Minnesota '19-'20

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Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

I don't think that there'll be enough non-NAQT events to warrant a "Schedule" thread, but I figured a "things happening" might be good.

This is a thread where I hope that us Minnesotans can post about major events that happen throughout the season, mostly tournaments. This is also a threat where we can post comparisons of some of our prominent teams and see how they develop.

If no one else contributes to the thread (like last year) then I'll do my best to post blurbs about some major NAQT events like RAT-RACE (a big deal, I know) and the like. However, I would really like to get some participation in discussing teams, as well as some notices about potential non-NAQT events that could be going on. That way, when I run to be a captain of Eden Prairie, I can be like "Y'know that forum thing? I helped with that."
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Since I would like to see a Minnesota annual thread not die immediately for once, I guess I will give my basic thoughts on the circuit this year.

The Big 3:

Wayzata: I think Wayzata will likely remain the best team in state this year and overall post a strong performance. Brian Lin is probably the second best generalist in the state and the rest of Wayzata A (as well as Wayzata B) should be strong. One area that a lot of teams in MN seem to lack in is literature, and based on statistics, I feel that it is safe to say Bryanna and Cece Shao are the two best lit majors in the state. Wayzata (for the most part) dominated the circuit last year even without Geoffrey and I would not be surprised if they do it again.

Mounds View: The team that will most likely challenge Wayzata's reign as the team to beat in MN is Mounds View. Shardul Rao will likely be the best generalist in the state, but he will need help from Max and Aryan if Mounds View is to win more than a couple tournaments this year. Do not be surprised if MV grabs another league title or the state championship as this is a quality team that can definitely give Wayzata a run for its money.

Eden Prairie: For a long time EP was either the best or second best team in the state, but they have since found themselves relegated to third best after the emergence of Mounds View. Jim Sweeney should be the third best generalist in the state, but the quality of his supporting staff is up in the air and losing Govind certainly doesn't help. I'm not entirely sure what their A team line up will be and thus cannot provide detailed analysis, but I do think that EP will remain the third best time in the state this year.

The Midfield:

Burnsville: Burnsville has been a pretty solid midfield team for the past couple of years now, but I think they might have the lineup that could help them win a few more games against some of the stronger teams in the state. They retain Chance Persons and Joe Schatz who have both had notable performances on IS-A and IS sets, but had trouble scaling up at HSNCT last year. Depending on how much those two study, Burnsville could become a dark horse team akin to St. Louis Park from last year.

St. Louis Park: SLP was the surprise of last season. This is a team that improved drastically, going from 27 powers at SOCIAL (on ISA) to 58 at NAQT State (on IS). Unfortunately, they do lose their entire A team. SLP's future all depends on their younger players and whether they are able to repeat the success of this past year's team, or if they'll drop out of the midfield back to the lower level teams.

Mounds Park: If the entire circuit were played on IS-A sets, Isak Dai would probably find a spot in the top three generalists in the state, however, since it isn't, I'll keep him at fourth. Mounds Park have strong performances on easy sets, but have had problems when it comes to scaling up. They also did not attend a lot of tournaments last past year, making it hard to get a feel for how good this team is compared to other teams in the state.

Wayzata B: The only other team that I could see upsetting one of the big three next year is Wayzata's B team. Both Wayzata B and Wayzata C were able to secure wins against Wayzata A at Snow-CAT last year as well as Wayzata C winning the entire tournament. Although we did have some graduations and will have some promotions to A team, I think that Wayzata B will still be a force to be reckoned with and a potential dark horse team who could pull off an upset here or there.

These are just my thoughts on the top teams in the state right now. These are purely my opinion and have been made with a limited amount of knowledge (mostly relying on last year's stats). I think the MN circuit will be quite competitive at the top and I am looking forward to seeing how things end up playing out.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

BenWeiner27 wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 3:43 pm Mounds View: The team that will most likely challenge Wayzata's reign as the team to beat in MN is Mounds View. Shardul Rao will likely be the best generalist in the state, but he will need help from Max and Aryan if Mounds View is to win more than a couple tournaments this year. Do not be surprised if MV grabs another league title or the state championship as this is a quality team that can definitely give Wayzata a run for its money.

Eden Prairie: For a long time EP was either the best or second best team in the state, but they have since found themselves relegated to third best after the emergence of Mounds View. Jim Sweeney should be the third best generalist in the state, but the quality of his supporting staff is up in the air and losing Govind certainly doesn't help. I'm not entirely sure what their A team line up will be and thus cannot provide detailed analysis, but I do think that EP will remain the third best time in the state this year.
At State last year (which is a pretty good indicator of matchups, since it was a round-robin) Shardul with the help of Aryan and Chloe was able to keep up with a Govind-led Eden Prairie A and Wayzata A (with Neil and Noah, who are graduating), so if the full force of Mounds View comes to more Saturday tournaments, they could seriously be dominant.

For Eden Prairie, Govind and Zixin were our only graduating seniors, and we have a lot of talented seniors like Seth, Abhi, and Rohin, and Jim's knowledge base is only going to grow, so I don't predict any main upsets for the top 3. What'll be interesting to watch is how all three teams duke it out.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

It's nice to see a thread about Minnesota quiz bowl again, since the most recent ones I can find are from at least five years ago.

Everything you guys have mentioned about the top two tiers of teams sounds about right to me. In addition, I think there will be a solid third tier made up largely of teams that made the playoffs of the MNHSQBL last season. Looking at the results from last year, the teams that come to mind are Irondale (T-6), Prior Lake (T-6), MInnetonka (T-6), St. Thomas Academy (T-9), DeLaSalle (T-9), and St. Paul Academy (T-9).

Chanhassen also tied for sixth but they lose their entire A and B teams from last year save one player (the fourth scorer on the A team, Alex Gannon). The other four teams that made the playoffs last year (Eastview, Chaska, Providence, and St. Agnes) probably make up the bottom echelon of the third tier.

Looking closer at those teams (and those from the second tier), Prior Lake, DeLaSalle, Chanhassen, and St. Louis Park got the most production from seniors last year, making them likely candidates for drop-offs this year. That said, I know Prior Lake and St. Louis Park have a lot of depth and will probably find other quality players.

That means my very unoffical preseason rankings look something like this:

Note: These rankings only include A teams, because only A teams make the league playoffs. They also assume the full complement of players are available, something that isn't always the case due to conflicts (eg, Mounds Park A at Run for the Roses last year consisted of one 7th grader)

1. Wayzata
2. Mounds View
3. Eden Prairie
4. Burnsville
5. Mounds Park
6. St. Thomas Academy
7. Irondale
8. Minnetonka
9. St. Paul Academy
10. Prior Lake
11. St. Louis Park
12. Chaska
13. DeLaSalle
14. Providence
15. Chanhassen
16. St. Agnes

Honorable Mentions (fourth tier): Shakopee, Minneapolis Southwest, Blake, Benilde St. Margaret's, Hudson, Edina, Eagan, Orono, Rosemount, Roseville, and Breck

Since this ranking was compiled over the course of about twenty minutes using almost exclusively last year's league standings and stats, I probably made some mistakes. I'm sure that the actual results will be quite different than my semi-scientific guesses, but it was fun to seriously think about next year for the first time this summer. It will be a lot of fun to see how things play out.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Hello everyone!

Maxwell Ye from Mounds View High School made a preseason poll for the Minnesota High School Quizbowl Circuit. We encourage anyone who is knowledgeable about the circuit to fill out this form.

A few guidelines:

1. Please rank the teams that you think will be in the top 10 overall at the end of the season, and provide a short justification for your rankings especially if they contain some hot takes.
2. Additionally, when filling out the form, please write out hte full team name as well as the letter designation, even if they are the only team from that school you are ranking (e.g. label Irondale as Irondale A even in Irondale B is unranked).
3. This poll is open to everyone, not just current high school players.

The form will be open to submissions until 7pm CDT on September 28th, 2019.

The results of this form as well as various other talking points about the local and national quizbowl scenes, will be discussed by a panel composed of Brian Lin, Shardul Rao, and myself in a podcast that will be recorded this weekend.

The poll can be found here.

Thanks for voting!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Three weeks ago, Shardul Rao (Mounds View), Brian Lin (Wayzata), and I (Wayzata) got together to record a podcast to discuss Minnesota quizbowl. That podcast can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/ben-weiner-91600 ... -podcast-1

I will try to get it up onto YouTube (and possibly Spotify) in the coming days. I will likewise be linking the website I created where I will post updated ELO rankings once I put on the finishing touches to it and once I finish writing a report explaining the intricacies of the ranking system.

Shardul created a quizbowl discord for Minnesotans to discuss quizbowl in, you can find that here: https://discord.gg/ryV9YWy

I'd also like to apologize for the delay since this podcast was recorded 3 weeks ago, but I have been extremely busy during that time. I will be sure to better block off time to edit it should we do it again and have it released in a more timely manner.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

I figured it might be reasonably helpful to figure out which of the top teams (Wayzata A + B, Eden Prairie, Mounds View) as well as teams that may surprise us (Irondale, Burnsville, Mounds Park) are playing when. So, I've put together an extremely speculative list of who's gonna be attending the major November tournaments. I'll probably update this list with more corrections as we get more information of what the rosters will look like. This doesn't include RAT-RACE, since the teams are probably going to be diluted to some extent.

(11/2) Mounds View Invitational:
Eden Prairie (without Seth Dasuki)
Irondale

(11/7) League - West Division
Eden Prairie
Wayzata A + B

(11/14) League - East Division
Irondale
Mounds Park
Mounds View (without Maxwell Ye)

(11/23) WAIT Main Site
Eden Prairie
Mounds View
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Cheynem »

What does Minnesota quizbowl look like away from the metro area? (I mean, I know somewhat since I lived in the state for eight years, but I'm wondering what, if anything, has changed.)
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

A while ago, I did outreach work for PACE collecting contact info from Quiz Bowl and Knowledge Bowl coaches around the state. Out of my own curiosity, I decided to plot the schools that did QB vs KB on a map:

https://imgur.com/a/ru1RWtR

The yellow is Knowledge Bowl, the blue is Quiz Bowl.
The only schools I can say to be outside of the metro area are Spectrum (who has been pretty good about attending tournaments) and Red Wing (whose attendance has been tapering off).
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Cheynem wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:05 pm What does Minnesota quizbowl look like away from the metro area? (I mean, I know somewhat since I lived in the state for eight years, but I'm wondering what, if anything, has changed.)
It's not great. KB still dominates most of the schools not from the Metro. Red Wing sent a team to SnowCAT at Carleton last year, but other than that, we really haven't had a non-metro team play at the HS level. UMD hasn't attended a tournament since 2010 and St. Olaf hasn't attended anything since 2016. Also with the removal of two of the non-metro tournaments on the calendar (SOCIAL @ St. Olaf and WIZARD @ Shattuck), we saw the Cotter School from Winona, stop attending tournaments after going to SOCIAL and WIZARD in 2017.

Rochester Century made its debut at the Science Bowl State Tournament last year, so maybe there is interest at the school to start a quizbowl team, but they have yet to register for anything.

KB is still the dominant force in the state it would appear with a lot of non-metro and especially fringe metro teams choosing to play it instead as can be seen in the meet results. The NW metro in particular seems to prefer KB to quizbowl and while Maple Grove registered for league last year, I believe they did not attend it and forfeited all 12 games. Basically any public high school to the Northwest of the Wayzata/Plymouth area does not have a team to my knowledge.

Needless to say, the state of non-twin cities quizbowl is far from where I would like to see it.

EDIT: after reading Samir's post, I did forget to include Spectrum who, as he said, has been a pretty regular attendee.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

The RAFT mirror at Mounds View happened! Eden Prairie B won in a final against Wayzata A/C, with EP A in 3rd and Irondale A in 4th. I think the Mounds View team did a very brave thing by hosting an mACF tournament in an NAQT-dominated area, and though the tournament had some hiccups, I'd still say the tournament was a success. I'd like to give some thoughts I had about the teams I played and teams that stood out to me (stats can be found here: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/5 ... /all_games).

Wayzata A/C: This team of relatively young players definitely deserves to be celebrated for their 2nd place finish! Anuk Dias, lead scorer with 70 PPG, stood out to me as a force to be reckoned with. Knowing him, I can attest to the fact that he takes good care in his literature specialty, and during our final with them, his knowledge of his categories showed. However, other than a few powers, our team generally beat them to the tossups. I think that with enough focused practice, they could definitely develop into a great team to add to an already great program.

Eden Prairie A: There are a couple things I'd like to say about this. Firstly, the team suffered from Seth Dasuki not making it (EP's main literature specialist) and Avery Lembke leaving early (a myth and trash specialist). Secondly, in our game against them, the packet played to our favor (Rohin Gurumurthy got 2 lit tossups, despite not being a lit specialist). However, there's no doubt that the team is incredibly capable, especially with Jim Sweeney at the helm, who was also the tournament's lead scorer.

Irondale A: Although I personally didn't play them, I think this team deserves a mention. During the playoffs, they were 25 points away from making playoffs, and matched up very well against Wayzata A. Urbas Ekka and Connor Rautio appear to be their two most dominant players, and I look forward to seeing the team's performance at later tournaments.
EDIT: Apparently, the Irondale coach said that their lead scorer couldn't make it to this tournament, so their performance here doesn't reflect their full potential as a team.

St. Thomas Academy A: I have to admit, when I first walked into our room to play them, I felt bad for the shorthanded team, but the duo of Teddy Farell and Joseph Michel held up very well, in my opinion. Even though their team didn't earn many wins, I think that those two have a lot of knowledge and, with the proper support, had the potential to finish much better than they did.

Wayzata D/F: Shitij Govil scored 70 tossup points in Wayzata D's game against Eden Prairie A, which is impressive. However, the team's low PPB really hindered them. I think that if Shitij had been placed on Wayzata B with other middle school powerhouses such as Rick Qian and Sidarth Gazula, the team could have scored a lot more.

It's no surprise that Eden Prairie was the most dominant team at the tournament, being able to field almost our entire A-C roster. However, in the coming weeks, we'll be matching up against stronger Wayzata teams at League and a full-force Mounds View at WAiT. Also, I heard some random MN team finished first at some Chicago tournament. They probably aren't that important, though.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

Scone wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2019 10:02 pm EDIT: Apparently, the Irondale coach said that their lead scorer couldn't make it to this tournament, so their performance here doesn't reflect their full potential as a team.
Looking at the Irondale stats and comparing them to last year's team, all of their returning players seem to have played at Mounds View (Urbas Ekka, Connor Rautio, Xander Pichner, Trent Vanyo, etc.). This leads me to believing that the leading scorer in question is freshman McCullen Willmert, who was one of the best middle schoolers in the state last year. Scaling up from middle school tends to take some time, but If he's already the leading scorer on a very solid Irondale team, that would give them two very solid underclassmen (Willmert and sophomore Xander Pichner) and set up Irondale very well for the future.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by AbhiN2001 »

Hey I’m Abhi from Eden Prairie Quiz bowl A team, I’m not as well known since I’m only an average player. I definitely wouldn’t put Eden Prairie at 3rd place quite yet, I think this year even with the loss of Govind, we have a chance of doing really well. I think the top three spots might be very fluid through out the year
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

The 2019 RAT-RACE tournament happened on Saturday, November 16th, at Chanhassen High School. Although Wayzata diluted its teams for HSNCT qualification purposes, many of the top teams in the state attended with complete or close-to-complete A teams. Wayzata C won the tournament in a close final match against Wayzata D, with Wayzata E finishing third and Eden Prairie C fourth. Full team and individual statistics can be found at https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... t_id=11133.

Of course, since the meet was played on speedcheck questions, everything about these results should be taken with a pinch of salt. In addition to the Wayzata dilutions, Mounds View's entire A team was unable to attend. Other notable absences included Irondale, several of Mounds Park's better players and (I think) one or two from Burnsville, although the latter had most of its A team intact.

One team that impressed me was Burnsville, which marched through the preliminary rounds (which included wins over Eden Prairie A, Eden Prairie B, and Wayzata B) undefeated before losing in the quarterfinals to Wayzata D. I know there has been some debate over where Burnsville fits in with the state's top teams, and I think they have a chance to be very good this year.

Another team that did very well was Eden Prairie C, which knocked Wayzata A out of the playoffs and ended up finishing fourth. Between their performance here and Eden Prairie B's at the RAFT mirror, I think it's fair to say that Eden Prairie B may be pushing up into the top six or seven teams in the state.

The big winner of RAT-RACE this year was, of course, Wayzata, which took home the top three team trophies, had the top five individual scorers, and qualified five teams for HSNCT.

One other note - two rural schools made their quiz bowl debuts on Saturday, Pine City and Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart. Both struggled, but Pine City qualified for SSNCT and both they and Buffalo have registered for more tournaments this year. It's great to see quiz bowl continue to expand beyond the Twin Cities metro area!

I would love to hear anyone else's take on what transpired at RAT-RACE, because I'm sure I forgot something!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

MNHSQB Podcast number 2 is now out featuring special guest Aryan Sehgal from Mounds View High School! Please let us know if there are any topics you want us to address in a future podcast or if you want to appear on it yourself!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

The podcast team is running a Midseason MN poll. You can find it here: https://forms.gle/jWaDkhJQfXFFqahSA

The poll will close this Sunday, December 29th, at 11:59PM. You do not have to be in high school to fill it out, but you should be associated with the Minnesota quizbowl circuit in some capacity. The results will be discussed in the next edition of the MNQB podcast.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

The podcast team (Shardul Rao, Brian Lin, Ben Weiner) has concluded their midseason poll, and the results are now in:

1. Wayzata A: 147 points (High: 1, Low: 2)
2. Mounds View A: 138 points (High: 1, Low: 2)
3. Wayzata B: 119 points (High: 3, Low: 4)
4. Eden Prairie A: 106 points (High: 3, Low: 4)
5. Eden Prairie B: 86 points (High: 5, Low: 6)
6. Burnsville A: 65 points (High: 5, Low: Unranked)
7. Wayzata C: 52 points (High: 5, Low: Unranked)
8. Irondale A: 40 points (High: 7, Low: Unranked)
9. Mounds Park A: 26 points (High: 7, Low: Unranked)
10. Eden Prairie C: 23 points (High: 6, Low: Unranked)

Individual ballots can be found here: http://tiny.cc/MNQBMid

Now, here's my own commentary:
I think that these standings accurately reflect the Minnesota circuit so far. It's interesting that everyone agreed that Wayzata A and Mounds View A were in places 1-2 and that Wayzata B and Eden Prairie A were in places 3-4. Everyone also agreed that Eden Prairie B was at least top 6, but past that. ballots were conflicted. One major reason the teams past the top 4 are hard to rank is that we don't have good information on Burnsville. They haven't played any regs sets so far, and they've only had one match on an A-set with anyone on the top 10--that match was with Wayzata A at TABLET, where they went 355-565. We know that they're good, but we don't know where they stack up. There's also a lot of speculation with teams such as Irondale A and Mounds Park A--a lot of that is due to the fact that they haven't always been playing with their full rosters.
I think that as the season continues, we'll get to see how much those three teams I mentioned really shine. As we near the end of League, the top teams in each division will battle it out. Hopefully we'll get to see each team at full strength. There also remain these questions: can Mounds View usurp the #1 spot from Wayzata A, can Wayzata B win against either of the top two, and can Eden Prairie A win against any of the top 3? My personal answers to those three questions are yes, no, and probably not, but the only way to find out is to wait for more tournaments.

One more thing: Minnesota had seven teams in the Groger Ranks Top 250! I think that's a testament to just how competitive this season is, and I'm really excited about that.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

I'm pretty surprised to see Eden Prairie C in the top ten. It's plain that EP has a ton of depth this year, and their A and B teams have been really good. However, I think their C team is down a notch from full-strength Irondale A and Mounds Park A (which I believe they have yet to play). That said, the back of the midfield is very competitive this year, and there are a number of teams hanging out right behind the last few spots in the poll, including St. Agnes (which has been really solid at league) and Wayzata D (which also has some nice wins so far), and Chaska A (who beat EP C head-to-head at RAFT).
One major reason the teams past the top 4 are hard to rank is that we don't have good information on Burnsville. They haven't played any regs sets so far, and they've only had one match on an A-set with anyone on the top 10--that match was with Wayzata A at TABLET, where they went 355-565. We know that they're good, but we don't know where they stack up.
You're absolutely correct. In the past year, Burnsville has attended only one regs tournament (2019 NAQT State), where they finished 6-5 against a very difficult field. That would seem to support their #6 ranking in the poll. However, they also really had a hard time scaling up to HSNCT last year, missing the playoffs at 5-5. In action on A sets this year, Burnsville has mostly blown through weaker competition, with their best win seemingly a 590-230 pounding of St. Thomas Academy at TABLET I. My conclusion is that Burnsville occupies a unique place in the field, unable to scale up to regs sets and defeat the top contenders, but also significantly better than most of the midfield.

Mounds Park A is in a similar position, with Isak Dai and the rest of their A team often unable to make it to many tournaments but dominating against lesser competition at league (highlighted by a win over Irondale A). Hopefully Isak and his teammates can make it to some regs sets (Mounds Park is registered for Snow CAT) and compete against other top teams.
One more thing: Minnesota had seven teams in the Groger Ranks Top 250! I think that's a testament to just how competitive this season is, and I'm really excited about that.
That's great news! Hopefully Minnesota teams can back it up when nationals season rolls around!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

The night of January 9th, was the second league night for the league's south division, meaning that all teams have now played eight games. So, I figured I would speculate a bit about which teams are likely to make the playoffs and what seeds they will end up with. While the league's format and question set aren't great, it's still the largest quiz bowl tournament in Minnesota, so I think it deserves some love. The following links are available references for this year's league:

Current standings (through eight games) - https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... t_id=11097
Final west division pairings (which Hentzel has appartently posted early) - https://www.naqt.com/mqba/league/2019-2 ... hedule.pdf
Final east division pairings (same deal as the west division) - https://www.naqt.com/mqba/league/2019-2 ... hedule.pdf

As of me writing this post on January 13th, Hentzel has not yet posted the final pairings of the south division.

I'll start by making some observations about the current standings. First off, there are five remaining 8-0 teams (Wayzata A, Wayzata B, Mounds View A, Burnsville A, and Chaska A). Wayzata A and Wayzata B are likely to remain undefeated, as they've already beaten most of the top teams in their division, seem to be significantly better than everyone else, and are not allowed to play each other. Mounds View A and Burnsville A are in similar positions, so the fight seems to between those three schools for the top three playoff seeds (which I believe are off of the PPG tiebreaker). Currently, Wayzata has the lead, with Mounds View in second and Burnsville in third).

I know Chaska A is still 8-0, but I will be honest here and say that we have pretty much no chance of beating Burnsville, which has put up some pretty insane stats on A sets. I'm more concerned with beating whoever else we play at the last league night (probably some combination of Orono, Eastview, St. Thomas, Chan, and Prior Lake B). Those teams are all very solid, and while I hope we finish 11-1, 10-2 is just as realistic.

Assuming Burnsville and Chaska take the top two playoff spots in the south division, four others are left (the south gets the wildcard I believe due to its size). Orono currently sits at 7-1, with a logjam of teams at 6-2 and 5-3. Notables there include several Prior Lake teams, Eastview (one-man wrecking crew Aaron Fromm), St. Thomas, Burnsville B (which can't make the playoffs due to their A team but can play spoiler), Eagan, and Chan. It will be very fun to watch those teams battle it out next month in Burnsville!

Now, I'll move on to the west division, which does have its schedule out. Wayzata has ran away with this one, and (barring a shock) will finish 12-0. Both Wayzata A and Wayzata B defeated Eden Prairie A by significant margins, leaving it at 6-2, so Eden Prairie B is playoff-eligible at 7-1. EP B still has to play Wayzata A, so my guess is that it will finish at 10-2 and claim second place in the west division.

There's a significant gulf between Wayzata, Eden Praire, and the rest of the west division's teams, highlighted by 5-3 St. Louis Park, 5-3 Benilde-St. Margaret's, and several Edina teams hovering around .500. Looking at the posted schedule, SLP has a brutal final schedule, running the gauntlet of EP A-D. They may have to beat EP C to make the playoffs at 7-5, although 6-6 may get them in due to the brutal west division. Benilde also has to play some very good Wayzata and EP teams, and they will likely finish around the same mark as SLP. Edina, Minnetonka, Hopkins, and Mound Westonka appear to be the other potential playoff teams, but will need to play well in the final matches to make it in.

In fact, I've discovered an intriguing tiebreaker scenario involving the last west division playoff spot. If St. Louis Park and Benilde both end up at 7-5, I believe it's possible for Edina, Minnetonka, Hopkins, and Mound Westonka to all finish 6-6. Presumably the tiebreaker in that scenario would be PPG, although I'm not positive. For that scenario to happen, Minnetonka (currently 3-5) would have to beat Edina head-to-head and finish 3-1, while Edina, Hopkins, and Moud Westonka would have to go 2-2. One final note: Minnetonka snuck into the playoffs last year at 7-5 but made a run to finish T-6 (nearly upsetting Burnsville in the process), and they return a significant chunk of their scoring from that team.

Edit: I forgot Breck, who could also end up at 7-5 or 6-6.

Finally, we move to the east division. Mounds View appears to have it locked up, and they should finish 12-0. Mounds Park defeated Irondale at the second league night, and assuming their A team can make it to the third one (I know Isak can't always make it to tournaments), they should finish 11-1. Saint Agnes B has been the surprise of the division so far, and are currently sitting pretty at 7-1. However, they (according to the released pairings) will play both Mounds View A and Irondale A in a few weeks, so I'm guessing they will finish at 9-3. Among the 6-2 teams are DeLaSalle A (which still has to play Mounds View and Mounds Park), up-and-coming Washburn B (who has a gauntlet of a final schedule), Mounds Park B, and St. Paul Academy.

One other team of note is Tartan A, which is only 5-3 but sports the league's fourth overall individual scorer, Mario Valento. If they can beat Washburn and St. Paul Academy, 8-4 may be enough to reach the playoffs.

To end, I'll use the early pairings Hentzel has put out to make some predictions about which teams will make the playoffs:

West Division
Wayzata (12-0)
Eden Prairie (10-2)
St. Louis Park (7-5)
Benilde-St. Margaret's (7-5)
Minnetonka A (6-6, winners of PPG tiebreaker)

East Division
Mounds View (12-0)
Mounds Park (11-1)
Irondale (10-2)
Saint Agnes (9-3)
Tartan (8-4)

South Division
Burnsville (12-0)
Some combination of Chaska, Orono, Prior Lake, Eastview, St. Thomas Academy, Eagan, and Chanhassen. I chose not to make a full prediction because it would involve lots of guessing about potential pairings. Ultimately, this one will depend on the schedule. The one thing I am certain of is that Burnsville will cruise to 12-0.

I would love to hear everyone else's views on the subject, because I'm sure I forgot something!
Last edited by Halinaxus on Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

I agree with your picks for the most part, however I will note that ties for advancing to the playoffs are played so Minnetonka would have to win via a match (I think they are full matches) and not on PPG. Beyond that, I agree with your five picks for West Division teams. Same in the East. If St. Agnes and Tartan are able to hold on and qualify for the playoffs that would be really cool to see them attend the POs for the first time in school history. I also think that DLS has a legitimate chance to also go 8-4 and then beat Tartan in a tiebreaker, but we will have to see how it all shakes out.

Regardless of how things end up turning out, there should be some super close battles for the final few playoff spots coming up at League Night 3 which should in turn make for an exciting playoff tournament.

As a side note, the third edition of the podcast will be up by the end of the week with two special guests this time.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

BenWeiner27 wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 12:05 am I agree with your picks for the most part, however I will note that ties for advancing to the playoffs are played so Minnetonka would have to win via a match (I think they are full matches) and not on PPG.
I did not realize that. That will make things much harder for Minnetonka then, because so far they are (I believe) 0-5 against teams currently fighting for playoff position. They will have to beat good teams to make it in.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Serpentine284 »

Hi! My name is Amogh Kulkarni, and I am a junior at Wayzata High School. Recently, on the Minnesota Quiz Bowl Discord server, there has been interest in Minnesota hosting an open submission tournament (if you don't know what that is yet, the form below will explain everything). The form linked below is NOT a confirmation of such a tournament occurring, but just a gauge to see if people are interested in seeing this tournament come to life sometime this year or next year. If there is substantial interest in such a tournament, we will work to make it happen. If you have time, please fill out this form, even if you are not interested in attending. We would really appreciate all the feedback we can get. Thanks for taking the time!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

No one's posted anything to this thread in a while, so I thought I would talk about some recent and upcoming Minnesota tournaments. First off, Hentzel ran an outreach tournament for Knowledge Bowl teams last night at Chaska. We did have some teams drop at the last minute, but eight teams from the three schools that made it played four rounds of league-style quiz bowl. Northfield B won the tournament, defeating Northfield A in the final 330-300. Full stats can be found at https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... t_id=11493. From what I heard, most of the teams enjoyed quiz bowl and are interested in playing it more. They did start slowly score-wise, but in the later rounds a few teams hit 400 points (and one even hit 500!).

Second, the South Suburban Conference had its annual tournament this past Tuesday. While its format is less than ideal (there are no bonuses), it is run on a full IS set (the same one as GINVIT). Stats can be found at https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... t_id=11544. From my perusal of the stats, I didn't see any big surprises (Burnsville A won easily). However, it was an opportunity to see some of the less active teams in the circuit (most of which also do Knowledge Bowl).

Third, Run for the Roses is happening tomorrow. It is likely to be the largest high school tournament in Minnesota this year, as the full 64-team field is filled up. Due to that, hopefully Hentzel can use the card system instead of the predetermined schedules from last year. It is run on an A set, but this should be one of the best chances to see the whole MN circuit this year (I believe most/all of the better teams are registered).

Finally, playoffs for the MNHSQBL are next Thursday, February 20th. I have done some research into how exactly the teams are seeded into the 16-team bracket, and I believe the way Hentzel does it is by first seeding the teams within the divisions, and then putting them into the bracket as follows:
1 - Division winner with best PPG (among division winners)
2 - Division winner with 2nd best PPG (among division winners)
3 - Division winner with 3rd best PPG (among division winners)
4 - Division 2nd place with best PPG (among 2ns place teams)
etc. etc.

I also believe Henztel uses a modified 16-team double elimination bracket to determine a 5th place team (unlike standard 16-team double elimination brackets). However, both my guesses for the seeding and bracket are not necessarily correct (I'm going mostly off of what happened last year), so if someone could confirm or deny my theory I would appreciate it.

Assuming my theory is correct, I am in the process of putting together my playoff predictions and hope to have them up this weekend or early next week. I would love to see everyone else's predictions as well!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Halinaxus »

Assuming my theory is correct, I am in the process of putting together my playoff predictions and hope to have them up this weekend or early next week. I would love to see everyone else's predictions as well!
I have now gone through the playoff bracket and made some predictions. I have Wayzata winning, although Mounds View definitely has the power to challenge that. Behind that, I have Eden Praire, Burnsville, and Mounds Park finishing in 3rd-5th place. I'm not going to post the whole bracket here because I couldn't find a good online bracket creation website (most of them mandate the "normal" 16-team double elimination bracket, while I believe the MNHSQBL uses a slightly modified version to determine a 5th place team) and had to set up a fake bracket on a Google Doc.

One game that looks really interesting to me is the 8-9 matchup (assuming I have the bracket seeded correctly) of Saint Agnes and St. Louis Park. Both of those teams really impressed me at Run for the Roses on Saturday, and I have them both tying for 6th place at the end of the playoffs, so I would love to see a game between them.

Another potentially fun matchup could be Mounds Park vs Burnsville - while the teams are on different sides of the bracket, they look likely to meet somewhere in the one-loss bracket, making for an exciting game between two of the best midfield teams in the state.

I'm very excited to see what actually happens on Thursday, and if anyone else has any thoughts of their own on the playoffs, I would love to hear them!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

The league playoffs happened last night so I will give some of my thoughts here. First a quick objective recap, Wayzata began the evening 4-0 advancing to the advantaged final with a loss to give while Mounds View and Eden Prairie duked it out in the one-loss bracket with EP coming out ahead. EP won the first game of the advantaged final by 75 points while the second game was decisively won by Wayzata, with them carrying something like a 335-0 lead going into the lightning round. Burnsville finished fourth after beating MPA in the the fifth place game. It should be noted that this MPA team is, in fact, MPA's "real team" as Ryan, Isak, and Hana all played.

I think I speak for most of the community when I say that EP was the biggest surprise of last evening for me. I thought that a Wayzata-MV final was almost a sure thing, but Eden Prairie definitely surprised me. Jim and Avery in particular both got some wicked buzzes in the games in which we played them. Having the top three schools in the state (in addition to Wayzata B) all playing really good quizbowl heading into the spring portion of the season should make for a really exciting NAQT State Tournament and also (hopefully) some really impressive performances at nationals.

Another team that really impressed me is St. Agnes as they have traditional been a team that has been toward the back of the field. This is their second year making the playoffs and to finish in 6th is quite impressive. I look forward to seeing how their program will grow in the future.

Other than that, the playoffs were overall a lot of fun, but besides EP upsetting MV and taking a game against Wayzata, there were not a large number of upsets. I look forward to seeing what happens at NAQT State even though I cannot personally attend the tournament.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

BenWeiner27 wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 10:56 am I look forward to seeing what happens at NAQT State even though I cannot personally attend the tournament.
Unfortunately, due to Ben's absence and many others due to SciOly, I think Saturday State will be a bit more disappointing in terms of field.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

The fourth episode of the Minnesota Quizbowl podcast can be found here.

This podcast was originally recorded on March 8th, but due to the constantly changing nature of new regarding the pandemic, we opted to hold off on publishing for a while... which led to me forgetting about it. But it's here now! Topics include the state championships, NAQT's tablet system, ACRONYM, and very outdated updates about the coronavirus.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

For the fifth and final episode of the Minnesota High School Quizbowl podcast, the team ran an end of year poll. All ballots were conducted via AP style voting/points system, with the highest and lowest votes being dropped.

Teams (15 ranked over 12 ballots):
1. Wayzata A (150)
2. Mounds View A (140)
3. Wayzata B (128)
4. Eden Prairie A (122)
5. Eden Prairie B (107)
6. Burnsville A (103)
7. Wayzata C (69)
8. Mounds Park Academy A (65)
9. Eden Prairie C (55)
10. Irondale A (33)
11. Saint Agnes A (31)
12. Wayzata D (26)
13. St. Louis Park A (23)
14. Chaska A (16)
15. Eden Prairie D (8)
Others receiving votes: St. Paul Academy A, Prior Lake A

Individual Overall (10 ranked over 12 ballots):
1. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (100)
2. Brian Lin, Wayzata (87)
3. Jim Sweeney, Eden Prairie (82)
4. Bryanna Shao, Wayzata (54)
5. Isak Dai, Mounds Park Academy (49)
6. Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata (46)
7. Cece Shao, Wayzata (43)
8. Joe Schatz, Burnsville (19)
T9. Ben Weiner, Wayzata (4)
T9. Keegan Wulf, Eden Prairie (4)
Others receiving votes: Aryan Sehgal, Mounds View; Thor Anderson, St. Louis Park; Arul Belhe, Wayzata; Reilly Melville, Chaska

History Poll (5 ranked over 11 ballots):
1. Brian Lin, Wayzata (36)
2. Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata (34)
3. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (27)
4. Jim Sweeney, Eden Prairie (25)
5. Keegan Wulf, Eden Prairie (4)
Others receiving votes: Aryan Sehgal, Mounds View; Isak Dai, Mounds Park Academy; Sid Bommareddy, Eden Prairie; Bryanna Shao, Wayzata; Joe Schatz, Burnsville

Literature Poll (5 ranked over 12 ballots):
1. Cece Shao, Wayzata (49)
2. Bryanna Shao, Wayzata (40)
3. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (24)
4. Brian Lin, Wayzata (5)
5. Urbas Ekka, Irondale (4)
Other receiving votes: Anuk Dias, Wayzata; Jim Sweeney, Eden Prairie; Jack Ekholm, Eden Prairie; Seth Dasuki, Eden Prairie; Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata

Science Poll (5 ranked over 9 ballots):
1. Maxwell Ye, Mounds View (31)
T2. Ben Weiner, Wayzata (27)
T2. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (27)
4. Samir Sarma, Eden Prairie (5)
T5. Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata (2)
T5. Bryanna Shao, Wayzata (2)
Others receiving votes: Abhi Nallamalli, Eden Prairie; Ashwin Halepet, Wayzata; Emily Liu, Wayzata; Chance Persons, Burnsville

Fine Arts Poll (5 ranked over 9 ballots):
1. Paul Wang, Mounds View (30)
2. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (23)
T3. Bryanna Shao, Wayzata (18)
T3. Cece Shao, Wayzata (18)
5. Brian Lin, Wayzata (2)
Others receiving votes: Maxwell Ye, Mounds View; Jack Ekholm, Eden Prairie

RMPSS (Thought & Belief) Poll (5 ranked over 8 ballots):
1. Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata (30)
2. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (19)
3. Brian Lin, Wayzata (16)
4. Ashwin Halepet, Wayzata (8)
5. Bryanna Shao, Wayzata (4)
Others receiving votes: Cece Shao, Wayzata; Arul Belhe, Wayzata; Jim Sweeney, Eden Prairie; Avery Lembke, Eden Prairie

Geography/Current Events/Modern World Poll (5 ranked over 7 ballots):
1. Brian Lin, Wayzata (20)
2. Shardul Rao, Mounds View (12)
3. Aryan Sehgal, Mounds View (10)
4. Jim Sweeney, Eden Prairie (5)
T5. Dan Ginestra, Wayzata (4)
T5. Arul Belhe, Wayzata (4)
Others receiving votes: Sam Buan, Wayzata; Ben Weiner, Wayzata; Amogh Kulkarni, Wayzata

Popular Culture/Trash Poll (5 ranked over 9 ballots):
1. Ben Weiner, Wayzata (31)
2. Avery Lembke, Eden Prairie (24)
3. Isak Dai, Mounds Park Academy (7)
4. Keegan McDevitt, Burnsville (2)
Others receiving votes: Brian Lin, Wayzata; Anna Brusilovsky, Eden Prairie; Shardul Rao, Mounds View; Reilly Melville, Chaska; Matt Harrington, Hill-Murray; Zach LaBeaux, Hill-Murray; Sam Parlin, Irondale; Sam Tramwell, St. Thomas Academy

Congragulations to everyone who was ranked and thanks to those that submitted ballots. Full ballots and rankings can be found here. We hope to have the podcast up by the start of next week. Thanks everyone for a great season!
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by Scone »

The real question is, will there be a Minnesota High School Quizbowl TWO podcast?
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

For those not in the Discord, the link to the fifth (and final) episode of the podcast can be found here. Topics include the End of Year Poll, Online Tournaments during the COVID-19 pandemic, and predictions for the circuit next year.
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Re: Minnesota '19-'20

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Mods could we get this thread archived since a new 20-21 thread has been created?
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