NAQT Community College Championship

[rhentzel]

NAQT is considering separating its Community College Championship into a separate event, possibly as early as next year (2008-2009), and we are interested in community feedback on two proposals (and, really, any other aspect of NAQT's CC programs).

Our principal goal is to allow more community colleges to play for the title, particularly as we work to increase the number of community college teams and sectionals. A secondary goal is to change the distribution of community college teams at the overall DII tournament so that they are a better reflection of the best of the CC teams. A tertiary goal is to be able to use question sets that better suited to the appropriate difficulty level at all CC-related events.

The first proposal we are considering is to move the CC SCTs (played on a regular Invitational Series) to late January and invite the top 16 (roughly) teams to a CC Championship at the end of February. The CC championship would be played on the DII SCT set and the top 8 CCs would advance to ICT (to be held in early April, as in years past).

The second proposal is to move the CC SCTs (regular IS) to late January and invite the top 16 (roughly) teams to a CC Championship at the end of February that would also be played on a regular IS set. The top 8 teams would advance to ICT. The difference is that CCs would be welcome (and encouraged) to *also* participate in the regular SCTs, which would be a second way to qualify for the ICT.

Either of these would increase the number of CC teams that can advance to nationals. Both would also (hopefully) ensure that it was the top 8 CC teams (regardless of location) that played at the ICT. The difference is whether or not CCs would also have a chance to participate in the regular SCTs; NAQT would like to see more competition between community colleges and four-year colleges and we are somewhat leery of instituting a policy that forbid that (at the SCTs).

Two other notes:

1. It's not NAQT's ideal that the CC championship be played on a regular Invitational Series; something slightly harder is likely more appropriate, but we probably don't have the writers and editors to produce another 18-packet set. If enough people are particularly interested in writing questions for this specific purpose, we'd be happy to look into the possibility of doing so.

2. NAQT would be hoping to work with established teams outside of the Southeast (and Kansas) to create preliminary community college tournaments and CC SCTs; we're willing to spend some money advertising events, but we need to have tournaments (that are very friendly to new, inexperienced teams) to direct people to. If you'd be interested in hosting (the questions would be free for preliminary events), please contact us at [email protected].

[ValenciaQBowl]

Both of these are excellent proposals, though in my mind the first is clearly better. The D2 SCT set would have a difficulty level that would challenge all the CC teams but allow the strongest ones to have few dropped TUs and good bonus conversion. Most important, eight of our teams would still get a chance to take on the D2 field. I think this is a great way to go.

Props to my pal Glenn Bobo for positing a version of this earlier.

--Chris Borglum
Valencia CC Grand Poobah

[AKKOLADE]

Suggestion:

Keep the current CC qualification system for ICT. Rather than invite the top X teams to ICT, just invite the CC teams that would qualify for an at-large bid to ICT per their S-value. The remaining top X teams could be invited to a separate CC championship.

[rhentzel]

Both of these are excellent proposals, though in my mind the first is clearly better. The D2 SCT set would have a difficulty level that would challenge all the CC teams but allow the strongest ones to have few dropped TUs and good bonus conversion. Most important, eight of our teams would still get a chance to take on the D2 field. I think this is a great way to go.

Note that in the second proposal the top eight teams from the CC Championship would still get DII ICT invites. Community colleges, however, would also have a chance to qualify at regular SCTs.

[rhentzel]

Suggestion:

Keep the current CC qualification system for ICT. Rather than invite the top X teams to ICT, just invite the CC teams that would qualify for an at-large bid to ICT per their S-value. The remaining top X teams could be invited to a separate CC championship.

This has two significant negatives for NAQT:

1. We want the Community College Championship to be won by the best community college team; under this proposal, it would be won by the best team that wasn't good enough to qualify for the ICT. Admittedly we tolerate a similar problem with the Undergraduate Championship, but we'd change that if we thought teams had the money (and time and interest) to attend separate undergraduate and open DI championships. Unless there is massive support for this idea in the community, I think it's pretty much a non-starter for us that our CC Championship would exclude the best CC teams by default.

2. I have a high degree of confidence in our current S-value system for comparing teams across Sectionals, but I lose a lot of that when the teams start playing on question sets of different difficulties. I'd prefer to avoid a default policy of trying to compare CC SCTs played on Invitational Series to regular SCTs played on the DII set. We could mandate the CC SCTs play on the DII set, but the statistics really suggest that not even the best regions are really ready for that degree on difficulty.

Other than the simplicity of treating all post-secondary institutions identically, what do you see as the advantages of your proposal?

[AKKOLADE]

Other than the simplicity of treating all post-secondary institutions identically, what do you see as the advantages of your proposal?

Well, ideally it'd allow the best CC team(s) to compete against the best collegiate teams, and not send the message that they could never compete against four-year teams.

Plus, the CC team in question could either also compete in the CC championship (if it's held on a different date & different questions, obviously) or choose between the CC or ICT events.

[theattachment]

As someone potentially going to a CC next year (albeit one where I would be the only member of the QB team that doesn't yet exist) I'd be a proponent of R's first proposal. One of the major problems I have with the current set-up is that, CC or not, qualification into a college tournament should not occur on high school questions. As far as accessibility is concerned, the move to a Div2 set for qualifying from an IS set isn't that bad; Div2 is designed to be the tougher parts of a decent IS set, and it usually works.

I will say, however, that qualifying eight CCs may be overkill unless there's more spots for four-year schools. The fact remains that the general CCs on the scene (save for a few like Valencia) tend to be simply not good. My idea would be to qualify the teams whose S-Values would earn a spot into the ICT anyway, then to admit the next-ranked CCs until the number of CCs hits four or five. If more than five CCs qualify by S-Value, then we let all of them in; they qualified, after all. This admits the teams that deserve to be there as well as preserves the quality of teams at the tournament.

[The Goffman Prophecies]

One of the major problems I have with the current set-up is that, CC or not, qualification into a college tournament should not occur on high school questions. As far as accessibility is concerned, the move to a Div2 set for qualifying from an IS set isn't that bad; Div2 is designed to be the tougher parts of a decent IS set, and it usually works.

I agree with this point wholeheartedly.

I like R's first proposal as well. It looks like NAQT's intention, but the impression I'm getting is that playing the January CC qualifier on a non-IS set would require the production of another set of questions, which based on his previous posts, R has indicated that NAQT can't handle at this time.

Fair enough - but I hope NAQT does take notice and makes plans to produce a college-difficulty set for this qualifier as well, assuming they go this route. I've exhausted my D2 eligibility, so I most likely won't be playing NAQT tournaments to prevent the rest of my team from having to play D1. Depending on how things play out, I would be interested in getting involved and helping an extra qualifier set come to fruition.

I know Chris Borglum has already tried to make some contacts in Virginia. Outside of my school, I don't know what luck he has had - perhaps he can share with us here?

[jhn31]

I like the idea of a CC Championship held in late February using the d2 sectional set. In fact, I can say that Mississippi State would definitely be interested in hosting it, seeing that we're within a day's drive of all the Southeastern teams, but not so far removed from the rest of the country as somewhere in Florida.

The only suggestion I would have is that perhaps the top 4 CC's from the CC Championship would automatically qualify for the ICT. If more qualify based on S-curves, great, let them come. But reserving a whole 8 bids for them is probably not right. If they can earn 8 bids, great. If not, let's let a more deserving 4-year school go to the ICT.

[theMoMA]

Both of these seem like very fair proposals. I also see no evidence that having the 25th best DII team lose about as many games as the 5th best community college team is in some way more ideal. The straight up DII team may be a better team, but this is counterbalanced by a suboptimal CC field that may exclude teams with a legit title shot.

[First Chairman]

If there are Virginia CC quiz bowl teams, I've never seen them. I would think Northern Virginia CC close to me here at GMU could, but I doubt it. Granted, for a host venue, I'd be interested in hosting such an event since our Transfer Center works directly with CC students, and we do a really good job retaining them once they get here at GMU.

[evilmonkey]

I like the idea of a CC Championship held in late February using the d2 sectional set. In fact, I can say that Mississippi State would definitely be interested in hosting it, seeing that we're within a day's drive of all the Southeastern teams, but not so far removed from the rest of the country as somewhere in Florida.

The only suggestion I would have is that perhaps the top 4 CC's from the CC Championship would automatically qualify for the ICT. If more qualify based on S-curves, great, let them come. But reserving a whole 8 bids for them is probably not right. If they can earn 8 bids, great. If not, let's let a more deserving 4-year school go to the ICT.

I agree with pretty much everything said here.

And to theMoMa:
I don't think anyone's saying that if the 25th best 4-year team is equivalent to the 5th best CC, then you should automatically take the 4-year. I believe that if you wouldn't consider a 4-year school with a certain set of stats, then you shouldn't consider a CC with those same stats.

It seems to me that reserving spots for a CC, other than what could normally be earned at an SCT, is being condescending - "You're not good enough to get in on your own, so here, we have a special spot for you". Same thing goes for the whole "Let them qualify on easier questions" thing. Those are attitudes that shouldn't be portrayed.

I think 4 is a reasonable number to be autoqualified regardless of stats. Obviously, if we were to only auto-qualify the winner, then it would also be like "You aren't good enough to play with the big boys, but we'll allow your token representation", which is another attitude that needs to be avoided.

Perhaps there can also be a provision that if the CC can't make the CC Championship, they can still qualify for ICT through the SCT.

Edit: Forgot "with those same stats" afte "shouldn't consider a CC"

[The Goffman Prophecies]

If there are Virginia CC quiz bowl teams, I've never seen them. I would think Northern Virginia CC close to me here at GMU could, but I doubt it. Granted, for a host venue, I'd be interested in hosting such an event since our Transfer Center works directly with CC students, and we do a really good job retaining them once they get here at GMU.

George Berry and I are working on founding a team here at J Sargeant Reynolds in Richmond. We've got the groundwork laid, but whether or not the team remains just he and I primarily is still to be determined.

[ValenciaQBowl]

Thanks to Dan Goff's excellent legwork, I have a list of activities contacts for CCs in Virginia, but I have been waiting to finish my spring term final grades and some personal stuff to begin contacting them all; I hope to do that later this week, though.

A faculty friend at Northern Virginia did have their activities coordinator call me, and we talked briefly about what the game is and what benefits it would provide to students who participate and the school as a whole. But this person had almost no idea what quizbowl is--his recognition of it came more from its representation in "Saved by the Bell" than from any personal acquaintance with it. That's what we'll be up against. But having said that, these folks are usually very happy to support activities with a clear academic component as long as students are interested.

Sorry--back to our actual thread topic:

R. wrote:

Note that in the second proposal the top eight teams from the CC Championship would still get DII ICT invites. Community colleges, however, would also have a chance to qualify at regular SCTs.

I still like the first proposal better. I honestly think that few CCs would qualify in a D2 SCT. One problem would be that unless another SCT was added in the Southeast, a Southern site could be flooded by CC teams, which would make qualifying all the harder. Also, only a few teams would have the budget and interest to add another tournament to their schedule. But further, condescension aside, most CCs are (generally, year-in and year-out) NOT as strong as freshman-sophomore teams from the universities. I don't want to bore folks with the same old explanations for this, but the primary difference is that very, very few CC players have ever picked up a buzzer before their first CC practice (at least in my experience). I've had about six players in 15 years who had HS quizbowl experience. So not only do they have a lot of content to master, but the idea of the game itself is new. Though indeed we catch up as quickly as we can, it's a long way to go.

The first proposal allows for qualifying on an IS set, which is appropriate for the full scope of all CCs who play. Then it allows for a championship on D2 SCT questions--also appropriate for the full field, I think. Finally, the best teams get a shot at the D2 ICT field, and some years a CC team or two will win a bunch of games.

[NotBhan]

I'm partial to the first of the two proposals over the second. The timing seems pretty good, from what I remember; I don't think that late January or late February would conflict with many state CC events, though that's certainly something which should be checked.

However, at least for now, I'm partial to the current setup. Having to go two qualifying tournaments instead of just one might be a burden for some teams; the best team could theoretically miss the ICT because its players can't get a second weekend off from work. (Option #2 does allow more flexibility in that respect.) The proportion of automatic qualifiers to at-large winners is higher for CC's than for 4-year schools, but I think it's feasible for most of the top teams to qualify at present. If expansion dictates that more than 5 qualifiers would have to be held, though, I'd lean toward the first of R's two proposals, FWIW.

--Raj Dhuwalia

P.S. Seconding what Chris said about players' experience, in 6 years of coaching at Broward CC, I don't think I ever had a student who had played more than a couple of HS tournaments, and the vast majority had never played at all.

[theMoMA]

All I'm saying is that there need to be a certain number of participants even in the CC field to make the championship legitimate. If this means that the DII field is effectively 24 teams (plus however many CCs are competitive enough to break into that number), well, I don't see an inherent problem with that.

[STPickrell]

Thanks to Dan Goff's excellent legwork, I have a list of activities contacts for CCs in Virginia, but I have been waiting to finish my spring term final grades and some personal stuff to begin contacting them all; I hope to do that later this week, though.

A faculty friend at Northern Virginia did have their activities coordinator call me, and we talked briefly about what the game is and what benefits it would provide to students who participate and the school as a whole. But this person had almost no idea what quizbowl is--his recognition of it came more from its representation in "Saved by the Bell" than from any personal acquaintance with it. That's what we'll be up against. But having said that, these folks are usually very happy to support activities with a clear academic component as long as students are interested.

Chris,

You and Dan should have an email from me. Let me know what help (if any) I can provide.

[NoahMinkCHS]

All I'm saying is that there need to be a certain number of participants even in the CC field to make the championship legitimate. If this means that the DII field is effectively 24 teams (plus however many CCs are competitive enough to break into that number), well, I don't see an inherent problem with that.

Hmm. I interpreted the February tournament in R's proposals as being the CC championship (so the winner of that would be the national champion). Then, 8 (or potentially some other number) of high-finishing CCs at that event would be invited to also compete for the Div 2 championship... but the CC title would already have been awarded, so it doesn't matter what that number is, for CC title purposes; an argument could be made for having those teams qualify based on S-values (though obviously that's not the only argument one could make).

Or did I misunderstand something?

[gabobo]

I replied earler today to R's post on the juniorcollegequizbowl group at yahoo. For those of you who get that, too.... forgive my redundancy...... Here's that post:

R. – This is wonderful news to me. I would be happy with either scenario, but somewhat favor the 2nd option. As I have noted before, with the exception of our friends in Kansas, the current geographic center of the CC Quizbowl world is probably near the AL/GA/FL border, ie Tallahassee. And since Tom Deaton has indicated that he no longer plans to hold the tournament at TCC in late January, that would be a near ideal location. If that doesn’t work out, there are 3 ACBL schools within 45 minutes of Birmingham, which is a little more “Centered” when Kansas is included, and I know that any of the 3 of us would be willing and able to host. I would also suspect that Charlie could accommodate us at UTC for a CC championship. (Charlie, forgive me if I’m wrong!)

Of course, one of the benefits of making the ICT is travel to places that my kids wouldn’t otherwise get to see, so if you find a strong circuit in some exotic locale, we’d be happy to go there!

In any event, I hope this works out, and I would be happy to help any new coaches in other parts of the country who are trying to get a program started or just get more involved with NAQT.

[bsmith]

so if you find a strong circuit in some exotic locale, we’d be happy to go there!

Heh heh, Canada. Those Montreal CEGEPs (who have a league) need to realize that they shouldn't be playing against high schools in Reach, and I figure the NAQT Community College eligibility definition is the most accurate depiction of what those institutions are (2-year colleges to serve as a bridge between high school and university). Convincing them to wean off of playing against high schools will be another matter, but seeing a national championship for their type of school may pique their interest.

[STPickrell]

so if you find a strong circuit in some exotic locale, we’d be happy to go there!

Heh heh, Canada. Those Montreal CEGEPs (who have a league) need to realize that they shouldn't be playing against high schools in Reach, and I figure the NAQT Community College eligibility definition is the most accurate depiction of what those institutions are (2-year colleges to serve as a bridge between high school and university). Convincing them to wean off of playing against high schools will be another matter, but seeing a national championship for their type of school may pique their interest.

This would be a nice place to invite the Icelandic champions (do a google on Gettu betur, which means 'better guess.')

It is a national TV show that's run for 20+ years among their Gymnasiums (grade 11 through sophomore year of college.)