Mississippi 2013-14

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Great Bustard
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Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Great Bustard »

NHBB will be holding its first ever Mississippi tournament on Saturday, Jan. 25 at Madison Central HS near Jackson. I'm eager to start reaching out to Mississippi schools, but don't have any obvious starting point. Does anyone happen to have a contact list for Mississippi coaches? Does anyone know which teams in Mississippi are reasonably active this year? Any help is much appreciated!
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by TulaneKQB »

Tulane had a team from South Jones register for its fall tournament and then not show up. There's also the annual Mustang tournament at Murrah in Jackson. Other than those two schools (and Madison Central), Mississippi quiz bowl is pretty much in fog-of-war for us.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by cchiego »

Itawamba A and B finished 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the Ole Miss tournament last weekend. Semifinalists were Collierville and MUS, Quarterfinalists were Madison Central A and B, Bolton, and FACS.

Itawamba is definitely a program on the rise and they appear to be one of the few teams in MS that values good QB and seeks it out. Hopefully they'll host some tournaments too since North MS needs 'em.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Henrytw »

I apologize to Tulane on behalf of South Jones. I had assumed my coach made it clear that because of the conflict with the school board approving the trip, we would not be able to attend. That seems to not be the case, and we certainly hope to attend future competitions hosted by Tulane (provided we can get past the school board). As for Mississippi teams, I can give you a list, but I do not have contact information.

Clinton, St. Andrews, South Jones, and Madison Central are all decent contenders. As for other schools, here is a list derived mostly from teams that attended Murrah Mustang Invitational in December 2012: Jackson Prep, Jackson Academy, Lamar, Itawamba Agricultural, Lawrence County, Pearl, Brandon, Ridgeland, Northwest Rankin, St. Joseph, and Warren Central.

Other than South Jones, other teams in South Mississippi include Presbyterian Christian (I'm not sure as to the progress being made with the new coach) and West Jones. I believe Oak Grove has had a team in the past, but I have seen nothing of them recently, so it's probably not worth investigation.
Henry W.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Henrytw »

The amount of improvement I've seen in Itawamba since last year is huge. Last year, we beat them in finals by approximately 200 points; this year, however, we lost by approximately 80 points. Kudos to that team for whatever they're doing to get such rapid improvement.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by cchiego »

I found links to the stats and playoff brackets from Murrah's tournament along with this nice write-up by the Murrah coach.

It looks like they tried timed rounds, which explains the relatively low scores and variance in bonuses and such heard. Note that Germantown (MS) is separate from my team Germantown (TN).
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by aeteacher »

Thank you, Henry. You were quite a player and I commend you for your strong leadership on your team and how well you and your team performed. Our team probably benefited by going to Vanderbilt's NAQT last year and seeing teams like Ezell-Harding and Farragut and such. Those teams averaged over 350 points against us. Out of embarrassment, we came home and tried to fix our holes. We've spent more time trying to learn the type of information that allows us to "power" more information. This was our first NAQT championship in school history, and I'm fairly certain it is the first for any team in North Mississippi. We are proud of this, but we realize there's still the Ezell-Hardings of the world that are so talented year in and year out. As a rural school of under 600, we are striving to build a tradition like that.

Also, thanks Chris for the links to the Murrah tournament.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Great Bustard »

NHBB is looking at close to 20 teams for our inaugural Mississippi tourney on Saturday. Not entirely sure how this happened, but great to see such a turnout in a new state for us.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Mnemosyne »

Standard-winged Nightjar wrote:NHBB is looking at close to 20 teams for our inaugural Mississippi tourney on Saturday. Not entirely sure how this happened, but great to see such a turnout in a new state for us.
That's awesome. Do you know anything about the geographic diversity of the schools? i.e. Are they located around Jackson or randomly across the state?
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Great Bustard »

I think they're mostly Jackson area - 1 Vicksburg (Warren Central) at least. Full list here: http://www.historybowl.com/regionalsite/mississippi/
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by AKKOLADE »

Hi everyone,

The University of Kentucky is hosting a Pre-Nationals weekend on May 10 and 11th on our campus in Lexington, Kentucky. On Saturday, we'll be using NAQT SCT DII with HSNCT rules, and on Sunday we'll be using the Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament with NSC rules. We may also have some Saturday evening event, though I can't promise that I won't cancel this for my own personal event, "Fred goes to sleep early in between the two quiz bowl tournaments he's running over a weekend."

For more details on fees and such, check our announcement at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =1&t=15460.

It's just a bit over a 6 hour drive from the northern Mississippi border, so if you're willing to make the trip, we'd love to have you.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by TulaneKQB »

We have been cleared to host Mississippi teams at the Louisiana NAQT State Championship at Tulane University. If you are a Mississippi school that does not have a place to play NAQT State and you would like to play at Tulane, please contact me (Ryan McLaren) at jrynmac at gmail dot com or Tulane's club president Cara Zajac at czajac at tulane dot edu.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by averyjordan1 »

I'm the captain of Madison Central's Quizbowl team. We had a coach change this year, as our previous coach became overloaded with technological and administrative duties. We do intend to become more active during the 2014-15 school year. Central Mississippi does have a fairly vibrant quizbowl scene, and we would like to expand this coming year. Madison Central hosts two tournaments each year, one in October, and one sometime during the spring (TBD). If you're looking for more information about teams in the state or our tournaments, I'd be glad to provide any.
Avery Jordan
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by cchiego »

Avery--It's good to see someone from Madison Central on the boards. Jackson is a little isolated from other nearby SE circuits, but it's certainly drivable to Memphis, Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, and the burgeoning NOLA circuit. Y'all and other Jackson-area teams like Murrah and Clinton would certainly be welcomed.

Will y'all be switching away from NAC-style and to pyramidal questions at the tournaments you host? I know MC and Ole Miss still use terrible speedchecks (though note that the Ole Miss winners this year were two teams who play almost exclusively pyramidal, Itawamba and White Station), but Murrah's tournament on IS questions seemed to be a success. There's so many schools that play in MS that it would be great to see more pyramidal offerings and teams attending nationals.

Feel free to ask if you want any advice about running tournaments or contacts for some of the Northern MS/West TN teams.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by averyjordan1 »

I'll talk to our coach to see if she would be willing to move towards pyramidal. As a player I strongly prefer playing on pyramidal questions, but we write all the questions in our tournaments and it is much easier for our coach to accomplish the monumental task of writing a tournament by herself twice a year in the NAC style. I might be able to persuade her to change formats if I could assure her that a switch would help increase attendance at our tournaments. I would appreciate any contacts you have in Northern MS and Western TN.

We're definitely trying to increase the number of tournaments we attend next year. We didn't go to any out of state tournaments this school year, but we will be attending the NAC tournament in Chicago during June.

We are looking to host the MS History Bowl again, although I don't have more information on that because I wasn't able to attend this year due to an Academic Decathlon competition, and my coach has not shared any information about it with me. I did hear from my team members who competed that some sort of mishap occurred and that the tournament ended three hours behind schedule. I don't know if this is completely accurate, but it is what I've heard. My coaches also mentioned that they would be willing to forgo having our team compete in the tournament and use students to help run the tournament. We're glad just to run it/host it without competing.
Avery Jordan
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by cchiego »

There's really no need to put one's self through writing all those questions--even writing a whole tournament of speed checks is a lot to do by one's self! Good, accessible pyramidal tournaments can be found to mirror for as little as $10 a team (the SCOP novice set for instance would be perfect for y'all in MS if they run it again next year in the fall) and you'd more than make up the slight cost of mirror fees with the opportunity to attract teams from elsewhere who prefer pyramidal questions. It's win-win for everyone.

Feel free to have your coach get in touch with me if they have any questions. It seems like there's been some transitions so I don't know if the contact at Mad Central I have is the current one.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Important Bird Area »

cchiego wrote:the SCOP novice set for instance would be perfect for y'all in MS if they run it again next year in the fall
When they run it again next fall. Details and directions are here.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by TheDoctor »

This year, SCOP is also offering a dedicated middle school set at a lower rate per team if you're interested. We'd love to see both sets mirrored in Mississippi if there's interest.
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by TulaneKQB »

Avery,

Feel free to contact me ([email protected]) or Kevin Marshall ([email protected]) if you'd like any information about tournaments in/around New Orleans next year. I know your team has come to Zachary before for NHBB, so it would be great to see you for other events!
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by averyjordan1 »

cchiego wrote:
Feel free to have your coach get in touch with me if they have any questions. It seems like there's been some transitions so I don't know if the contact at Mad Central I have is the current one.
I think we received your invitation for a tournament on April 5 this year. We hosted our own tournament that day so we were unable to attend.

Thanks for the info on the SCOP sets. I'll discuss it and other options with my coach and see if she would agree to purchase questions instead of suffering through writing them. She previously had a bad experience with purchasing questions, I'm not sure from where, but that might be part of the reason she has adamantly refused to use questions other than her own.
Avery Jordan
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Re: Mississippi 2013-14

Post by Mnemosyne »

averyjordan1 wrote: I think we received your invitation for a tournament on April 5 this year. We hosted our own tournament that day so we were unable to attend.

Thanks for the info on the SCOP sets. I'll discuss it and other options with my coach and see if she would agree to purchase questions instead of suffering through writing them. She previously had a bad experience with purchasing questions, I'm not sure from where, but that might be part of the reason she has adamantly refused to use questions other than her own.
A good strategy here will be to show your coach previous editions of the set. It will be absolutely clear to her what she's getting and what's she paying for it. (SCOP is super cheap) If she has a problem with long questions, you can always try and convince her that NAQT A-Sets are short enough.

I'll also keep you in the loop regarding any tournaments Louisiana Tech hosts. Madison is 2.5 hours from Ruston, I think.
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