Illinois 06-07

Matt Bardoe · Post by **Matt Bardoe** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 3:32 pm

I see that the IHSSBCA site is down. Will it be up again soon?

Matt

Matt Bardoe · Post by **Matt Bardoe** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 3:34 pm

If there are any moderators that would be interested in helping with a sectional tournament on Mar 10 at the Latin school of Chicago, please contact me at [email protected]. Feel free to contact me after regionals.

Thanks,

Matt

Maxwell Sniffingwell · Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:34 pm

I was starting to get worried there... six days of silence on this board? Wow.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:21 pm

IHSSBCA will be back up in a day or two. I'm working on it.

David Riley · Post by **David Riley** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:54 am

Just a reminder: NAQT State Qualifier will be held at Loyola on March 24 (see listing under Regular Tournaments). If you would like to play, bug your coaches!

The field so far:

Carbondale
Loyola
Maine Southn
Naperville Central
New Trier
St. Ignatius
Stevenson
Wheaton North

friarup · Post by **friarup** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:16 pm

So...Mason Bowl state is this weekend. I'm unfamiliar with the format. I was wondering what the deal is going to be on Saturday. Is it a 'one and done' thing, or is there some type of consolation.

Just by looking at the number of teams, 16, it seems like its going to be a basic 1 v 16, 2 v 15, 3 v 14, etc...kind of like one of the brackets for the NCAA tournament... I don't know, i could be totally out of my league here

dtaylor4 · Post by **dtaylor4** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:45 pm

It's double elimination, seeded by total points during the Regional. What I find weird is that you can play 4 and win the whole thing, or play 5 and not win a damn thing.

OP_Huskies · Post by **OP_Huskies** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:36 pm

David Riley wrote:Just a reminder: NAQT State Qualifier will be held at Loyola on March 24 (see listing under Regular Tournaments). If you would like to play, bug your coaches!

The field so far:

Carbondale
Loyola
Maine Southn
Naperville Central
New Trier
St. Ignatius
Stevenson
Wheaton North

Bah ... I'd love to go but I'm out of town.

Hell of a field though ...

JB

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:26 am

ihssbca.org is back up, and the newsletter will be out very soon.

Jax · Post by **Jax** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:34 pm

midseason coaches' poll is up
Class A (small schools)

1. Lutheran S A HS (Decatur)
2. Latin School (Chicago)
3. PORTA (Petersburg)
4. IVC (Chillicothe)
5. Byron
6. Macomb
7. Peoria Heights
8. Fairfield
9. Paris
9. Princeton
Others receiving at least one vote: Litchfield, Macon Meridian, Morrison, Normal University High, Orion, Spring Valley Hall, Seneca, Taylor Ridge Rockridge, Williamsville.

Class AA (large schools)
1. Bloomington HS
2. Maine South (Park Ridge)
3. Wheaton North
4. Auburn (Rockford)
5. New Trier (Winnetka)
6. Oak Park River Forest
7. Carbondale
8. St. Ignatius (Chicago)
9. Libertyville
10. Maine East (Park Ridge)
11. Fenwick (Oak Park)
12. Stevenson (Lincolnshire)
13. Moline
13. Springfield HS
15. Hoffman Estates

Others receiving at least one vote: IMSA, Palatine Fremd, Wheaton Warrenville South, Wilmette Loyola.

OP_Huskies · Post by **OP_Huskies** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:57 pm

Thanks for posting the poll, Jax.

Anyone know what the voting breakdown (like they showed in the preseason poll) looked like?

And I imagine by the time people get this, most will be back from Masonics. How did it go?

JB

Trevkeeper · Post by **Trevkeeper** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:05 pm

1. Maine South
2. New Trier
3. Springfield
4. Moline

(I might have mixed up 3 and 4).

Maine South was down 25 going into the last question, and swept it. It hurt, but hey, they earned it. Congratulations to them.

mlaird · Post by **mlaird** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:52 am

Um, out of interest, I noticed that Auburn was consolation champs, but what happened to Bloomington? Granted, with these questions, who knows what could have happened, but what were the opening matches like?

Siverus Snape · Post by **Siverus Snape** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:16 am

Well, we beat Bloomington in the consolation championship. I think I heard that they beat Fenwick to play us, but I'm not really sure.

harpersferry · Post by **harpersferry** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:22 am

There were a lot of really close matches today, many within 5-10 points (including the finals and third place matches). It made for an exciting day.

One question: Has anyone ever read a round before where there were two tossups with the exact same answer? I must conclude that the round simply wasn't edited as a complete round.

MJG · Post by **MJG** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:43 am

Bloomington wasn't at full strength today; they were Hunter-less.

JohnAndSlation · Post by **JohnAndSlation** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:58 am

There were a lot of repeats. Everywhere. Granted, that round was a little more than slightly ridiculous. By the way, 3 Sherlock Holmes? Why?

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:43 am

Before I go further:

1. I'm proud of what my team has accomplished over the space of a year. The improvement was far beyond what I could have predicted.

2. While the questions at Masonic State were slightly better than at sectionals, they were far from desirable. The last two rounds in particular showed little in terms of a "distribtion". I think there was one music question in the last three rounds. The last half of the championship had no art question at all, and count 'em ONE literature question on Dr. Watson. I suspect a certain percentage of the improvement from state to sectionals was the moderating and review of the questions by experienced people.....though even that was still limited.

3. Let's face it: a lot of teams were under handicap: Bloomington was missing Hunter. New Trier was playing on very little sleep after driving from Winnetka at 5 am. Maine South Greg was suffering from a migraine for a great deal of the day. Springfield was down a good player as I recall. In short: many teams had to fight through adversity. Despite the close matches that likely excited the onlookers, it was not an example of great quizbowl by any means.

MJG · Post by **MJG** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:25 pm

I also about lost it when a guy came in, stood next to our team and took like 17 flash pictures, then came back for more ten minutes later. Granted it is the Mason's meet and thus they can do what they want with it (in addition to the match being pretty much decided by then), but I would have expected a little better than that.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:52 pm

MJG wrote:I also about lost it when a guy came in, stood next to our team and took like 17 flash pictures, then came back for more ten minutes later. Granted it is the Mason's meet and thus they can do what they want with it (in addition to the match being pretty much decided by then), but I would have expected a little better than that.

Don't even get me started! One year at the IHSA tournament, a photog came into a room where I was reading. I stopped the match and looked at him. He continued snapping pictures and said "please continue". I responded "as soon as you're done." I got a dirty look, but I was not about to let a photographer interfere with the match. This isn't like basketball where you can slap on a telephoto lens and take a distant shot. This really interferes with the match. I know a couple of pictures of my team did not include smiliing faces when they looked up to "watch the birdie".

Mr. G is right though: ultimately, it is their meet, and they can do what they want, but I think what upsets a lot of people is that there is some belief that this is all "standard and accepted practice". There is a belief questions like this in that distribution are "standard".

OP_Huskies · Post by **OP_Huskies** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:18 pm

Tegan wrote:
MJG wrote:I also about lost it when a guy came in, stood next to our team and took like 17 flash pictures, then came back for more ten minutes later. Granted it is the Mason's meet and thus they can do what they want with it (in addition to the match being pretty much decided by then), but I would have expected a little better than that.
Don't even get me started! One year at the IHSA tournament, a photog came into a room where I was reading. I stopped the match and looked at him. He continued snapping pictures and said "please continue". I responded "as soon as you're done." I got a dirty look, but I was not about to let a photographer interfere with the match. This isn't like basketball where you can slap on a telephoto lens and take a distant shot. This really interferes with the match. I know a couple of pictures of my team did not include smiliing faces when they looked up to "watch the birdie".

Mr. G is right though: ultimately, it is their meet, and they can do what they want, but I think what upsets a lot of people is that there is some belief that this is all "standard and accepted practice". There is a belief questions like this in that distribution are "standard".

As many of you probably saw, last year the Auburn team had a front page (?) article in the Chicago Tribune the week before state. How was that? Was it more of "its cool to finally get some recognition for our team/activity" or was it more "I want this guy to get out of here so we can practice?"

I'm just curious about this, and of course anyone can weigh in if they choose.

harpersferry · Post by **harpersferry** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:52 pm

I suppose, as a member of that Auburn team it would be pretty logical for me to respond.

As I remember, most of the reporter's interviews were done outside of practice. The photographer I came to a practice, and the only picture used (close up of Tyler) was from that day. He wasn't all that intrusive, except for the time he rushed over after I buzzed in to get a close up of my face.

It was cool to have a front page article on us and quiz bowl, but it was a bit distracting when we were trying to prepare for a big tournament. We tried not to dwell on it so that we could focus on studying and practice. We didn't want to have so much hype right before the tournament, but sometimes it happens that way.

Inevitably, reporters (and the public) don't know enough about Scholastic Bowl to write more than a human interest story. Instead of reading like a sports report, which gives pertinant information about the team and how they measure up against its competition, it ends up being about how quirky the activity is. For example, there was a sidebar with 4 tossups and a bonus, which was like a "quiz yourself" thing. Or consider this quote: "Contestants face questions in calculus, astronomy, home economics, European history, classical music, agriculture and even driver's ed." Those categories include 3 of the most despised in all Quiz bowl. I wouldn't be at all sad if there were no more home ec, driver's ed or ag questions. But they way they write, it makes those sound, like Mr. Egan said, standard. The article is by its nature sensationalized.

So to answer your question, we tried not to get caught up in it.

MJG · Post by **MJG** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:01 pm

I had similar feelings toward an article in our local paper this year about the Masonic regional. The reporter wrote almost exactly how you describe, with a list of mostly junk topics and a list of questions that were asked during the day. It was incredibly sad to me because most of the questions the reporter used were terrible (not his fault, we ARE talking about the Masonic meet). It really pains me that the reporter, and now those who read the article, have only a Masonic regional with lackluster competition as their impression of scholastic bowl. They did list the top 4 teams at the meet, but that was pretty much it as far as stats or even an attempt to tell about how the scoring or gameplay actually works.

Siverus Snape · Post by **Siverus Snape** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:27 pm

pasedpawn wrote:He wasn't all that intrusive, except for the time he rushed over after I buzzed in to get a close up of my face.

In the photographer's defense, John made a ridiculous face, and the practice was not in serious mode at the moment. In fact, the rest of the team enjoyed the moment immensely.

At the time of the article, I was a freshman, and though I was a starter, it wasn't like our chances rode on my shoulders by any means. Partially because of this, the experience didn't bother me much at all. I actually kind of liked it; a lot of our family friends in the Chicago area saw the article and congratulated me about it. I do have to agree that the article was not really consistent with the true nature of our most wonderful competitive academic activity. I imagine that a relatively small portion of the Tribune's audience could easily relate to the more serious nature of Scholastic Bowl, not just the human interest side.

Do I think that the article really affected anything important? No. Yeah, it might have added some unnecessary hype, but we lost to Fremd only because A. we didn't play as well as we should have and B. Fremd was an outstanding team.

Basically, because I don't see a true negative side to the article, I have to classify it as a generally good experience.

OP_Huskies · Post by **OP_Huskies** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:05 am

One of our team members is on the school newspaper, and last year after sectionals (?) he convinced his editor to do a feature on our team. The end result was "20 Questions with Scholastic Bowl," a half-interview, half quiz-session that we hoped would bring an enhanced awareness of our team. Unfortunately, as in the case of the tribune article, the story misconstrued the true nature of the game. The interview part was relatively well-done ... they did ask us some important questions (one of the better ones was "why are their so few girls on our team?" ... which is a question I think a lot of people in the quiz bowl establishment need to consider, esepcially our team which is notoriously and historically testosterone-infested). However, the quiz questions really did misconstrue the game. At least 75% of the questions were sports or popular culture related (though the editor in chief nearly flipped when I knew that Mariano Rivera was on the mound when Luis Gonzolez hit a walk-off single in Game 7 of the 2002 (?) World Series). The academic questions were designed with the goal of "trick the smart kids," coming from the middle of obscure paragraphs in our physics/American history books. Basically, our one experience with the "media" has led to the game being a bit misconstrued, and I wanted to know what people thought of the trib article.

I do have to say that it wasn't all bad ... one of the editors came and watched our first regional match (this was before the aforementioned story), and began with article with something along the lines of "I wasn't quite sure what scholastic bowl was. I was told it was some wierd form of nerds battling, but I was utterly unprepared for what I found: a good time."

The problem is, any thoughts on scholastic bowl from outside those involved are along the lines of the "its like nerds battling" stereotype, and fail to recognize just how interesting/intense/fun it can actually be.

Trevkeeper · Post by **Trevkeeper** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:23 am

OP_Huskies wrote:One of our team members is on the school newspaper, and last year after sectionals (?) he convinced his editor to do a feature on our team. The end result was "20 Questions with Scholastic Bowl," a half-interview, half quiz-session that we hoped would bring an enhanced awareness of our team.

Ah, this is the advantage of having one your team's co-captains be the Features editor of the newspaper.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:39 pm

Congrats to Maine South. The final match came down to a legitimate question, and they beat us to it. Though my team had every right to be tired after a long day, they were in fact wide awake. Maine South has a lot of class, and it was good that the disputes which came up in the Final were handled in a fair and respectful manner.

leapfrog314 · Post by **leapfrog314** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:29 am

Good luck to everyone at IHSA Regionals today!

MLaudermith · Post by **MLaudermith** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:13 pm

Congratulations to Maine South & New Trier, and good luck to all today. Saturday ought to be pretty interesting.

JIrving · Post by **JIrving** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:00 pm

We'll all have to start our brackets by then.

Irreligion in Bangladesh · Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:29 pm

JIrving wrote:We'll all have to start our brackets by then.

Indeed. The only thing keeping me from doing a regional prognostication is that there are no stats for any regional in the south half of the states and quite a few regionals in the north half. Sectionals are considerably easier to predict.

Best of luck, everyone!

MJG · Post by **MJG** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:04 am

We (Sterling) beat Rockford Boylan 263-254 to win our regional.

Highlight: I REALLY freaked out my team and coach by buzzing and saying "no answer" to kill the last question on the off chance that someone else on my team knew it.

the return of AHAN · Post by **the return of AHAN** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:16 am

Huh? Did I miss something? Since when would pre-empting your own team give you an advantage in a 9-point game???? Did you have one of those moderators who thinks that a team gets the remaining time or 3 seconds, whichever is LESS"???

dtaylor4 · Post by **dtaylor4** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:19 am

No. Say MJG gets the tossup. His team is now up 19. If his team 0s the bonus and the other team sweeps, they win. By intentionally missing, you force them to get the tossup to beat you. This is good strategy when up by less than 10 going into the last tossup.

Warning: before doing this, ask for a score check to make sure you are ahead.

MJG · Post by **MJG** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:22 am

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the other team had already buzzed in with an incorrect answer.

Jax · Post by **Jax** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:13 am

great move matt!! i had the pleasure of pulling this buzz no answer thing twice this year. one agaisnt fenwick and one against stevenson. up by 5 and they miss. the stevenson one was for the conference championship. it sure feels good. Also, i know for a fact that Lake zurich was beating stevenson by 5 going intot hte last question at one meet. stevenson miss. lake zurich answer and gets it right up by 15. they miss all of the bonus, steveson gets 15 and wins in OT. so the no answer thing is definitely a good call.

tedwilliams1999 · Post by **tedwilliams1999** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:04 am

Congratulations to Hersey, they beat us (hoffman estates) in our regional championship.

Hersey is a great team, and the only chance we had was if we nailed most of the math and science but we fell a little short.

Captain Sinico · Post by **Captain Sinico** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:25 am

DaGeneral wrote:[Intentionally getting a tossup wrong] is good strategy when up by less than 10 going into the last tossup.

Dude, no it isn't. Intentionally getting question wrong is only the right move in this case if the other team already got it wrong. Of course, that's what happened... Anyway, if you think about this, there's no way it's the right strategy if the other team hasn't already gotten it wrong.

MaS

IcyBallerina · Post by **IcyBallerina** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:44 am

MJG wrote:We (Sterling) beat Rockford Boylan 263-254 to win our regional.

Highlight: I REALLY freaked out my team and coach by buzzing and saying "no answer" to kill the last question on the off chance that someone else on my team knew it.

It was a fantastic match, definitely the best we've played all year. Great job, Sterling, and best of luck at Sectionals!

Siverus Snape · Post by **Siverus Snape** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:08 am

Seriously...If you neg before they even answer in that situation, and they do get the tossup, they only need two bonus parts. That's a much higher likelihood than you getting the tossup, zeroing on the bonus, and having them sweep it.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:51 am

On the questions:

Overall, I thought this was the best set of Regionals since Answers Plus was muscled out (which is to say the best ever). While I would object to some of the non-academic questions, and some of the academic questions being really left field, the format was by far the best, and that includes the years I was writing them. I hope the sectional questions live up to and exceed these questions.

Edit: spelling Overall with a v, which is the correct spelling.

friarup · Post by **friarup** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:08 am

Our (Fenwick) regional was stronger than we expected. Mostly because we overlooked our opponents a little bit, which bit us in the ass. York gave us a run for our money. They were winning by like 50 after 7 questions or so, but we got it together in the second half.

Saturday ought to be fun.

The questions were very good (they should be that good in the state series anyway.) Some of the questions were too random. It was all good though. Some of the questions were one liners. Not exactly buzzer beaters, but short nonetheless.

I see that Maine south had some fun in their semifinal against evanston. Is it just me, or does anyone else sweat (a lot) during really close matches? Maybe that's too much information...

rjaguar3 · Post by **rjaguar3** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:54 pm

Well now that regionals are done, it's time for the:

SECTIONAL PREDICTION CONTEST

All you have to do is pick the winners of each of the eight sectionals on Saturday. Also, include the total number of points you think will be scored by ALL winning teams at sectionals. This is a tiebreaker if we have a tie (see below)

And you would include seven other entries for the other seven sectionals.

SCORING

Each correctly picked sectional winner scores one point for the entry. The entry with the most correct sectional winner picks wins the contest.

But since there will probably be a lot of ties, we have to have...

TIEBREAKERS

Here are the tiebreakers. They will be used in order until the tie is broken.

For each correctly picked sectional in the entry, one tiebreak point is scored for every entrant that DID NOT pick the correct winner of that sectional. For example, if 5 people chose Wheaton North and 2 did not, and Wheaton North won, the 5 people who correctly chose Wheaton North would win 2 tiebreak points each.
If the tiebreak points are equal, the total points scored by ALL winning sectional teams will be used. The closest to the total number of points scored by ALL winning teams (in either direction) wins the tie-break.
If that is tied, the player whose entry is submitted first wins.

SEND YOUR PICKS VIA E-MAIL OR PM. ENTRIES ARE DUE 11:59 PM CST FRIDAY.

Have fun!

STPickrell · Post by **STPickrell** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:03 pm

I see Whitney Young lost 190-105 in their first match. I use them as a counterweight any time anyone in VA complains about TJ or Gov.

AA results: http://www.ihsa.org/scores/7r06scb2.htm
A results: http://www.ihsa.org/scores/7r06scb1.htm
(this is more for the non-Illinois types who read this board)

My teammate in HS played for Hoffman Estates Conant way back in the early 1990s before moving to VA. Do they even attend any tournaments anymore?

Good luck to teams in sectionals.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:44 pm

StPickrell wrote:I see Whitney Young lost 190-105 in their first match. I use them as a counterweight any time anyone in VA complains about TJ or Gov.

Whitney Young is perpetually bad in this competition. The school they lost to is no push over, but would not be considered among the 50 better teams in the state. To my knowledge they are (literally) 0-for-forever. Whitney Young focuses on Decathlon where all of the answers can be gleaned from premade study material. In a heads up anything goes match, they are simply not in the league of the top 200 teams in Illinois.

BUT...if they ever chose to, I bet they could become a power.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:47 pm

rjaguar3 wrote:Well now that regionals are done, it's time for the:

SECTIONAL PREDICTION CONTEST

Just in case I miss someone: any Maine South player entering this contest will be sent to the Hell of Upsidedown Sinners (because the Chinese have a lot of hells!)

I've been quoting BTiLC a bit much lately.

What's in the flask Egg? Magic Potion?
Yeah!
Good, thought so. Whadda we do? Drink it?
Yeah!
Good, thought so.

Irreligion in Bangladesh · Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:52 pm

Tegan wrote:On the questions:

Overall, I thought this was the best set of Regionals since Answers Plus was muscled out (which is to say the best ever). While I would object to some of the non-academic questions, and some of the academic questions being really left field, the format was by far the best, and that includes the years I was writing them. I hope the sectional questions live up to and exceed these questions.

Edit: spelling Overall with a v, which is the correct spelling.

Reading these questions brought a considerable smile to my face. These were absolutely the best IHSA questions I've seen. It seemed to me that the shorter questions and the trashy questions had some serious overlap (Dumbledore's pet phoenix in round zero, the driver's ed, the pasta shapes, etc.), which may actually work to the benefit of pyramidal academic questions. Leave the groaners to pop culture and whatnot.

And if this Sectional Prediction Contest is going down, it had better include Class A sectionals as well. You've got scores from this year's regionals and history from past years - it shouldn't be too hard.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:42 pm

[quote="styxmanReading these questions brought a considerable smile to my face.[/quote]

I couldn't help but think "uh-oh" when round 31 started with Maria Tallchief, but then again, it could have been "chicken dance".

A definite improvement!

Belgarion89 · Post by **Belgarion89** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:52 pm

I didn't mind the Driver's Ed question, though that was largely becuase I got it. Pasta shapes I get the feeling was thrown in largely because of discussions on THIS board. The iPod one made me angry, "technology" implies actually needing to known stuff about computers, not the area of Best Buy next to the cameras.

the return of AHAN · Post by **the return of AHAN** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:28 pm

Why can't an occasional question about something not in the scholastic bowl canon be asked without it being ripped on? I must say, I have 26 kids on my scholastic bowl team this year, and I'm sure I'd lose some of them if everything was about what's in their textbooks. They had a lot of fun at a tournament in Streator this past weekend, and if you ask them about what questions they found most memorable, it'd be the bonus questions where "Borat" and "Kobayashi" (of hot dog eating fame) were correct answers. They giggled, even as they answered, at the idea that they knew these answers. And check out the scores of the Class A matches... Some of those folks didn't break out of double digits.
When it was over, did the cream not rise to the top in the 30 toss-up matches yesterday?

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SECTIONAL PREDICTION CONTEST

Re: SECTIONAL PREDICTION CONTEST