2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

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2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

NAQT is pleased to announce that our 2020 Sectional Championship Tournaments will take place the weekend of Saturday, February 8.

The 2020 host requirements are available here.
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

This post will list sites confirmed to host NAQT SCT in February 2020. All tournaments will take place Saturday, February 8 unless otherwise stated.

Toronto
MIT
Cornell
Penn
North Carolina State
Auburn
Central Florida
Michigan
Purdue
Minnesota
Missouri
Texas
Colorado
UCLA
Berkeley
Washington

Last updated 1/21 --JTH
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

Registration is now open for the 2020 SCT.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by person361 »

After last year's SCTs, Seth said that NAQT was reassessing the following placement policy:
Important Bird Area wrote:If the prelims are a split-field round-robin followed by bracketed playoffs that do not repeat any opponents from the preliminary pools (formats marked "SFRR" for 15 through 24 teams on the approved SCT format list), then teams are ranked within each playoff bracket by overall record.
Are there any updates on this?
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by Important Bird Area »

person361 wrote: Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:44 am After last year's SCTs, Seth said that NAQT was reassessing the following placement policy:
Important Bird Area wrote:If the prelims are a split-field round-robin followed by bracketed playoffs that do not repeat any opponents from the preliminary pools (formats marked "SFRR" for 15 through 24 teams on the approved SCT format list), then teams are ranked within each playoff bracket by overall record.
Are there any updates on this?
I'll start a new thread for this.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by CaseyB »

It seems to me that there is still a big gap geographically in the Mid-Atlantic by not having a site in either Virginia or North Carolina. Do you plan on adding another site to fill this gap?
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by Mnemosyne »

CaseyB wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:50 pm It seems to me that there is still a big gap geographically in the Mid-Atlantic by not having a site in either Virginia or North Carolina. Do you plan on adding another site to fill this gap?
I guess the answer is no? Last year's SCTs locations were Virginia Tech and Rutgers. Both of those appear to have been combined into one site in Philadelphia.

Last year's Mid-Atlantic SCT at Virginia Tech had 21 teams from 14 schools. Only 3 (Virginia.VCU, ETSU) of those schools are bringing teams to this year's "Mid-Atlantic" SCT in Philadelphia.

It took us nearly 8 hours (4pm to midnight) to get to Philadelphia for Penn Bowl. For every school to the south of us, Penn is not a reasonable tournament location. Multiple teams from 11+ schools are effectively locked out of playing SCT this year because there is no reasonable site in the Mid-Atlantic.
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by Important Bird Area »

We would welcome an additional SCT site in the lower Mid-Atlantic. I've reached out to a number of potential hosts in that region; if your team is interested in hosting, please contact us ([email protected]) as soon as possible.
Jeff Hoppes
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"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration open

Post by Important Bird Area »

I'm pleased to report that we have added a Lower Mid-Atlantic site at North Carolina State.
Jeff Hoppes
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former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
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"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8 - registration closes Saturday!

Post by Important Bird Area »

Quick reminder that registration for many of our SCT sites closes on Saturday, February 1st. Teams that have not yet registered for SCT are encouraged to do so in the very near future.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

NAQT has corrected a minor anomaly in the published D-value procedure related to averaging of D-values and team order-of-finish. We noticed this issue while tabulating results for the 2020 Community College Sectional Championship Tournaments.

Under the previously-posted D-value formula, it was possible for team X to finish behind teams A-N at a given SCT site, with a worse D-value than team N; for teams A-N to have their D-values averaged because N has a higher D-value than A; and for the averaged D-values for teams A-N to wind up being lower than the (untouched) D-value of team X. If this scenario arises, our solution will be to pool team X with teams A-N, and assign every team in that pool the average of their initial D-values. This will give teams A-N + X the same D-value, and invitations will be handed out according to the order of finish. This procedure will repeat until there are no disagreements between the order of finish and the order of D-values.

The corrected version will be used to issue invitations for the 2020 ICT.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

I've set up a private forum for discussion of this year's SCT questions. Please select "2020 SCT discussion" from your user control panel to request access.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

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Complete stats for all 2020 SCT sites are now available here. We have also posted preliminary D-values for the 2020 ICT (Division I, Division II).

Please let us know if there are any corrections that need to be made to these stats; we expect to issue initial invitations to the 2020 ICT on Monday. (edit: this will be a bit later on in the week; we're double-checking some details about which rooms are available at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare on ICT weekend)
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Sigurd »

I see ICT Invitations have been posted.

Full disclosure, I am an advisor for the team that is first on the waitlist for DII right now so forgive me for sounding salty, but I am a bit confused as to how from Yale NUS in Singapore has qualified despite not having earned a bid through SCT (unless there was a unlisted site that they played somewhere? I assume this is not the case).

Given what appears to be the situation, I assume that they have been given a wildcard application, so I would like to ask why their application was determined to have sufficient merit to allow for them to receive a DII ICT bid despite not participating in an SCT. Obviously, they meet the criteria for distance based consideration, but isn't this supposed to be backed up by some form of evidence that the team possesses sufficient skill to allow for the reasonable possibility that they could have qualified "on the buzzer" had an opportunity to play SCT been available? The only results for Yale-NUS on NAQT/HarryWhiteDB involve the team putting up modest (<20PPB) performances on High School sets (including an IS-A set at one tournament). To me at least, this seems far below the standard of results that should be expected to earn a team an ICT bid without playing SCT. If there were other tournaments that were taken into consideration when evaluating this bid, I would be interested to know what they were and how it was decided that these were suitable substitutes for playing (or hosting) an SCT. Considering the availability of online mirrors these days, its not as if teams are lacking in opportunities to make a name for themselves remotely.

In terms of spots available for teams that try and qualify, DII ICT is probably the hardest tournament in quizbowl to qualify for. I can see why offering wildcards for larger tournaments such as HSNCT can be beneficial, but it seems quite harsh to implement for ICT considering how difficult it is to qualify at the buzzer. Furthermore, a DII SCT tournament is an absolute staple for a quizbowl team/circuit at any stage of development, and typically carries regular ICT bids for both its host and its champion, so I don't really see why an ICT bid would ever need to be awarded without playing an SCT unless the university was found in a truly isolated location (which Singapore does not really qualify as, especially considering they seem to get ~8 teams at their IS tournaments).

I guess ultimately, I am unsure of why any ICT bids would ever be awarded for reasons unrelated to an SCT (considering how competitive ICT qualification is) and I would like clarification (if possible) as to why this specific application was found to have sufficient merit to warrant an ICT bid.

Sorry for sounding like sour grapes, I'm still hoping to see you all in Chicago.

Edit: As Conor said below, I mean absolutely no offense to the team from Yale-NUS. They were perfectly in the right to request a wildcard, and I hope they enjoy ICT!
Last edited by Sigurd on Thu Feb 20, 2020 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Bosa of York »

In 2017, Penn applied for and was denied a wildcard bid for ICT, despite the fact that Eric Mukherjee was unable to make it to SCT but obviously would have qualified if he had been able to play. This made many in the community believe that it was completely impossible to have a wildcard bid for ICT be accepted. While I guess that NAQT's rules and regulations allow it to change its policy in this regard without informing the community, it still is somewhat disappointing that it has done so. This will substantially increase the uncertainty and anxiety surrounding ICT qualification, especially when these bids were posted a week and a half after SCT, several days after it was said that they would be.

Also, considering that Yale NUS has hosted NAQT events for a college audience in the past, I don't see why they didn't just host SCT themselves if they wanted to qualify for ICT.
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by CPiGuy »

I don't think there are four college teams in Singapore (most of the teams at the tournaments Yale-NUS has played appear to be high schools), so I'm not actually sure Yale-NUS could have hosted an SCT -- I know about the combined field policy, but I'm not sure if NAQT would allow an SCT to go on with only two teams. (It could really screw with D-values, methinks.) So, hosting might not have been an option barring some conspiratorial house-team-field-splitting (which, like, I'm sure would have been substantially more accepted by the community, which generally is in support of tournaments being held in new places even if unusual measures have to be taken to get them to happen).

I understand that, iirc, the issue with Penn's wildcard request was that it was issued after the tournament happened, whereas NAQT's wildcard policy was designed for teams to apply well in advance of SCT. (I think this was kinda shortsighted, tbh, but I can't fault NAQT for sticking to their policies, lest whatever team got bubbled out in Penn's place complain about it.) I do have to say, though, it's pretty annoying that NAQT prevented a team that almost qualified at the buzzer *without* one of the greatest players in the game at the time from competing at their national championship, but appears to be just fine with letting a team in that couldn't crack 20PPB on a high school set and went 5-4 at the only tournament they've played this year, finishing third behind two *actual high school teams* (and not particularly amazing high school teams either, although their stats were pretty decent). The teams that are on the bubble all put up better stats on a nontrivially harder set.

I'm not saying NAQT shouldn't give out wildcards at all -- there are obviously situations in which wildcards ought to be handed out! -- but I *am* saying that qualifying for DII ICT is really hard (and something a lot of very good teams fail to do every year), and in my opinion given the current guidelines NAQT shouldn't give out wildcards to teams that haven't done something to demonstrate that they are at a high enough level to have qualified were they able to (such as, I don't know, winning a high school tournament).

I do think it's reasonable for NAQT to extend such wildcard bids if they think it's useful for outreach or geographic diversity -- the argument in favor of site winners receiving autobids is similar, and I think such invitations have substantial value. It'd just be nice if NAQT could indicate on their website that they hand out wildcards for reasons other than "hav[ing] demonstrated a high quality of play in academic competition throughout the year", because as the wildcard rules are currently written I think people's displeasure is fairly warranted.

(Also, just to be clear, I don't want to direct any blame at Yale-NUS; their having asked for a wildcard was extremely reasonable, given their location several thousand miles from the nearest SCT site, and it should be up to NAQT to determine whether or not they ought to receive one.)

-----

On a completely unrelated note; the invitations show up but they do not appear to have actually been issued? At least, I can't see any way to register or any other sort of invitation in either my email or my NAQT account. I assume that'll happen this morning since they were posted so late, but wanted to mention it in case this wasn't known to NAQT.
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Re: 2020 NAQT SCT: February 8

Post by Important Bird Area »

Invitations for the 2020 ICT are being sent out today; it should now be possible for invited teams to register here.

Yes, we accepted a wildcard bid from Yale-NUS. Some notes on this: 1) they are a substantial distance away from the nearest SCT site 2) it was not possible to host an SCT site in Singapore (not enough teams; NAQT does not allow high school teams to play the SCT) and 3) Andre Wong, who is on the projected Yale-NUS roster for ICT, did not play at the Singapore ACF Fall site because he was directing it.

Penn's inquiry about a wildcard bid to the 2017 ICT arrived after we had already issued a complete set of invitations to that tournament; we did not believe it would be fair to the teams that had already been invited if we were to accept a wildcard bid at that time.
Jeff Hoppes
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"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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