6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

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6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Brindlee Mountain High School will be hosting our 6th Annual Invitational Tournament on Dec. 5, 2009. We will be using NAQT IS-88.

Registration for the event will be $65/team, with a $5 discount for fully-functioning buzzer systems (limit two buzzer discounts per team).

We are also looking into the possibility of adding a JV and even a middle school division (middle school would likely use a different question set) if there is sufficient interest.

More information will be forthcoming. However, if you are certain that you will be attending, or if you have any immediate questions, please e-mail me at [email protected].
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by 49-Mile Scenic Drive »

Woooo, a tournament I can help at without sets interfering!!! :party:
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

That was purposeful. I'm going to need all of my alumni to come help out.

Thanks for volunteering. :party:
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Matthew D »

Lee
I'll have one moderator I can give you also... Nathan he does a good job

Also put us down for 3-4 teams..
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Official Invitation:

Dear Coaches:
Brindlee Mountain High School will be hosting our 6th Annual Quiz Bowl Invitational on Saturday December 5, 2009. The tournament will use IS-88 from NAQT.
All players through grade 12 are eligible to participate. Depending upon interest, we will likely have a separate division for Junior Varsity (through 10th grade) teams.
The top 15% of teams at this tournament will qualify to compete in the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament in May. Furthermore, at least the top 4 will qualify to compete in the PACE National Championship Tournament in June.
Cost: $65 per team with a $5.00 discount per buzzer system per team. You may register as many teams as you like.
Make checks payable to Brindlee Mountain Quiz Bowl Team.
To Register:
Please e-mail me at [email protected] to register.
No paperwork is needed! Simply e-mail me ASAP to reserve your spot.

Thanks as always,
Lee Henry
Brindlee Mountain High School
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Interest in this tournament is sort of small so far. If you are interested, please let me know!

Field so far:

Randolph – 1 Team
Oneonta – 1 Team
Muscle Shoals - 2 Teams
ASFA - 3 Teams
Indian Springs – 1 Team
Catholic High School - 2 Teams
DAR - 4 Teams
Hoover - 3 Teams
Last edited by quizbowllee on Thu Nov 12, 2009 11:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Matthew D »

Put us down for 4 teams Lee
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Field updated:

Randolph – 1 Team
Oneonta – 1 Team
Muscle Shoals - 2 Teams
ASFA - 3 Teams
Brindlee Mountain - 3 Teams
Guntersville - 1 Team
Madisonville-North Hopkins - 2 Teams
Indian Springs – 1 Team
Oxford - 2 Teams
Catholic High School - 2 Teams
DAR - 5 Teams
Hoover - 3 Teams
Houston Academy - 1 Team
Lincoln County - 1 Team

Total (as of 11/18): 28 Teams

There is still plenty of space for more teams.
Last edited by quizbowllee on Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:05 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Apparently the University of Alabama is hosting a college tournament this day... This is killing me, because I was counting on a number of Brindlee alumni who are currently on the CC circuit (not to mention Andy who is at Bama) to come and help with this tournament. I'm not sure how much this is going to affect the tournament staff yet, but I will likely need some teams to bring additional moderators or to have some coaches step in to moderate. Please let me know ASAP if you are willing to do this.

Thanks.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Field updated.

Also, I have had an influx of volunteers to help staff the event. However, I am also having more and more teams enter every day... I may still need some coaches to step in to help.

Thanks.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Matthew D »

Lee, put Nathan down. He is pretty sure that he can make it and might be able to bring one or two people with him
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by 49-Mile Scenic Drive »

Apparently UA is either not doing the tournament or changing the date, count on Snead to help in some capacity. I know that me and Decker will come help, Amanda and Wildman are questionable
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

Field updated again.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

Lee--

I'll help read if I need to.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

OK. Apparently my school e-mail is on the fritz. I'm not receiving e-mails at all... For the time being, please send all e-mail correspondence regarding this tournament to my personal account: [email protected]



Here is the (hopefully) final field update:

Randolph – 1 Team
Vestavia Hills - 1 Team
Muscle Shoals - 2 Teams
ASFA - 3 Teams
Brindlee Mountain - 3 Teams
Guntersville - 1 Team
Madisonville-North Hopkins - 2 Teams
Indian Springs – 1 Team
Oxford - 2 Teams
Catholic High School - 2 Teams
DAR - 5 Teams
Hoover - 3 Teams
Houston Academy - 1 Team
Lincoln County - 3 Teams

Total: 30 Teams (19 Varsity;11 JV)
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

The snow and subsequent winter weather advisory made this morning a nightmare. Teams called at 6:00 and said they couldn't come. Others just didn't show up at all... Some said they weren't coming and then showed up an hour late.

But, finally I figured it out. Here are quick results:

Top 4 (Qualified for NAQT HSNCT):

1st - Hoover A
2nd - Brindlee Mountain A
3rd - Brindlee Mountain B (highest-finishing JV team)
4th - Hoover B

JV Division:
1st - Brindlee Mountain B
2nd - Hoover C

More results coming later.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by akinney »

Okay, I had a few problems with this tournament.

First of all, the pools were a little weird. Madisonville was placed in a pool with Hoover A, and there was really no question as to who was better. Hoover was definitely the best team at the tournament. However, Madisonville was also definitely 2nd or 3rd in terms of how good we were. We scored the second/third highest points per game, even though we were completely blown out by Hoover (like 420 to like 115).

That's all fine and good, IF you fairly set up the playoff bracket. However, the afternoon bracket at this tournament was WAY out of whack. Because Madisonville was placed in Hoover's bracket, we had a record of 4-1 and were eclipsed by the other 3 pool leaders (assumed as 5-0 teams) and THEN Hoover (5-0). This left Madisonville as a 5th seed, even though we had a sizable winning margin and scored the second highest number of ppg.

Well, that's unfortunate and everything, but it gets even better: for some reason the hosts decided that the lower seeds had to beat the higher seeded teams TWICE in order to advance (an "advantaged playoff"). If the lower seeded team happened to beat the higher seeded team (5th seeded Madisonville beat higher seeded Brindlee Mountain A), they would THEN have to win on 10 tossups/no bonus. It would be hard to not realize that the seeding methodology was a little misleading; when you consider this you come to the conclusion that the advantaged rule thing was kind of silly. Mr. Henry's rationale for the advantaged playoff was said to be based off of NAQT rules. What is odd is that I have been to many tournaments in my quiz bowl career and I have never encountered a tournament that was played according to this rule.

My question is: why not just let the playoff bracket proceed normally, and try to marginalize the effect of misleading seeds? Even assuming the seeds weren't misleading and actually fairly accurate, it's hard to argue that a team can't be upset by an equally good team. To me, what matters is the result of a match played at any given day. Why should the result rest on preconceived notions?

For the record, Madisonville beat Brindlee 290-215 the first time, then lost by a hefty margin to the team that was probably a 1-seed to begin with. Forgetting everything that I have told you, does that seem fair? Maybe if the teams played two separate games that both counted. But that was not the case.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by quizbowllee »

I cited no NAQT Rule in our decision to have advantaged playoffs. For that I cite good quiz bowl. The general consensus is that single-elimination playoffs are bad. I stand by that decision and always will. Come to a tournament at Brindlee Mountain, and expect that there will be either advantaged playoffs, double-elimination, or re-bracketing to eliminate ridiculous upsets in the playoffs.

I admit that the pools were a bit uneven. Had every team shown up and we hadn't had the fiasco that ensued, I had pools set up that were likely more closely evenly distributed. As it was, I had to start the tournament. We were supposed to start at 8:30. I still had teams showing up at nearly 10. I had everything ready to go at one point and a team that had already called and said that they WEREN'T coming showed up. I also waited an hour for a school (who was supposed to bring three teams) that called and said that they WERE coming - they never showed. Basically I was trying to throw together pools based on having no clue who was or wasn't going to be there. It was a nightmare.

Because of this, I kept 16 out of 24 teams in the playoffs. I thought that would be a fair way to make sure that any uneven pools managed to work themselves out. That is even MORE reason to have a non-single elimination playoff.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by 49-Mile Scenic Drive »

NAQT does advantages at Nationals for the Championships of both Large and Small Schools and also in most State NAQT Championships, I'm not sure if those were the only two scenarios or not. Advantages are more common than you think, we've used them a few times here in Bama for various tourneys. Most tournaments do seed according to records first, and if there were 4 5-0 teams you guys being seeded 5th would be accurate. Do I think this was the best way to do playoffs? No I certainly don't, but given the events of this morning and everything Lee was going through to get this tournament running as efficiently as possible due to weather, team drops, team additions and all others things I think he did a pretty good job. Now had the weather not happened and all teams showed up I think we could've done some type of a rebracketed playoff. I really see nothing unfair about this, as you finished 2nd in your pool and there were 4 pool winners, and considering Record is usually the first criteria looked at, 5th seed is where you should've been. As for the comments about pools being weird, if I can remember correctly each pool had 2 good teams that were predictable 1 and 2 seeds, and after that equally mid-tier teams as well. One pool had BMHS A and ISS, one had you guys and Hoover A, one had DAR A and I want to say Randolph (I'll let Lee or Matt correct me on this) so there really wasn't imbalance in the pools. Now sure some pools had JV teams scattered around and one didn't, so I can see how that could be described as "weird."
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by akinney »

Well, the problem with us was we wanted to go to a tournament this weekend but our coach didn't want to go to Ohio. We did not know how you structured your tournament or anything about it really, other than the teams coming. That's basically the gist of it.

I do realize teams not showing up and all that may have messed up the bracket a little bit.

And granted, we are used to going to tournaments like Vanderbilt and Ezell-Harding, which are structured very differently and of course, are located in Tennessee. Even the few NAQT tournaments we have been to in Kentucky are WAY different. If I am correct MNHHS has never been to any Alabama tournaments.

I understand how you feel about the pools, but I still stand by my criticism of the "non-single elimination" format. In my opinion it is based on a faulty methodology. But I am not sure why this matters to me now, as I'm a senior and I won't be worrying about it next year.

Mark: by advantages at nationals, are you referring to a double elimination format? It's been two years since I was at nationals (and 3 since we made the playoffs) and I vaguely remember something like that.

And by the way, congratulations on the SEC championship.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Lee, can you explain what the format of the tournament was? I'm a little confused reading Aaron's description.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Matthew D »

Charlie,
Basically what happened was we played 5 games in pool play. Then 16 of the teams moved to playoffs with the higher seated team having an advantage (they only had to win one game, while the lower seated team had to win the first match (standard 20 tossups and bonus) plus another 10 question shoot out of only tossups)
As for the pools being a bit on the strange side, I think that was more to do with team not coming and also teams that said they weren't coming showing up at the last minute. Our pool was Catholic A and DAR A

Also, Aaron could you please elaborate a bit more how how the other tournaments are structured way different
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by 49-Mile Scenic Drive »

Aaron I was referring to such a scenario as what happened my Sophomore year. We had went pretty far into big school playoffs, then got eliminated. After a victory against our A-Team, eliminating them, we played Danville. We had an advantage in the match and had we won we would've won the Small Schools National Title. However we lost, which led to us having to play Danville again in a full timed round, which we also lost.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by akinney »

Vanderbilt usually has dozens of teams at its Fall tournament every year. They also do pool play and they base their seeding on pool records. I think seeding beyond that is determines by ppg stats, which I feel would be the best way to do it. And it's also single elimination. Single elimination sucks for teams that travel a long distance, but so does losing anyway.

Ezell Harding has pool play too, and is done mostly the same way, albeit in a much more organized way. :lol: Neither tournament has advantaged playoffs. They are both fun tournaments, though, and Madisonville loves going to them, even though we haven't done very well as of late.

Mark, I understand what you are saying now. But the way a national tournament is played and how a tournament is played are two very different things.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I'm going to say that Aaron is right and that this format was pretty flawed and should have been modified somehow. There doesn't seem to be much reason to make people play 10 tossup shootout games and penalize people for losing in the prelims more than giving them a lower seed/potentially carrying over their loss from the prelims depending on the format. I would suggest making the bracket smaller, like 8 teams, or do 2 8 team brackets that are evenly weighted, then making the top 2 teams of each bracket play for the final spots like at PACE. Arbitrarily changing the format of some games, or punishing the 2nd seed teams excessively, is not a hallmark of good quizbowl.

As a side note - most people do not consider double elimination to be a good format, and the only reason we put up with NAQT using it is because they aren't able to use pools. However, during the regular season, I think that the last 2 years I've never seen a double elimination bracket used at a tournament I'd consider good.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by Matt Weiner »

I'd like to repeat that this ridiculous trend of playing "advantaged" half games of any kind needs to end, as it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the purpose of an advantaged playoff is. And if anyone is actually using "shootouts" without bonuses as the deciding game, then you've basically created a format that is even less fair than single elimination, but takes twice as long, so congratulations on a landmark achievement in the annals of bad quizbowl ideas.
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by akinney »

Thank you Charlie and Matt. I didn't know if I was crazy or not.

So, moving away from that a little bit... will the stats be posted?
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Re: 6th Annual Brindlee Mountain Invitational (Dec. 5, 2009)

Post by AKKOLADE »

akinney wrote:So, moving away from that a little bit... will the stats be posted?
Quotin' this, as I am down.
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