Santa Fe defeating #8 Centerpoint
Round of 8, #5 Dorman defeated #4 Savannah in their rematch, only a five point difference nail-biter, and #7 Spotswood beat #2 Benton in a match I'll not comment on since I have a slight conflict of interest.
Round of 4, the now #4 Dorman defeated #1 Walton, and the now #2 Spotswood was defeated by #3 James Island.
Round of 2, #1 Dorman beat #2 James Island.

As said earlier, there were a lot of brilliant teams this year, and it was really anyone's game... Dorman was extremely strong, but they lost to Savannah in prelims and were down going into the final round of the tournament to James Island. Savannah and Benton had excellent prelim records. James Island almost lost to Spotswood but got a tiebreaker to leave the prelims I believe 3-0. Tippecanoe's Zach was pretty quick on the buzzer, and they started the prelims strong before running into bad luck. I never got to see Walton play, but they are perenially a team to beat. Copley and LAMP were also strong teams with some impressive games.

If there are any errors in my post, I apologize profusely, as I'm trying to recount the tournament from memory. :)