2007 Post-Nationals Poll Discussion - Results are in!

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 10:59 pm

I am not going to start accepting votes for the poll just yet - I'm going to let Panasonic finish up and wait on the last results for the NAC, though I doubt those will affect ballots too awful much. And yes, I realize the Panasonic thing means we won't be voting for three weeks - but good discussion is always a great thing.

Confirmed teams at Panasonic that are NOT all-star teams:

Alabama - Indian Springs
Pennsylvania - Scranton (only sort of confirmed, really)
Vermont - Champlain Valley Union
West Virginia - Parkersburg Catholic

The Time Keeper · Post by **The Time Keeper** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 11:02 pm

Gov. School is good at quizbowl.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 11:10 pm

Dolemite wrote:Gov. School is good at quizbowl.

Confirm.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 3:44 pm

OK Panasonic's over can we have the poll now?

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:15 pm

Yes. Begin voting post haste.

I will be accepting ballots until July 2nd. If demand necessitates it, I will extend the deadline. Please discuss teams to rank and such here.

Edit: Please e-mail your ballot to me; I will only count those I receive by e-mail. Rank your top 25. Be sure to include at least each school's state, if not the city. B-teams are eligible to receive votes. I reserve the right to reject ballots for being inaccurate/biased/stupid.

Byko · Post by **Byko** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:46 am

leftsaidfred wrote:I am not going to start accepting votes for the poll just yet - I'm going to let Panasonic finish up and wait on the last results for the NAC, though I doubt those will affect ballots too awful much. And yes, I realize the Panasonic thing means we won't be voting for three weeks - but good discussion is always a great thing.

Confirmed teams at Panasonic that are NOT all-star teams:

Alabama - Indian Springs
Pennsylvania - Scranton (only sort of confirmed, really)
Vermont - Champlain Valley Union
West Virginia - Parkersburg Catholic

Actually, it is confirmed. I've met them and their coach.

Other non all-star teams (for what it's worth):

US Virgin Islands (St. Croix Central)
New Hampshire (Manchester West)
Connecticut (Cheshire)
Texas (Klein)
California (Torrey Pines)
Montana (Billings Skyview)
Idaho (Mackay)
New Mexico (Southwest Learning Center)
Louisiana (Catholic - New Iberia)
Tennessee (Farragut)
North Carolina (North Carolina School for Science and Math)
Indiana (Ben Davis)
Iowa (Southern Cal)

I think that's it--that's all I'm coming up with right now. The only two teams I didn't get to meet and find out information from were Mississippi and Maine.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:22 am

According to a press release, Maine was Oak Hill, and Mississippi was East Rankin Academy.

Stat Boy · Post by **Stat Boy** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:34 am

Is this poll a postseason end of the year ranking or a preseason ranking for next year?

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:33 pm

I go with postseason on this one, and after ACE camp I think we should start preseason next year. Sound good?

Stat Boy · Post by **Stat Boy** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:35 pm

That makes sense.

mhanna · Post by **mhanna** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:18 pm

Where do I e-mail my poll for top 25?

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:58 pm

It's the post-season poll, which I intended the thread title to indicate.

E-mail address is fredmorlan at gmail dot com .

Over the next couple of days I'm going to post my opinions on general rankings for teams.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 9:38 am

So far I have six ballots. Keep them coming!

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:32 pm

I have extended the deadline for votes to July 12th at 9 p.m. EST, which is next Thursday. Keep them votes coming!

Post by **theMoMA** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:24 pm

leftsaidfred wrote:I have extended the deadline for votes to July 12th at 9 p.m. EST, which is next Thursday. Keep them votes coming!

My birthday!

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:24 pm

If you don't vote in the poll, I'll ruin your birthday!

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:19 am

One last bump to announce that we're currently at 14 votes and are looking for more before tomorrow night's deadline.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:21 pm

Dave, do you have a postseason iteration of your algorithmic rankings to post?

Byko · Post by **Byko** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:36 am

BuzzerZen wrote:Dave, do you have a postseason iteration of your algorithmic rankings to post?

Almost--if things go well, I'll have them up online later today. Worst case, I can have a sequential list posted with the full functionality (group by tournament, by state, etc.) to come later.

Admittedly, I'm not sure how much I want to inject bias into the voting, though if people have specific questions about results, I can offer up an answer.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:19 pm

The deadline has come and passed. I am going to be reviewing the ballots over the next couple of days, contacting those with ones that could be considered suspect, waiting for the results of those discussions and so forth before calculating the final results.

mhanna · Post by **mhanna** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:54 pm

Did anyone else questioned about why they ranked teams either higher or lower than the poll moderator thought that they should be? I withdrew my ballot because I felt that maybe I was being unfair to some of the teams. No offense meant to any of the teams or to our moderator, but everyone can't be in the top five or even in the top 15. If there is to be consensus, then why do a poll.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:59 pm

Not having seen any ballots besides my own, I'd say offhand that ballots that seem heavily regionally biased (like placing some team that did not attend/place well at nationals ahead of a team from a distant region that proved it was on par with the very best in the nation) would warrant some questioning. Fred is nothing but fair and certainly isn't playing favoritism (in terms of teams, individuals, or regions), but if he receives a ballot ranking, say, 3 Illinois teams in the top 10 when only one team in the entire state really proved it was capable of playing with the top 20 teams in the country, I think he should probably question it.

mhanna · Post by **mhanna** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:19 pm

One tournament does not a season make. Some teams did not do well at nationals, but excelled throughout the year and seemed to get stronger as the year progressed. I meant no offense toward Fred or anyone else, but I know of at least two Georgia teams most deserving of strong consideration and neither had a stellar showing at NAQT. Consequently, I ranked them ahead of some other teams.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:31 pm

One tournament does not a season make. Some teams did not do well at nationals, but excelled throughout the year and seemed to get stronger as the year progressed. I meant no offense toward Fred or anyone else, but I know of at least two Georgia teams most deserving of strong consideration and neither had a stellar showing at NAQT. Consequently, I ranked them ahead of some other teams.

I agree that one tournament doesn't define a team. Of course, a good portion of the top 20 teams attended PACE as well, but not the two you mentioned. I actually gave some favorable rankings to teams that didn't do as well at NAQT as I thought they were capable of (I looked more at the who did you beat/lose to results from both nationals). However, I will dispute that a strong year playing very few of the teams that composed the top 20 (literal at one/both national tournaments, or the generally assumed top 20) matters as much as performance at nationals. The fact is that no team from Georgia knocked off anyone who made much of a dent at nationals, despite 13+ games (although I consider Brookwood to have played some impressive games, putting up 200 against State College isn't easy). While I could certainly see Brookwood cracking someone's top 25 (I think I'd have to say they'd crack mine, upon a closer look), I don't think it's unreasonable for Fred to ask for an explanation as to why you chose to rank that second Georgia team/whatever. I hope you'll reconsider rescinding your ballot, I'm sure Fred's inquiries aren't based on his personal whims or opinions but rather an effort to ensure that the balloting reflects teams performances when they faced the best competition.

Captain Sinico · Post by **Captain Sinico** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:37 pm

mhanna wrote:Did anyone else questioned about why they ranked teams either higher or lower than the poll moderator thought that they should be?

That's a rather loaded question if I'm understanding it correctly. I somehow doubt Fred's criterion for outlier rejection is "Fred thinks it's wrong." Either way, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask someone to give reasons for outlying rankings (as opposed to rejecting them outright or allowing them even though they are outliers.)

mhanna wrote:One tournament does not a season make.

Who said or implied that it did? Also, all tournaments are far from equal (in field strength, question quality, etc.) and their contributions to the ranking of a team should be far from equal as well.

MaS

mhanna · Post by **mhanna** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:49 pm

The poll is not what Fred thinks, but what the person submitting the rankings thinks. Obviously any poll will reflect some bias. That is what opinions are. We can disagree but be agreeable.

gonzagaeagleahy · Post by **gonzagaeagleahy** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:13 pm

Well, in receiving many polls we can only hope that they all balance out, can't we.

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:28 pm

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:Father's Favorite

Stanky

Captain Sinico · Post by **Captain Sinico** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:43 pm

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:Well, in receiving many polls we can only hope that they all balance out, can't we.

Not exactly. As with any smallish sample, it's prudent not only to hope our data are extensive enough to get somewhere near the mean, but also to at least consider discriminating outliers. Look up outlier exclusion in an applied statistics textbook; you'll learn things!

mhanna wrote:The poll is not what Fred thinks, but what the person submitting the rankings thinks. Obviously any poll will reflect some bias. That is what opinions are. We can disagree but be agreeable.

I guess I didn't understand your original question. Please explain what you meant by the following:

mhanna wrote:Did anyone else questioned about why they ranked teams either higher or lower than the poll moderator thought that they should be?

MaS

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:13 pm

mhanna wrote:Did anyone else questioned about why they ranked teams either higher or lower than the poll moderator thought that they should be? I withdrew my ballot because I felt that maybe I was being unfair to some of the teams. No offense meant to any of the teams or to our moderator, but everyone can't be in the top five or even in the top 15. If there is to be consensus, then why do a poll.

There are three reasons for my questioning ballots. First of all, I was curious about the reasoning of various people so I could learn more about the teams that I didn't get to see and try to use that knowledge to augment what I learned from studying national results. If I were to see, say, Richard Montgomery ranked outside of the top 10 by someone after they finished in a three way tie for fifth at NAQT, I'd like to know what that person knows that I don't so I can learn what I missed when I evaluated them.

As Mike already stated, it is necessary in a small sample size to weed out extreme outliers. We had 22 people vote; if someone decides that hey, let's exclude Maggie Walker because they're actually a terrible team and used steroids to win their national championships, that screws everything up. I won't be releasing a surprise in saying that they were voted #1 in the nation by each person, but it might be surprising that if they were completely dropped off a ballot and I still included that ballot, they would have only held a five point lead over who did finish second in the halfway reviewed voting. Bump that second team up on a couple of ballots and you get a new poll champion due in large part to one vote.

Finally, there have been cases where a voter completely forgot a team and added them after I questioned them. I believe this has happened twice so far, and I haven't had a chance to review the last 12 or so ballots that came in.

And because I feel like I need to clarify here in case it should be interpreted this way, I at no time said I would remove Mac's ballot nor would I have. You stated you'd remove it because upon further reflection, you have some regional bias and didn't feel you knew enough about the teams to make a good judgment.

Edit: THREE reasons, not there.

Captain Sinico · Post by **Captain Sinico** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:51 pm

In that case, I did understand the original question and stand by what I said. It's a truism that people's judgment of the best team will vary. However, that doesn't mean that a relatively small poll should accept outlier judgments. In fact, that would be rather a poor policy if the poll's purpose is to determine what people think the best teams are, on average. The examples that Fred posted illustrate that fact well.

MaS

mhanna · Post by **mhanna** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:09 pm

I did withdraw my ballot as Fred said because there was some bias and I did not know enough about some of the teams. We rarely play teams from out of the region and I feel very comfortable in knowing the approximate abilities of teams in our area. There are very few West Coast teams I know anything about. All I know is that when we play them, we are generally successful. There are other areas that we also do well when we play them head-to-head. Our own backyard can be a different story on any given day.

Hopefully no one will infer that Fred asked me to withdraw the ballot. About the term bias, that implies that smeone can be for as well as against a certain team or region. I am reminded when in an old NAIA coaches' poll the Carson Newman coach did not rank Wofford Copllege in the top 20 and ranked his own team Number 1. The Wofford coach voted for his team in the top 15 and Carson Newman ahead of him. Those votes left Wofford out of the playoffs and CN went forward. That was the year that Clemson won the national championship and Wofford scored more points against the Tigers than any of their D-1 opponents.

Ummm, now that I think about it, Maggie Walker must be on steroids.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 6:25 pm

mhanna wrote:Hopefully no one will infer that Fred asked me to withdraw the ballot. About the term bias, that implies that smeone can be for as well as against a certain team or region. I am reminded when in an old NAIA coaches' poll the Carson Newman coach did not rank Wofford Copllege in the top 20 and ranked his own team Number 1. The Wofford coach voted for his team in the top 15 and Carson Newman ahead of him. Those votes left Wofford out of the playoffs and CN went forward. That was the year that Clemson won the national championship and Wofford scored more points against the Tigers than any of their D-1 opponents.

This is exactly the kind of situation I want to prevent from occurring. Nothing of that high of importance would happen, obviously, since the poll's for entertainment purposes only, but still, I want it to give as accurate of a result as possible.

I apologize if anyone I did ask about your ratings (or will ask about your ratings) was offended. That was not the intent at all.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 6:31 pm

Also, for pure amusement's sake, here's my ballot:

1 Maggie Walker A
2 State College A
3 Thomas Jefferson A
4 Dorman A
5 Martin Luther King Jr Magnet
6 Richard Montgomery A
7 Gonzaga College
8 Wilmington Charter
9 Walt Whitman
10 Eden Prairie
11 Detroit Catholic Central A
12 Stuyvesant
13 East Lansing A
14 North Kansas City
15 Moravian
16 New Trier
17 Santa Monica
18 Troy
19 Walter Johnson
20 Dorman B
21 Thomas Jefferson B
22 Walnut Hills
23 Harrison
24 Brindlee Mountain B
25 Minnetonka

The Atom Strikes! · Post by **The Atom Strikes!** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:52 pm

leftsaidfred wrote:Also, for pure amusement's sake, here's my ballot:

1 Maggie Walker A
2 State College A
3 Thomas Jefferson A
4 Dorman A
5 Martin Luther King Jr Magnet
6 Richard Montgomery A
7 Gonzaga College
8 Wilmington Charter
9 Walt Whitman
10 Eden Prairie
11 Detroit Catholic Central A
12 Stuyvesant
13 East Lansing A
14 North Kansas City
15 Moravian
16 New Trier
17 Santa Monica
18 Troy
19 Walter Johnson
20 Dorman B
21 Thomas Jefferson B
22 Walnut Hills
23 Harrison
24 Brindlee Mountain B
25 Minnetonka

Not to be a quibbling bastard, but why did your rank Gonzaga ahead of us. We beat them by considerable margins all three times that we played them head-on, including at the National tournament that we both attended, and placed ahead of them at 4/5 of the tournaments we both attended, the exception being LIFT, which was a Level-A set, and thus, probably less indicative of skill than TJ's house tournament, the Blue Hen, or the HSNCT. This seems to suggest that we are the better team.

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:11 pm

SwissBoy wrote: Not to be a quibbling bastard, but why did your rank Gonzaga ahead of us. We beat them by considerable margins all three times that we played them head-on, including at the National tournament that we both attended, and placed ahead of them at 4/5 of the tournaments we both attended, the exception being LIFT, which was a Level-A set, and thus, probably less indicative of skill than TJ's house tournament, the Blue Hen, or the HSNCT. This seems to suggest that we are the better team.

Fred, this is why you probably shouldn't show the ballots. I predict a lot of this...

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:26 pm

SwissBoy wrote: Not to be a quibbling bastard, but why did your rank Gonzaga ahead of us.

Cuz Fred is smarter and more attractive then you? Duh.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:31 pm

SwissBoy wrote:Not to be a quibbling bastard, but why did your rank Gonzaga ahead of us. We beat them by considerable margins all three times that we played them head-on, including at the National tournament that we both attended, and placed ahead of them at 4/5 of the tournaments we both attended, the exception being LIFT, which was a Level-A set, and thus, probably less indicative of skill than TJ's house tournament, the Blue Hen, or the HSNCT. This seems to suggest that we are the better team.

A couple of reasons why I disagree:

Gonzaga finished in the top ten at PACE and NAQT, making them only one of five teams to do that. This is a unique and very difficult accomplishment.

At NAQT, Gonzaga defeated DCC A, Dunbar, Santa Monica, Stuyvesant, Livingston, Minnetonka and TJ B. As a counterpoint, Wilmington Charter beat New Trier, Brookwood, Maine South, Livingston, Aiken, North Kansas City and Gonzaga. Both had seven victories over teams I considered in the poll. However, I believe Gonzaga's seven were against better teams overall.

Additionally, at PACE, they beat Brindlee Mountain A, Centennial, Tippecanoe, Walter Johnson, (a slightly depleted) State College A, Morvanian and Novi.

I see your point, but I believe that the above outweighed those three matches due to sample size.

Plus it's just one spot. I'm not saying they're light years ahead of you, I'm saying I think they're slightly better in the grand scheme of things.

vcuEvan · Post by **vcuEvan** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:35 pm

My only fault with your bracket is that I think MLK was probably better than Dorman and TJ(and maybe SC) despite their NAQT playoffs.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:50 pm

I can't disagree with you there. I had a tough time placing those three in order. State College is, to me, an unquestionable second. Plenty of others disagreed, and I don't think they're absolutely wrong, but to me, they were the second best team in the nation by a decent bit.

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:30 pm

iambusyeating wrote:My only fault with your bracket is that I think MLK was probably better than Dorman and TJ(and maybe SC) despite their NAQT playoffs.

See, this opens a can of worms... MLK was 1-5 against Brindlee Mountain A this year. I don't think BMHS was better than TJ or Dorman, but we seemed to have MLK's number, despite MLK putting up much better stats at both National Tournaments.

See, now I'm doing it....

Quizbowler123 · Post by **Quizbowler123** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:35 pm

When will the final poll be published?

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:52 pm

Quizbowler123 wrote:When will the final poll be published?

When I get a chance to finish reviewing the votes per above. I have a large order of questions to finish in addition to my full time job plus job hunt, so it might be a bit. I apologize for any delay that we'll have.

dsimons · Post by **dsimons** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:52 pm

While I do agree that we don't always seem to play well against Brindlee Mtn., the last time BMHS beat MLK was at UTC on September 29, 2006, and we haven't lost since we began improving during the year and included Saran on the A team. In official games we have indeed only beaten BMHS once, but by my accounts we've only lost twice (Scottsboro and UTC Fall).

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:07 am

dsimons wrote:While I do agree that we don't always seem to play well against Brindlee Mtn., the last time BMHS beat MLK was at UTC on September 29, 2006, and we haven't lost since we began improving during the year and included Saran on the A team. In official games we have indeed only beaten BMHS once, but by my accounts we've only lost twice (Scottsboro and UTC Fall).

I think you may be right... Looking back at old scoresheets, I think that a couple of these were MLK B, but were only marked "MLK". And, one was definitely from the scrimmage match after Lion Bowl. I DID think that we played you twice in the same tournament once, though.

At any rate, I don't think that anyone - including myself - would rank Brindlee Mountain ahead of you guys. Like I told you at PACE, the improvement that you guys showed from one semester to the next was absolutely remarkable. I will say that you - without a doubt - improved more in one school year than any team I have ever seen. I'd love to know what you guys did in that short amount of time to improve that much.

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:39 am

I will not weigh in on the particular quibbles expressed. It does seem that Fred's ballot is heavily influenced by the results at both nationals. This seems proper in my opinion. Reasons: 1. Final rankings should reflect how a team is doing at the end of the season. Teams can improve at different rates and/or adjust lineups during the season leading up to the nationals. 2. Nationals have more difficult questions, whereas many regular season tournaments often test more routine knowledge on questions that may or may not be as well-constructed as those at HSNCT or NSC. 3. To perform well at nationals means you need to put up a consistently good performance against multiple excellent teams, making it more unlikely that a high finish is a fluke.

Fair or not, a team that performs well at both tournaments will probably get a bump in such a poll. I realize that many excellent teams could not attend both. Nevertheless, teams that did well at both provide more positive data with which to justify a higher ranking.

Jeremy Gibbs Lemma · Post by **Jeremy Gibbs Lemma** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:15 pm

I can't disagree with the top 5 as the order of their placement is really dependent on how they play when it comes tournament time. Anything can happen there in spite of apparent team strength.

jrbarry · Post by **jrbarry** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:45 pm

Wilmington Charter beat Brookwood? I must have obliterated that form my memory.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:10 pm

According to NAQT's online scores, it was in round 12 by a margin of 345 to 155.

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:54 pm

Come on! Let's see the results!

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2007 Post-Nationals Poll Discussion - Results are in!

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