Loyburn at Rockford Auburn, 11/12/11

[abnormal abdomen]

Okay, so this is obviously not really an "announcement," because we stupidly did not post one several weeks ago (we will make sure this doesn't happen for the HFT Mirror, our novice tournament, and Auburn's housewrite, TBA). Regardless of this fact, I felt it was important to just make a thread for this in case anyone had questions and such.

This tournament is taking place of course at Rockford Auburn High School in Rockford, IL. We will be using HSAPQ set #22, and will use powers but no negs, as well as bouncebacks on bonuses.

As far as format is concerned, prelims will consist of 4 brackets of 6. Teams will play a round-robin within their brackets. After this, the top two teams from each bracket will make their way into an 8-team championship bracket, then all the 3's and 4's in each pool will comprise the middle bracket, and the 5's and 6's will together comprise the lower bracket. Teams will qualify first based on record, and any ties will be broken by points per game. Additionally, if Team X and Team Y played one another in the prelims and make the same afternoon pool, the results of that match will carry over. Also, we have decided that we will break ties in the afternoon pools based on PPG. This means that, if we have a 7-0 team and two 6-1 teams in a pool, the 6-1 team with a higher ppg in said pool will enter as the disadvantaged team in an advantaged final. If there's a tie for 6-1 at the end of afternoon pool play, we will enter a one-game final.

As far as staffers are concerned, I believe Ms. Greene will be sending out an email tonight regarding their information.

We sincerely apologize that we did not post this information sooner. Similarly, I apologize for the fact that I don't have information such as the full field of 24 available for posting at this time (I just emailed Ms. Greene about it). I should also add that these delays are not the result of total incompetence on the part of our team; our coach has been dealing with various unforeseen circumstances in the last few weeks.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask away.

Oh, and I'm trying to get access to Auburn's gym during lunch so we can play basketball during lunch. If we don't get the gym but there's enough demand, we might use a substandard outdoor hoop.

EDIT: stuff about not using negs

[abnormal abdomen]

Field:

Auburn
Belvidere North
Buffalo Grove x2
Carbondale
Christian Life
Fenton
IMSA x2
KCD
Latin x2
Loyola x2
Naperville North x2
New Trier
St. Viator
Wauconda x2
Wheaton North x2
WWS x2

Auburn B and Loyola C are on standby.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

Out of curiosity, is this tournament 5 on 5 or 4 on 4?

[abnormal abdomen]

Out of curiosity, is this tournament 5 on 5 or 4 on 4?

4 on 4.

[mlaird]

But is basketball 5-on-5? Can we have a Loyola A+Coach vs. IMSA A+Coach friendly? I foresee posterizing Dr. Prince. This could quite possibly be the most important competition in IL this year.

EDIT: Tom Egan, will you be available to ref this game?

[the return of AHAN]

And any playoff match between Loyola and IMSA begins with each team spotted their score from the basketball game...

[dtaylor4]

But is basketball 5-on-5? Can we have a Loyola A+Coach vs. IMSA A+Coach friendly? I foresee posterizing Dr. Prince. This could quite possibly be the most important competition in IL this year.

EDIT: Tom Egan, will you be available to ref this game?

Suggestion: save the ankle-breaking and posterizing for after the tournament?

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Staying in Rockford after sundown, Donald? I've heard better ideas.

[abnormal abdomen]

Just as a correction to something stated earlier, Ms. Greene has made an executive decision and this tournament will no longer be using negs. Powers and bouncebacks will be employed, however.

As for basketball, I won't have any idea about access to the gym until Saturday. We could play on the substandard hoop(s) outside, but the weather won't really be very good for such things. In that event, we also wouldn't be able to play afterward (though I dunno if I'd be able to stay afterward anyways).

[Coach G]

To clarify the issue regarding negs, there was not a change from the original plan, which was to have bouncebacks and no negs. I know some of our team players disagree with having no negs. But since (1) we have a mix of very experienced teams as well as new/less experienced teams, and (2) it is relatively early in the season, I believe that not having negs and having bouncebacks on the bonuses help provide a better experience for all levels of players at this time. Later in the season, and/or for an event that attracts mainly very experienced teams, I can see having negs. But for new and less-experienced players, losing 5 points when they are wrong is like a slap in the face or rubbing salt in the wound - they have already lost the chance to answer the bonus first - that's penalty enough. For them, it can have a very inhibiting effect.
For those who might wonder about negs at other events we host, there will be negs at the Harvard Mirror. There will not be negs at our frosh-soph/novice varsity tournament in January. We'll go with whatever the majority of the team wants for our Feb. 4 housewrite.

[jonah]

Since you're doing bouncebacks and no negs, will the powers be 20 points so that you're doing full-on NSC format?

[abnormal abdomen]

That's a very good question. We didn't explicitly discuss that. I would be in favor of having 20 point powers in order to make it the NSC format. Obviously, it'll be Ms. Greene's decision.

[Coach G]

If the questions were at the level of difficulty of the PACE NSC, then I would certainly favor awarding 20 points for a power. However, since they are at a "regular" level of difficulty, it will be 15.

[abnormal abdomen]

Auburn cleared the championship bracket by two games at this tournament. Loyola and IMSA both finished 4-2 in the inal bracket. I dunno about others. More on all this later.

[Dominator]

IMSA overcame a huge halftime deficit to beat Loyola 11-9 in basketball.

In other news, I'm told a quizbowl tournament was played, but I don't know much about that.

[abnormal abdomen]

Speaking of which, a team consisting of myself, Ben Chametzky, and an Auburn student vanquished my little brother, another Auburn student, and Donald Taylor, 11-8. Donald will get his rematch in due time.

As for quizbowl, I had a lot of fun today, and our wins against IMSA and Loyola were real nail-biters. I'll have more to say about the actual questions later.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

Speaking for Belvidere North here, we had a great time. Lots of great, close matches against some of the best teams around.

[Coach G]

Here are a few results of the matches in the afternoon championship bracket; Donald gave Jonah complete stats, which he will post here and on the IHSSBCA web site (tournament central) soon.
Auburn came in first, going 7-0. Its closest match was round 11, against Loyola A; the score: 415 - 395. IMSA A was second, with a 5-2 record. Loyola A and Carbondale both had 4-3 records; Loyola had a higher PPG, so placed third. The other teams in the championship bracket were (in no particular order) Chicago Latin A, Belvidere North, New Trier, and Fenton --- sorry, I don't remember their records.
Dylan Minarik lead the All-Tournament Team (five morning rounds) with an average of something like 135 - 140+ tossup points.
The morning pool winners, all going 5-0, were IMSA A, Loyola A, Auburn, and Carbondale. The second place teams from each pool, all going 4-1, were Chicago Latin A, Belvidere North, New Trier and Fenton.
There were lots of high scores, lots of powers (the markings were very generous, I'd say), many good close matches, and great sportsmanship shown by all teams I observed.
I'd like to thank the moderators, scorekeepers and everyone else who helped out to make this event a success.

[abnormal abdomen]

I could be wrong, but I'm almost certain that Loyola and IMSA had the same win-loss. IMSA A lost to us and Loyola, and Loyola lost to Latin A and us. Loyola beat IMSA A. Ah well. We'll just wait for statistics.

[Charles Martel]

IMSA A actually had three losses, to Auburn, Carbondale, and Loyola. Loyola had 2 losses, to Auburn and Latin.

[jonah]

Stats: prelims playoffs

[Coach G]

Corrections to my post of last night - Loyola was 2nd, IMSA 3rd - not the other way around. And Andrew Wang of New Trier (not Dylan of Belvidere North) was first on the All-Tournament team, with an average of 137. My apologies to those involved - I'm blaming the errors on my being really tired.
For those who are into stats, I found the following things worthy of note when I looked at the results this morning after a good night's sleep. If you don't care about stats, you'll probably want to stop reading this post here.

First, to put things in perspective, here's a snapshot of the field: The 24 teams (from 16 different schools) are from the northern Illinois and Chicago area plus Carbondale from the south. The teams are at various stages of experience/development; most are class AA; one was at its first Saturday invitational tournament ever, and some others were at their first one this season. The field included public schools (15 teams from 10 public schools) and private schools (7 teams from 5 schools), plus two teams from the state's math/science magnet school. I believe seven (or eight?) of the schools sent a team to either PACE, NAQT or both nationals last season (since PACE was in Illinois, some Illinois teams went for the first time.)

This was a four-on-four tournament, and as far as I know, the teams in the championship bracket had all of their starting players on their A teams; I'm not sure about the B teams.

The five morning rounds and six afternoon rounds were played on HSAPQ set 22, packets 1-11. We used powers (15) as marked on the questions, but no negs. Bonuses rebounded, but they were tracked separately, so the average bonus points per game in SQBS are just for each team's "own" bonuses, which makes these stats valid for comparison later when other tournaments without rebounding bonuses use the same questions (unless HSAPQ makes significant changes/revisions to the questions).

All-Tournament Team - Based on the five rounds of pool play in the morning, the top eleven players were honored. The top average was 137, and two players tied for tenth with 74 PPG; the next highest average was 61.
Bonus Pts. per Game - In the five preliminary rounds, ten teams averaged over 20, four had 15-19, five had 10-14, and five were below 10. In the six afternoon rounds (plus the one that carried over from the morning), nine teams were over 20, six had 15-19, five had 11-14, and four were below 10. In the morning, the top two averages were IMSA A with 25.68 and Auburn with 25.14. In the afternoon (including the one carry-over match), the top four averages were IMSA A - 26.55, Auburn - 25.77, Loyola A - 25.37, and Carbondale - 24.
Rebound bonuses - The percentage of the bonus parts attempted that were answered correctly on the rebound in the five morning rounds ranged from 0 % to 70%; in the afternoon, it ranged from 5 % to 66 %.
Scores of 600 or over for one team - There were 20 of these; 15 came during morning pool play, and five were in the afternoon in the championship bracket. Four of those 600+ rounds were actually 700 or better (IMSA A with 3, Loyola A with 1)
Both teams' points added together equaled 800 or more in 16 matches; there were also some 790's and 795's.

[Charles Martel]

A question about the set: Why was there 0/0 math at the tournament?

[abnormal abdomen]

A question about the set: Why was there 0/0 math at the tournament?

0/1, actually. And I'm not a math guy or anything, but I did notice this.

[Smuttynose Island]

A question about the set: Why was there 0/0 math at the tournament?

0/1, actually. And I'm not a math guy or anything, but I did notice this.

Probably because packet randomization led to the 3/3 Math written for this set being placed either in packets that weren't read at this tournament or as Tiebreakers.

[Wilberbeast]

I definitely enjoyed the tournament; for the most part the moderating was excellent, sportsmanship was great, and it was very well organized! I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of math noncomp, but for the most part the questions were good. (I liked the challenging conics bonus that did come up)

question specific info deleted - mgmt

I also did not understand the seeding, it seemed much easier to get into the "higher" afternoon bracket in Nordri or Surdri than in Audri or Vestri. Why was IMSA A placed in a division where it more than doubled the average PPG of everyone else?

Overall, though, everything was lots of fun and much thanks to Auburn for hosting the tournament. :)

User was warned to not mention question-specific content before a set is cleared for discussion.

[jonah]

Stats: prelims playoffs

overall

[abnormal abdomen]

Yeah, seedings did not end up being very good, it seems. Auburn's division featured 4 teams topping 20 PPB, Loyola's 3, Carbondale's 2, and IMSA's 1. Obviously, PPB isn't a perfect metric of a team's strength, but the discrepancy you allude to is real and obviously some teams were underestimated. In particular, IMSA B, noted team we played (and had some difficulty beating), was quite strong and probably would have made the playoffs if seedings had worked out more ideally.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

My take on the pools were that Wheaton Warrenville South A was over-estimated and Buffalo Grove A and IMSA B were underestimated, likely due to the fact that it's early in the season. Based on the way that schedules were printed, it seems that the seeding went:

1: IMSA A
2: Loyola A
3: Auburn A
4: Carbondale
5: Latin
6: New Trier
7: Belvidere North
8: Wheaton Warrenville South A
9: Fenton
10: Buffalo Grove A
11: Wheaton North A?
12: Wauconda A or Saint Viator?

The top 7 are all in the top 7, but IMSA A being seeded first with WWS A and Fenton at 8/9 instead of (in retrospect; hindsight is 20/20) BG A and IMSA B makes their bracket look weak. That said, BG put up some great stats, so you likely won't have to worry about that happening at your next tournament.

While I'm here, I will note that Wauconda A, Wheaton North A, and Wheaton Warrenville South A played some good quizbowl in the playoffs. They're not in the top tier yet - which really does feel like a top 3, a second tier of 5 that can beat the top 3 on a good packet, and a third tier of about 4-6 teams that can play anybody ahead of them close, even if they don't come out on top.

Given that we've got a ton of good teams playing tournaments already, the first IHSSBCA Members' Poll might have to expand to a top 15 or top 20 ranking...if you want to vote, email me! /shameless plug

[abnormal abdomen]

I'm pleased to announce that we've been platinum-certified. As such, Auburn, Loyola A, IMSA A, Carbondale, Latin A, and Belvidere North have all qualified for PACE!