The Quizbowl Resource Center

Post news, rumors, and especially hearsay reports of bad hygiene in this thread! And don't wait until tomorrow to start, either. If your team is planning on raiding the minibar tonight, let us know.

It'll be fun to find out which is the ridiculous 1 loss wonder team this year.

Wall of Shawarma wrote:It'll be fun to find out which is the ridiculous 1 loss wonder team this year.

Is there free wifi at the hotel? Or am I dreaming since this is a business hotel with astronomical fees for that service?

- from the airport

$12.95 for 24 hours....

Good luck everyone, about to head down soon to scrimmage...

Look for me, I'm wearing a shirt that says "I [brain] WUHSAC."

Chris Ray, are you here?

Read 5 practice rounds tonight; the best of the lot was Stuyvesant v Dunbar. 325-305 to the New Yorkers...both teams should make good runs into Sunday.

Ran into most of the Ohio contingent, including Lowellville. Haven't seen Loveland yet, but apparently their shirts are rather...bright.

Giordano's was pretty good for lunch, but Chikago delivery for dinner is pretty good too.

We played 4 or 5 matches tonight. It was a fun time, and I hope it warms us up for tomorrow.

And hooray for living close enough to the tournament venue -- free internet access!

Robert and the NAQT crew have been GREAT so far. Scrimmages have been fun. The TV crew is great too -- it'll be fun to see what they end up producing.

Good luck to all.

Kirk Walton
Eden Prairie HS Coach

There's a tv crew?

aestheteboy wrote:There's a tv crew?

is someone keeping stats that they could put up? :)

The stats thru r6 that were posted had MW #1, RM #2 and MLK #3, all at 4-0 (each already had 2 of their 4 byes)...

We're 5-2, having beaten Dorman A and then getting our butts handed to us by New Trier, who powered like 8 or 9 questions on us...

For those of you playing mirrors later in June, the question set is excellent, I think you'll like it.

The dirt I have is this:
MW A: 9-1 (Loss to MLK Magnet)
TJ A: 7-3 (Losses to Eden Prairie, Dorman B, State Coll. B by 5. My dirty secret is that I can't actually play quiz bowl for 9 hours and keep doing well)
TJ B: 8-2 (Incl. defeat of State Coll. B the round after we lost)
Dorman A: Record unknown, v. lopsided loss to MW
Eden Prairie, MLK Magnet: Both were breakout performances; I don't know if either or both finished undefeated.

The questions: about average quality for HSNCT, with plenty of legitimately hard stuff in the mix.

I would never suggest drinking an entire 2-liter of energy drinks before playing qb. :)

We defeated Eden Prairie, so they are not undefeated. MLK lost to State College twice I believe.

What is the t-format? I am befuddled why any 160-team event could have repeat matchups.

It was card swap power matching again, R announced at the beginning that they predicted 1.7% of games would end up being repeat matchups. My impression was that the first 4 or 5 games for each card were within a group of 16 teams, and then for the last 5 or 6 games you were matched against cards with an identical or close-to-identical record from the whole field.

results -
NKC 225 - Lincoln Cty (TN) 155
Pensacola (FL) 280 - NKC 230
NKC 405 - Richard Montgomery B (MD) 175
Shady Side (PA) 275 - NKC 255
NKC 555 - Benton (AK) 15
NKC 330 - Mound Westonka (MN) 115
NKC 240 - San Mateo (CA) 160
NKC 285 - Cave Spring (VA) 145
NKC 380 - Santa Monica (CA) 305
NKC 270 - Brookwood (GA) 145

We started out pretty badly. Neither of those losses should have happened. However, I think it balanced out because if we had won those games we would have instead legitimately lost a couple games to the likes of Maggie Walker and State College. The questions sets were uneven and funky at times, but decent. But I'm ultra pumped that we rebounded so well. And I bet I'm the neg champ. These games take a lot of adjustment, which I partially attribute to our losses. But 8-2 was unthinkable, I thought.

Other Missouri teams did not fare so well. Liberty was 4-6, and at the last I saw them Savannah was 3-4, So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make the playoffs.

To BuzzerZen:

Hmm... kinda like the chances that Portland wins the NBA lottery...

I guess it is easier than stats-based power-matching.

North Kansas City ended up 8-2.

Brookwood-A was 6-4. Brookwood-B was 5-5.

James Island was 6-4.

All 6-4 qnd better teams make Sunday's playoffs.


NAQT has some work to do if they are going to have a large tournament, as large as this year's. Speaking from experience, you cannot run a large tournament exactly like you run a medium sized tournament. The logistics were not good this year. Walking into a playing venue where you have one team ready to play Round 5 anfd the other team ready to play Round 6 is not good. That happened to both of my teams today. My B team actually played an entire match the results of which was then thrown out and replayed between two different teams.

Somehow NAQT needs to spread this tournament out over 3 days instead of two.

I understand Rick's point. Of course, as an organizer, how much more in lodging costs would it cost NAQT to add one extra night for all the staff? And how much more per team would it cost to add that extra night? If I were the Crowne Plaza, I obviously want some assurances that everyone stays.

Of course, some of us can't stay on Monday because we have jobs that start on Tuesday. :)

Monday, Memorial Day, is a holiday for most people. Leaving Monday afternoon one could be home for work on Tuesday.

The extra day gives NAQT room to make the tournament even bigger which I am sure they want to do.

Eden Prairie A was 8-2.
Wayzata A and Wayzata B were both 6-4.
DeLasalle was 6-4.
That's as far as I know for MN teams.

I'm sure they want to, but there is the negotiation with the hotel. If they finish on Sunday night with all the festivities, the hotel could get screwed with the number of hotel rooms that were booked up but no one will be sleeping in them. Many people will likely try to schedule their exit on Sunday night, leaving NAQT having to pay for a ton of empty rooms.

I'm not privy to the negotiations, but the hotel also needs the time to reset the hotel, given that NAQT is taking over so many rooms. From my own experience, it is really difficult to negotiate a really good rate with a conference hotel if you decide to "extend" a program into the evening of a Sunday because of these concerns.

I think if NAQT is going to grow much more, they may have to bite the bullet and look for an actual convention center location. The "games in hotel rooms" situation has limited growth potential. Additionally, getting food is a pain, and catering is apparently not an option at the Crown Plaza. The downside of springing for a more robust location with catered meals is that the registration fee would likely go up by a bunch, which could produce the catch-22 situation of shutting teams out financially.

I can add:

New Trier 8-2 (we ended with the 2 card)
State College A 9-1 (they ended up with the 1 card)

New Trier beat Novi A, James Island Charter, and Minnetonka A, then lost to Wilmington Charter A by five points. We then beat East Lansing A, Garfield Heights, Livingston, Eden Prairie A, and Richard Montgomery A, before our last match against State College, in which we were terrible and they were amazing.

I can't think of that many convention centers that can accommodate a quiz-bowl style event like this. It may be one thing to host the Spelling Bee at the Grand Hyatt in downtown DC, but they don't need 50 "game rooms". Plenty of other national conventions full of thousands of students have been organized, but not with the need for so many individual rooms of such small capacity. There's a reason why Panasonic is structured the way it is, and this is one of them.

A few more playoff teams:

Maine South (IL) 6-4
Aiken (SC) 6-4
Wilmington Charter (DE) 7-3

Oh... so how many teams would 6-4 get for the playoffs?

E.T. Chuck wrote:Oh... so how many teams would 6-4 get for the playoffs?

The number of 6-4 teams can vary a little bit depending on results but it should be near 60 (3/8's of the field). Last year it was exactly 3/8's and the year before that 3/8's plus 1, which was kind of bad because that meant more byes with that odd number (37).

Ohio Teams in the Playoffs:

Garfield Heights (6-4)
Walnut Hills (7-3)
Columbus Academy (7-3)

and possibly Loveland, if they won their last match I think.

We lost to: Stuy A, New Trier, Troy and Cave Spring
We beat: Norcross, Loveland, Rosemount, Brookings, Dorman A and Shadyside Academy

I haven't seen any updated stats except what is posted in the atrium through Round 9...

I finally got to meet a lot of people I've been playing email tag with for a long time -- its been an enjoyable trip and I hope we can make some noise on Sunday.

WHS_Mitu wrote:Eden Prairie A was 8-2.
Wayzata A and Wayzata B were both 6-4.
DeLasalle was 6-4.
That's as far as I know for MN teams.

EP B was 6-4 also.

Eden Prairie B was also 6-4, making it 5 teams (at least) from MN to make the playoffs. Still waiting to hear about Hill-Murray and Minnetonka. St. Thomas and Chaska (who are traditional MN powers) and Orono all finished 5-5 and are out.

All in all a decent showing from some of the MN contingent....

Helpful condensed summary for those playing along at home. In no particular order, and based only on the information above. (Not official -- ETC.)

Supposedly 61 teams have advanced to Sunday rounds based on preliminary win-loss. Teams will be seeded but placed in a double-elimination bracket.

9-1:
MW A
State College A

8-2:
New Trier
TJ B
NKC
Eden Prairie A
Richard Montgomery A
Dorman

7-3:
TJ A
Wilmington Charter A
Walnut Hills
Columbus Academy

6-4:
Brookwood A
James Island Charter
Wayzata A
Wayzata B
De Lasalle
Maine South
Eden Prairie B
Aiken
Minnetonka A
Pensacola
Garfield Heights

As if it wasn't already, I think Minnesota's inclusion in the source of midwestern quiz bowl powers with Illinois, Michigan and to a slightly lesser extent Ohio is unquestionable at this point.

Minnetonka A was also 6-4.

Pensacola High School went 6-4.

I hear all the 8-2 teams are Richard Montgomery A, Eden Prairie A, MLK A, TJ B, NKC, Dorman, and New Trier in no particular order. One of my teammates said we were the bottom of those teams, and that there were 61 teams advancing, which is a strange number.

From the Illinois thread, with a little speculation, it seems Bloomington went 7-3, Wheaton North 6-4, and Saint Ignatius probably tied with one of them. Illinois probably got 5 out of 6 in the playoffs--a big improvement over 1 out of 3 from last year.

I'd also venture a guess that the two 9-1 teams listed above are the only two.

Today will be exciting--we had three matches yesterday come down to the last question, and a few of our other matches were clearly between teams that are capable of beating each other depending on the packet and which team is hitting on all cylinders.

As far as the hosting comments upthread, I think this tournament would be better in a high school or college. The downside is that pretty much everybody who flew in would need to rent a van (as opposed to the option of just taking a short train ride from the airport) and that teams would have less to do during breaks, especially at a high school.

The upside would be better rooms.

Many colleges have very little going on this time of year, especially this weekend if their graduation has already taken place, and a large high school could supply enough rooms.

I'll echo what Coach Kilner said above and say that the questions so far are good. There are some typical issues with inconsistently placed power marks, inconsistent bonus difficulty, and the distribution varying from round to round; and we heard at least one factual error in the middle of a tossup (that did not impact our match). I'm sure I could find more problems if I had the packets in front of me, but overall I thought the answer space was very good and the clues were appropriate. There were a lot of good questions.

This is also a reminder: take lots of pictures and post them to the Facebook group.

ReinsteinD wrote:As far as the hosting comments upthread, I think this tournament would be better in a high school or college. The downside is that pretty much everybody who flew in would need to rent a van (as opposed to the option of just taking a short train ride from the airport) and that teams would have less to do during breaks, especially at a high school.

The upside would be better rooms.

Many colleges have very little going on this time of year, especially this weekend if their graduation has already taken place, and a large high school could supply enough rooms.

I can't comment on NAQT's specific decisions on why they don't do it on colleges anymore, but they haven't for quite some time now. I'll comment on my own perspective on this having organized to some manner all the NSC's and many other tournaments AND conferences on campuses.

There are logistical considerations, and -- as a for-profit group -- they would have to pay a lot for the use of rooms on campus. Besides, there are not that many college campuses that have convenient transportation or parking, and -- as we have experience -- on-campus dormitories are not always ideal.

As a member of higher education, you would be surprised how much does go on in college after the summer hits. There are summer classes, and there are summer camps. It doesn't make financial sense to have nothing going on for three months, and for those larger campuses (like ours at Michigan this year), there is always going to be something going on (which is why we don't yet have feedback on rooms).

I will also say that in informal polling, the thought of running a high school tournament at a high school was usually met with disdain. Last year was our (PACE's) first attempt to run the NSC at a high school (NCSSM), but it was an unusual circumstance as Duke's and UNC's logistics and room availability simply couldn't get us the best opportunity to host. NCSSM on the other hand could, especially with dorm rooms on campus (and nearby hotels) and spaces that could foster interaction among students and staff. But even after that, we all have since resolved to no longer arrange dorm space on campus as the efforts to get that all done (with considerations for single-sex floors and various health forms) was too much of an effort that distracted us from organizing a tournament.

I'm sure there are high schools in Illinois that could hold that many games at once, but I'm not sure if the auditoriums would be big enough. I am not one who likes holding meetings for a national championship event in a high school gym or football stadium.

Can anyone comment on the NY/NJ representatives? Kellenberg, Livingston, Bergen, Pingry?

I'm sure when we get stats we'll find out all the teams that went over 0.500 in Saturday's games. The stat that I like to keep is the number of them who will come to PACE, and the overall win-losses and the competitiveness of their prelim schedule. We have always had very solid fields that make the consolation playoff games on Sunday very exciting.

Consequently, any team that makes 0.500 or better at NAQT HSCT should think about PACE NSC if other scheduling conflicts do not arise. Obviously the sooner to have them in the field the better. :) Even teams that are just below 0.500 probably will do well at PACE.

quizbowllee wrote:It is VERY obvious to me now that losing an early round makes it much easier to make the playoffs.

I guess we can argue whether that should be the case or not. Of course, I have my philosophy that it shouldn't happen because a preliminary win at the start of a tournament should be the same as a prelim win at the end. Normally losing early in a round-robin puts you at a disadvantage if too many losses are strung in a row, but then again, any loss has equal effect in any round-robin scenario. Power-matching though changes that dynamic, and any quality LOSS could be magnified.

charlieDfromNKC wrote:I hear all the 8-2 teams are Richard Montgomery A, Eden Prairie A, MLK A, TJ B, NKC, Dorman, and New Trier in no particular order. One of my teammates said we were the bottom of those teams, and that there were 61 teams advancing, which is a strange number.

Now that I think about it that actually is pretty good (though of course they got 61 just by sheer luck). Maggie Walker would have a round 1 bye (assuming they have the higher ppg), and SC would have a round 2 bye (assuming they win round 1), then the top losing bracket team would have a round 4 bye, so starting in round 3 in the winners' bracket and starting in round 5 in the losers' the number of teams will be a power of 2, and there shouldn't be any more byes except for the last winners' bracket team in round 7. Also there shouldn't be any cross-bracket play till round 8, and the total number of rounds will stay at a reasonable 9-10 rounds. This is what *should* go down, but you never know, NAQT might screw around with it.

Also, great to see George Mason in the SS playoffs! Lee, are they allowing all 4-6 small schools in those playoffs or just 5-5 ones?

Can anyone tell me how Murrah HS did?

Anyone with info. on how KY teams are doing?