OPGavin wrote:I thought the concept bonuses (bonuses?) at Fenwick were cool, but not all great.
Could you expand on what you mean by concept bonuses .... I'm not sure I follow, nad I want to understand this.
OPGavin wrote:I thought the 16-TU format was pretty short, but that's just me being conditioned to the conference 30-TU format. I know we can't do that many - that would just be too slow & tedious.
According to the new state rules (assuming they were followed), all of the state rounds will be 30 question pyramid style.
I think we are all in agreement that pyramidality is good, but I am really worried that in a 30 question match, especially downstate where schools have two hour travel times on a weeknight to get to a Regional, and then can spend up to nearly five hours with a slow moderator doing 3-4 rounds, that there will be a lot of backlash from the less successful schools who have to travel. There have been some ideas circulated in the past:
1. Move Regionals to a Saturday instead of a school night. This frees up travel.
2. Reduce rounds to 20 questions until the Regional finals.
3. Used timed rounds (I've never been a fan of this, and my experience at Northwestern gives me even more a reason to not support this ... I think timed rounds only work if you have good moderators)
4. Different questions for Class A and Class AA. I don't think this solves the problem as neatly as some think it might. For one, this really hurts the good Class A school if you turn their questions into quick recall buzzer beaters. It also assumes that every Class AA team is automatically good (which is hardly the case). Besides, this panders to the lowest common denominator.