NAQT South SCT @ UA (02-09-08) Full Announcement REG Closed

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NAQT South SCT @ UA (02-09-08) Full Announcement REG Closed

Post by geekjohnson »

Dear Colleges and Universities,

The University of Alabama will host the 2008 NAQT South Sectional on
Saturday, Feb. 9th, 2008. Sorry for the all the confusion on the date,
but make note, the sectional WILL be happening on Saturday, and NOT Sunday.

The fee structure is as follows:

$120 for first team from a school
$100 for each additional team
-$5 for each working buzzer system
-$10 for each volunteer
-$5 for every 100 miles traveled one way
-$40 for schools who didn't compete at the 2006 or 2007 SCTs

Note that the last discount applies to schools, not individual teams.
Also, teams wishing to claim buzzer system and/or volunteer discounts
must notify us by Feb. 3rd (and tell me how many of each they are
bringing). Please notify me by email at [email protected]

Please register for the tournament by emailing us at [email protected].
Please tell me the eligibility (Div. II, Div. I undergrad, Div. I) of
each team as you register.

We will be holding the tournament in Bidgood Hall and perhaps, though
dependent on the number of teams, B.B. Comer Hall. The initial player
meeting will be in Alston Hall, Rm. 30. A campus map has been attached
to this email with the appropriate buildings circled and also the
parking area which we suggest highlighted in yellow.

Here is the itinerary with which we will start, and hopefully, finish
the day.

8:00 a.m. - Registration for teams open
8:45 a.m. - Initial tournament meeting commences
9:00 a.m. - Match play begins
1:00 p.m. - Lunch (1 hour)
2:00 p.m. - Match play resumes
5:00-7:00 p.m. - End of tournament and trophy presentations*

*- this is a very rough estimate, as we cannot judge the length of the
tournament yet because we do not have a sufficient number of
registrations with which to gauge it.

Now for all of those teams who are unfamiliar with this tournament and
its purposes, let me explain. NAQT holds its annual Intercollegiate
Championship Tournament (ICT) every year to determine the various
national champions, in Division I, Division II, Division I
Undergraduate, and Division II Community College. Seeing as there will
likely be no community college teams attending, only the other divisions
apply. For those wanting to get more information about the divisions and
which one you should register for go to
http://www.naqt.com/division-ii.html.

The winners of the different divisions within the sectional
automatically qualify for a spot in the ICT this April, to be held at
Washington University in St. Louis. We will likely have enough interest
to garner both divisions as well as an automatic berth for the highest
placing Division I Undergraduate team. So we hope that all of the teams
we are contacting that have not attended before do so, as you could earn
the chance to compete for a national championship!

In closing, we have also attached driving directions and hotel
information with this email and hope that it helps. If I have left
anything out please contact me. Also, if I have left out any team which
you think might be interested in attending, please email me their
contact information and/or forward this to them. We look forward to
seeing you in Tuscaloosa in February.

James A. Johnson
President
Alabama Academic Quizbowl Team
[email protected]
Last edited by geekjohnson on Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:13 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by vandyhawk »

James, I believe a Sunday-only tournament is actually against NAQT policy:
Call for hosts wrote:Tournaments may be Friday/Saturday, Saturday-only, or Saturday/Sunday events. Of those, Friday/Saturday and Saturday-only events are preferred. Despite this flexibility, every 2007 Sectional chose to be a Saturday-only event and NAQT expects that will also be the case in 2008.

Tournaments should not begin before 5:00 p.m. on Friday nor be scheduled to end later than 8:00 p.m. on Saturday (for Friday/Saturday and Saturday-only events). Tournaments should be scheduled to end before 3:00 p.m on Sunday (for Saturday/Sunday events).
Besides likely being against policy, I know we would really prefer a Saturday event, and I'm guessing others would as well if there is any way possible for you to do it.
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Post by ChopinManiac »

I can't speak for the entire UGA team, but as a player, specifically as a player who lives more than five hours away from Tuscaloosa, I would most definitely prefer for the tournament to take place on Saturday.
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Post by wd4gdz »

As long as Bama doesn't try to have 5 house teams, I'll be happy whatever day it's on.
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Post by jhn31 »

MSU will be attending no matter what, but Sunday would be fine. In some ways, it would be better than Saturday.
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Post by jhn31 »

How long till we know for sure whether its Saturday or Sunday?

Because we're going to be hosting the Miss. CC sectional on the other day, and we need to have a date set.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

It may not have any bearing on your team, but do you (or does anyone) know if the SCT D-II set will include some questions from IS-74 (the CC sectionals set), as it has in years past?

I hope the answer is no, because of the numerous security issues (especially with at least one high school tournament being run before SCT on that set), but I have no idea.

-- Noah, also hoping to hear when the four-year SCT will be
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Post by jhn31 »

[quote="NoahMinkCHS"]It may not have any bearing on your team, but do you (or does anyone) know if the SCT D-II set will include some questions from IS-74 (the CC sectionals set), as it has in years past?[/quote]

Surely NAQT wouldn't've approved us hosting a CC sectional when we told them we were going to play in a 4-year sectional if that were true. At least I would think so...
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Post by geekjohnson »

hey guys, i just got back from b.f.e., my hometown with no net. just to let everyone know the SCT WILL be on Saturday 9th, instead of the 10th. full announcement coming later today.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Page updated with full announcement.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Ok, the full announcement has been sent and posted in the top message. Here is the first team listing:

DI
Vandy
Tulane
FSU (U)
UTC
UGA (2 U teams)
Florida (1 Open team, 1 U team)
Louisiana-La. (U)

D2
Tulane
Vandy
Alabama
UTC
FSU
UGA (3 teams)
Miss. State (3 teams)
Florida
Ga. Tech
Last edited by geekjohnson on Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:01 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Field updated. Just a note, I haven't received many confirmations, especially from regulars. Such as Berry, Florida, USF, UGA, and the like. If you guys could get some projections to me that would be great.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Registration for the South Sectional is now offically closed. If any teams still wish to register for the event, the AAQT will settle things on a case by case basis, as right now we are close to, if not already, topping out on staff capabilities. If anyone is interested, go to http://www.naqt.com/sct/2008/2008-sct-h ... ments.html to check the viability of closing the registration 7 days prior to the event. If anyone has any questions, contact us at [email protected].
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Post by vandyhawk »

I'm kind of curious what "open" means for one of the Florida teams.
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Post by wd4gdz »

vandyhawk wrote:I'm kind of curious what "open" means for one of the Florida teams.
I would guess he just meant it was "normal" and not an Undergraduate team.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Billy has it right.
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Post by vandyhawk »

I'm sure Bama will post full results, but for anyone dying to know, in DI the top three were:

Vandy A (12-0)
FSU A (9-3)
UF A (7-5)

UGA A, the undergrad champ, and UTC were also in the top division after re-bracketing in a pretty competitive group featuring a lot of good matches. Individually, top three were Charlie Steinhice (yes, you read that correctly), Aaron Kashtan, and me (Matt Keller). I really have no idea what happened in DII.

I want to thank Alabama for a very well run tournament. In DI, we had 14 rounds done a little before 5:00. Moderators were also good, as I don't think we had any rounds with < 20 tu's read. I hear DII mods didn't have quite as good a record in that regard, but I'll let people who played up there comment. Oh, and that was by far the most impressive trophy we've received, so kudos on your purchase.
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Post by MiltonPlayer47 »

I would also like to say the Alabama people did a great job running the tournament. Thanks guys!
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Post by wasprsilds »

I believe the Division II finish order was UF C, FSU B, UGA C
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Post by jhn31 »

Can someone explain to me exactly what happened with Florida State's d2 team already having heard some of the questions in their playoff match with Georgia?

I have some things I would like to say about that, but I definitely don't want to make an ass of myself by talking before I've heard all the info from more than just one perspective.
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Post by wd4gdz »

Nobody told anyone they couldn't watch their school's other team(s) during their bye rounds.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

I'll tell you what our D2 team told me. (None of them read this board.) This is what I was able to gather during the time between the D1 awards and the D2 playoff, so if I have some details wrong, I apologize -- I think the basic story is accurate, though.

As far as I can gather, after the round began the FSU team stopped play when they realized they had heard some of the questions. I think they had sat in on a D1 round earlier; I assume, since NAQT says they match up overlapping questions in the same round, that the D1 group just got ahead of the D2 group. Anyway, FSU did the right thing and admitted the problem, and Alabama's solution was to go through and cut out the overlapping questions (I guess comparing the two packets) and reading the rest, and then (I think) read from the back of other packets to finish the round? I wasn't very clear as to this point, and I don't think our D2 team was either.

As it turned out, some of the repeats were missed (which we know because FSU acknowledged it during the match and asked that the questions be skipped -- I appreciate their honesty). After all that, the match ended up being close and FSU won by 10 (or so). Then, Georgia and FSU ended up in a tie for 2nd and had to have a playoff round (on a completely fresh packet). Our team, when I asked, said they didn't want to push the issue/protest, since (I guess) they would have ended up playing FSU again either way. FSU ended up winning the playoff round and taking 2nd.

I don't fault FSU in this, and think they handled it as well as could be expected. I thought Alabama ran an overall very good tournament, but this particular situation has me very confused, and I'm hoping that there will be a post discussing the decision-making process in this instance. It seems to me that if there was a fresh packet available for the playoff, then that packet could have been used for the first game -- although, had FSU won the first game to force a playoff anyway, I guess we'd have a similar situation. It's just too bad that two teams that are apparently pretty close in ability had an important match get messed up like that. Hopefully, both teams will end up at ICT and it will be a moot point.
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Post by Paul150 »

jhn31 wrote:Can someone explain to me exactly what happened with Florida State's d2 team already having heard some of the questions in their playoff match with Georgia?

I have some things I would like to say about that, but I definitely don't want to make an ass of myself by talking before I've heard all the info from more than just one perspective.
I was on the UGA C team playing them when it happened.

Basically, they had sat in on a round that their D-I team was playing. Later on, before our round, we found that half of the packet's questions had been shared with the questions in the D-I packet. Instead of throwing out the packet and moving to a backup packet (which I personally feel would have been the best choice), the moderators struck out the questions that had been shared between the two packets. Unfortunately at least two questions were missed, as one of the FSU players said that they had already heard the two questions. I feel this led to an unnecessarily long and frequently interrupted match (which saw three protests that all affected the outcome in some way). I'm not trying to say anything bad about the FSU team, as it seemed that they were being honest by saying which questions they had heard (even if they were not marked off), but I feel the round became a very protracted affair because of the manner in which it was initially handled.

Overall, though, I'd like to commend Alabama for hosting an overall well-run tournament. Aside from isolated incidents with one of the readers and the FSU-UGA C packetgate incident, it was one of the most well-run tournaments I've been to.
Noah wrote:I'll tell you what our D2 team told me. (None of them read this board.)
Posted too quickly, eh?
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

You would join right after I said that...
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Post by vandyhawk »

wd4gdz wrote:Nobody told anyone they couldn't watch their school's other team(s) during their bye rounds.
Oh, I think this must've been during our playoff round vs. FSU, which, as I remember it, was round 13, and some of their DII people were watching. I never thought twice about it, but I suppose that should've triggered a red flag with somebody in that room. DII did an 11 game RR, then had a tie-break round, so I guess they were waiting for their re-brackets while we did round 13, which obviously shared some questions with the first(?) DII playoff round. There shouldn't have been a fresh pack available, then, since they had 11 prelim games, a tie-breaker, 3 playoff games, and then 1 left for a final.
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Post by jhn31 »

I don't mean to talk bad about the Florida State team, who were always nice and seems to have been honest, but I think that the match definitely should have been played on a new packet, and if at some point a new packet couldn't be found, that FSU should have forfeited the match.

Not only that, it delayed the tournament over 30 minutes...we had one match left to go, the other 2 teams from MSU were already done and ready to go home, but we had to sit around and wait for this to be solved.
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Post by Paul150 »

Like I said, The FSU team seemed to be very honest about the situation, and that wasn't the entire reason the match got delayed. There were also three protests lodged that didn't relate to the issue with part of the packet being repeated. One of those made the difference between us losing the match by ten points and a possible tie that had it gone the other way would have made us second place without having to do a playoff with FSU after everything was done.

With that said, I think Alabama did well making the best out of a bad situation and made sure they solved the problem before it left the room. I actually appreciate the fact that they took the time to make sure they made the right call instead of just calling it incorrectly on a whim.
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Post by wd4gdz »

jhn31 wrote:I think that the match definitely should have been played on a new packet, and if at some point a new packet couldn't be found, that FSU should have forfeited the match.
LOLZ
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Post by jhn31 »

wd4gdz wrote:
jhn31 wrote:I think that the match definitely should have been played on a new packet, and if at some point a new packet couldn't be found, that FSU should have forfeited the match.
LOLZ
--It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
--The incident caused the that match to be run on a different set of questions than the other matches in the same round, which isn't fair.
--The incident caused the tournament to be delayed 30 minutes.
--Forfeiting the match likely would not have cost FSU a standings place in the tournament, nor a Nationals bid.

Anyway, the best solution would have been to find a new packet to use. But it if came down to later in the tournament not being able to use a packet because a certain team screwed up on something they should've known not to do, they should be the ones that are hurt by it.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

jhn31 wrote:It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
I don't doubt that they were. But, for the past few years, NAQT has had a policy that the shared questions would be in the same round in each division. It was just an aberration that, in this one case, the rounds in each division didn't align perfectly... and nobody thought about it because, in general, that's not a problem that comes up.

It's certainly unfortunate that this problem happened, and we were delayed in getting back too... even longer, in fact, than y'all were, since we waited around to watch the second UGA-FSU playoff game. But I don't think an FSU forfeit would have been an appropriate resolution at all.
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Post by jhn31 »

NoahMinkCHS wrote:
jhn31 wrote:It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
I don't doubt that they were. But, for the past few years, NAQT has had a policy that the shared questions would be in the same round in each division. It was just an aberration that, in this one case, the rounds in each division didn't align perfectly... and nobody thought about it because, in general, that's not a problem that comes up.

It's certainly unfortunate that this problem happened, and we were delayed in getting back too... even longer, in fact, than y'all were, since we waited around to watch the second UGA-FSU playoff game. But I don't think an FSU forfeit would have been an appropriate resolution at all.
The thing was that it's wasn't that aberration, because, according to Vandyhawk, FSU's d2 team sat in on d1 Round 13:
vandyhawk wrote:
wd4gdz wrote:Nobody told anyone they couldn't watch their school's other team(s) during their bye rounds.
Oh, I think this must've been during our playoff round vs. FSU, which, as I remember it, was round 13, and some of their DII people were watching. I never thought twice about it, but I suppose that should've triggered a red flag with somebody in that room.

That was the same Round as the d2 incident, 13, the second playoff game after the 11-round-round robin. So it looks like an honest mistake all around that no one thought of.


Anyway, after reading over my posts on this thread I see that I'm kinda coming across like a jackass (meaning that I fit in well on this forum as a whole...), and that's not my intention so I'll drop this.
Had something like this happened at a Tournament I was directing, I likely would've called it a forfeit, though.
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Post by DumbJaques »

--It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
--The incident caused the that match to be run on a different set of questions than the other matches in the same round, which isn't fair.
--The incident caused the tournament to be delayed 30 minutes.
--Forfeiting the match likely would not have cost FSU a standings place in the tournament, nor a Nationals bid.

Anyway, the best solution would have been to find a new packet to use. But it if came down to later in the tournament not being able to use a packet because a certain team screwed up on something they should've known not to do, they should be the ones that are hurt by it.
Well, that's just silly. I assume that, in addition to FSU's DII team, a number of people were present when they sat in on a game. Maybe Vanderbilt should forfeit too? The argument that "an experience program like FSU" should be aware of something is baseless. Clearly it would be an unacceptable double standard to fault one team and not another in this situation, given that, clearly, no malice was involved. In a more practical sense, there were tons of people who "should have known better" in the room at the time. Given that "it's not obscure" that question overlap is limited to the corresponding round, you should be able to listen to the round you aren't playing in, in either DI or DII. I assume nobody there thought it would be a problem, and since two experienced programs and multiple staffers were in the room, your ridiculous desire to force FSU to forfeit a game that very well might have affected a national qualification so that you could get home 30 minutes early is a huge joke. Perhaps you could say Alabama should have just used a fresh packet, since from what I can glean there were some extras. But in essence they used all fresh questions, and delayed the tournament no more than one round.

Really, where's the sense of being wronged coming from? It was 30 minutes. If 30 minute tournament deviations from a posted schedule are dealbreakers for you, you might want to find a new hobby. I'd say your attempts to deride FSU for causing a situation that "wasn't fair" to other teams, when in fact you advocate a solution that would be ridiculously unfair to them (and in a lesser sense to UGA) are way off base, given the facts. Also just plain annoying is trying to find fault with FSU's Div II team, which is in fact presumably not that experienced of a squad and behaved in a way that we'd want all competitors to behave.

EDIT:
Had something like this happened at a Tournament I was directing, I likely would've called it a forfeit, though.
Yeah, well, that'd be a pretty bogus way to resolve things, I think. If it's possible to convince you (and anyone else) that this wouldn't be a good idea in the event that you (or those other people) host tournaments, I'd say it's worth it to continue discussing this.
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Post by jhn31 »

Nice mischaracterization of me there, DumbJaques. Please don't misquote me or take what I say out of context.



Anyway, I really don't mean to single out the FSU team by this, because they've always been friendly and likable.
My only point is that it's clearly stated that d1 and d2 share questions, that they mistakenly watched a match that someone on an experienced team like FSU should've known that they should not have watched, and that they way that the situation was resolved seemed very unfair to me. Georgia C seemed very mad about it in their next match, which was against us.

The best solution, however, would have been to ask a different packet. However, if there was not another packet available, and one team was going to have to take a hit, it would be fair for FSU to have to be the one to take that hit.
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Post by AKKOLADE »

jhn31 wrote:--It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
--The incident caused the that match to be run on a different set of questions than the other matches in the same round, which isn't fair.
--The incident caused the tournament to be delayed 30 minutes.
--Forfeiting the match likely would not have cost FSU a standings place in the tournament, nor a Nationals bid.
1) You realize D2 players are in their first two years of playing? Experience isn't exactly communicable. Also, why are you insisting it's the team's fault when it could very well be the TD's fault?
2) Hypothetically, tournaments have packets that are essentially equivalent with each other. While the reaction to this set has been fairly negative, I haven't seen anything indicating that certain rounds were significantly easier than others.
3) It's unfortunate, but this happens. Mistakes cause this.
4) Since the formula for S-values is not publicly released, you have no way of knowing if their spot at NAQT ICT would have been put in jeopardy at all.

Seriously, why are you turning a mistake into some great affront upon yourself? Even suggesting forfeiture is possibly the biggest case of sour grapes on this site in a long, long time.
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Post by geekjohnson »

We will have the final stats posted soon. I just wanted to address the UGA C-FSU B problem.

What happened was that, due to delays, D2 got about a round behind D1. Then, the D2 FSU team used their bye round to watch their D1 team. I, and my stat-master, were aware of the round differential, but honestly didn't think of anything like this happening.

When we found out what happened, we went through the packets, D1 and D2, and marked out all of the overlapping questions in both TUs and bonuses, which left about 12 of each. We did this because D2 was going to end up running 14 rounds. We had 16 packets and if we would have replaced the packet completely then that would have left us with only one packet for any potential tie-breakers. We only ended up having one tie-breaker match, but we anticipated more, and it seemed stupid at the time to have only one packet left for any number of tie-breakers. Having decided against throwing the packet out, we used the questions in the remaining packet. After those 12 were used, we went to packet 16 and started reading at TU #24, and instructed the reader to read backwards, in both toss-ups and bonuses. We took a chance with this also, in that we would lose a number of toss-ups and bonuses in packet 16, leaving us with only a packet and about a half for tie-breakers, but it seemed to be the best method to proceed with at the time. To the best of my knowledge every repeat was crossed out, and for any we missed I apologize.

We cannot apologize enough for the mix-up, but we feel we did the best to correct the situation.
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Post by jhn31 »

leftsaidfred wrote: Seriously, why are you turning a mistake into some great affront upon yourself? Even suggesting forfeiture is possibly the biggest case of sour grapes on this site in a long, long time.
I didn't say it was a great affront on myself. I just wanted to make sure I had facts right and share what I thought the appropriate response was. That seems like the point of a message board...
This really didn't affect me personally, other than making our team get late back home, which didn't bother me but did annoy some teammates, nor did it affect MSU. I guess from now on I'll only post about things that directly affect me...
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Post by Paul150 »

I tried to post this before the server crashed again...
--It is not obscure that d1 and d2 packets share questions. An experienced program like Florida State should definitely be aware of this.
--The incident caused the that match to be run on a different set of questions than the other matches in the same round, which isn't fair.
--The incident caused the tournament to be delayed 30 minutes.
--Forfeiting the match likely would not have cost FSU a standings place in the tournament, nor a Nationals bid.
Actually, that would have led to UGA C going through the Playoff round 2-1 and placing second overall in D-II instead of tying with FSU 1-2 and forcing a playoff for second/third place.

Also, as I said earlier, we had three protests to resolve that were lodged by FSU. Two were resolved quickly, but the last bonus section meant the difference between a tie and our eventual loss by ten points. The packetgate issue caused the match to start a couple of minutes late, but actually being in the room, I can assure that a lot of the late factor was due to stopping the clock for protests unrelated to packetgate, especially the last one. As captain of the UGA C team, I will say that we had no real issue with the way the situation was handled, especially hearing James' explanation as to why the packet wasn't thrown out.

Other things, I'm reasonably sure, led to the delay of D-II as well. There was, after all, a tiebreaker to see what the last team in the second D-II bracket was going to be before the playoffs started.

Again, I'd like to commend Alabama for running a good tournament, and say that I think the TD made the best out of a bad situation
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Post by DumbJaques »

Nice mischaracterization of me there, DumbJaques. Please don't misquote me or take what I say out of context.
I mean, I don't really think I did that. In particular, it seems to me like I quoted your entire post. I'm not sure how I could take it out of context or misquote you when I quote your entire post immediately after you make it on a message board, but I'm open to explanation. It also appears I'm not the only one to interpret your statements that way, so maybe you could give a reason why you think I misquoted you/took things out of context?
I guess from now on I'll only post about things that directly affect me...
Yeah, see, this is the whole "sour grapes" thing Fred and I and other people are referencing. Here is basically what happened:

1) You make post expressing displeasure over this packet thing. You assert with some clear aggravation that FSU should have forfeited the match. The next sentence in that post deals with you getting home 30 minutes late.
2) People note how ludicrous that position is.
3) You expand on your position, explaining that FSU "should have known better (bad logic: if we accept that position it should be on the TD not the team, and FSU Div II shouldn't "know better anyway), that it delayed the tournament by 30 minutes, that it "wasn't fair" to other teams there, and that FSU wouldn't have suffered anyway by forfeiting.
4) People refute those points. You get mad at being "mischaracterized" and make some ultra-lame passive aggressive "I guess I just won't post anymore" argument.

I fail to see at what point in this chain (or before this chain) you have been wronged, but you're pretty clearly expressing personal annoyance throughout. If you really don't feel that way, I'm not sure how you can logically argue that FSU should have forfeited.

Oh, and James - I think you did an excellent job resolving the situation. You managed to preserve enough packets to ensure you could end the tournament in a satisfactory way and still made sure the round was played fully. Good show.

Fredit: Fixed tags
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Post by Paul150 »

jhn31 wrote:Nice mischaracterization of me there, DumbJaques. Please don't misquote me or take what I say out of context.



Anyway, I really don't mean to single out the FSU team by this, because they've always been friendly and likable.
My only point is that it's clearly stated that d1 and d2 share questions, that they mistakenly watched a match that someone on an experienced team like FSU should've known that they should not have watched, and that they way that the situation was resolved seemed very unfair to me. Georgia C seemed very mad about it in their next match, which was against us.

The best solution, however, would have been to ask a different packet. However, if there was not another packet available, and one team was going to have to take a hit, it would be fair for FSU to have to be the one to take that hit.
Though I can't say what was in my teammate's minds, I know that The following factors probably played into us being mad during the match with you guys (and perhaps clear up your misconceptions of what happened in our matches, seeing as how you were not present):

-In our first bracketed match, an otherwise close game swung suddenly into Florida's favor when there was a packet distribution issue that had 3 classical studies questions (2 bonuses; 1 tossup between them which was powered) in a row. This gave the other team a 75 point lead and could have been a 150 point swing in approximately forty-five seconds. We don't mean to sound like sore losers, as with the questions that round, Florida clearly knew more and deserved the win, but our team was frustrated going into the round with FSU because of typical irritation with NAQT distributions leading to the point swing.

-The FSU v. UGA C match maybe started 5 minutes late, if that. The moderators explained the situation from the start and nobody raised any concerns. The two questions they missed were brought to the reader's attention by FSU, and we on the UGA team assume that they were honest throughout the match. In fact, all three protests were unrelated to packetgate.

-First protest -- An FSU player mispronounced a name, and when he said he could spell it, he misspelled it. He was given a neg 5, to be reviewed at the end of the match. Question went dead on our end.

-Second Protest -- I rang in and said an answer, started saying the last word incorrectly, and immediately corrected myself. We stop the clock for a minute to discuss the situation and settle it there after a brief discussion. Discussion results in the tossup being counted correct.

-Third Protest -- Going into the last question before time expired, we (UGA C) were behind by forty points exactly. We get the tossup correct and the first two parts of the last bonus. (Time expires while the bonus is being read). On the last part, I gave extra information that was not in the underlined part of the answer. I had mentioned everything that had been underlined, but one word was off. Since this made the difference between a playoff to break our tie and an outright win for FSU, the reader took care to establish what to do, so he went to find the TD and discuss with him.

The reader returned, having also brought up the earlier protest with the misspelling confirming the ruling on the field of a neg 5 for that question. We learn the TD is unsure of exactly how to resolve the dispute on the last tossup, so he tries to contact an NAQT official (according to our reader). The official couldn't be reached, so they were told to check on the internet to see if my answer could have been corroborated by something there. After devoting a respectful amount of time, they concluded that since I added extra information that was not written down and could not be verified, we were wrong on that section of the bonus, and FSU won the match by ten points.

This and not packetgate was the main reason for our ire when we entered the match against MSU. The packet issue broke up some of the flow, but it was not necessarily the packet problems that caused the delay or most of our problems. We had roughly five hours to drive home that night, and all of the members of the C team wanted to make sure the staff came to a good decision (which we felt they did).

I do understand, however, that one of my team members was mad after the MSU match based on the fact one of the MSU members called a timeout with eight seconds left to go and ordered that the moderator add two seconds to the clock because of two seconds elapsing from when he had called the timeout, all while the MSU team was down by over a hundred points (making the calling of the timeout a bit of a mystery to us). I personally did not care about it, but one of my team members was so incensed he almost left the room. I do think your speech about being slightly delayed is a bit relevant here, seeing as how we wanted to get out of there as well, and as I understand it, had a tad farther to drive than you guys did to boot.

I didn't mean any disrespect with this post and hope that no offense was taken, but I think it was prudent for me to address these issues and clear them up for those who weren't in the room with us. I'll also add that this is how I saw the incidents and that I did not consult my teammates before making this post, although I used what was said amongst ourselves during and after the matches, at dinner, and on the ride home as my basis for how they felt. If they have anything to add or fix in my account, I reserve their right to do so as they see fit.
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Post by Your Genial Quizmaster »

I'll echo what others have said already: The Alabama crew did a fine job hosting NAQT Sectionals. I can't speak for Division II, but in Division I the logistics ran smoothly, the hosts set a very positive tone, and the officiating was solid. It was especially nice to hear Jason Paik again.

Believe it or not, this was my first experience actually playing NAQT. I very much enjoyed it. I should in fairness add that I like geography and don't mind a few interdisciplinary questions, and that I firmly believe that history of science deserves inclusion in the science distribution, just as it does in real science classes. I was pleased with the overall quality and especially the bonuses. There were a few tossups that I thought were oddly ordered, had oddly placed power marks, or began ambiguously, but I didn't catch any out-and-out errors.

You young whippersnappers gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It had been 22 years since I played in a timed tournament (yes, I know many of you weren't even alive then.) At my age I found it hard to keep up with the speed of the readers -- my fault, not theirs, I hasten to add. My synapses behaved like fouled sparkplugs toward the end of the day. I told my teammates that Saturday morning reminded me why I loved playing this game so much, and Saturday afternoon reminded me why I retired.

This wasn't a full-fledged unretirement, just a Gordie Howe impersonation. If (God forbid) I find myself enrolled again in 2018, I might pull a Minnie Minoso and tack another decade onto my resume. In the meantime, you'll find me back in the coaching box where I belong.

Again, thanks to James and the AAQT crew for a job well done.
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Post by jhn31 »

I don't think I can add anything further to the "packetgate" discussion, so I'll drop it. I do not feel like I was personally wronged, and I don't have "sour grapes" about it, and I hope no one was offended by my comments. I wish UF, FSU, and UGA the best of luck at d2 Nationals, and hope to God we land an at-large bid ourselves.

I will address the timeout call. I was shamelessly trying to pad the stats. That's all. I figured we're a bubble team for the Nationals bid, and who knows, every single points helps. It didn't work though.
It added, what, 15 extra realtime seconds onto the game? I do apologize if I offended your teammate, but I really don't see why he cared so much.


Also, I would like to congratulate Alabama on an extremely well-run tournament.
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Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Your Genial Quizmaster wrote: This wasn't a full-fledged unretirement, just a Gordie Howe impersonation.
Really, Charlie, you should come out of retirement -- our match against you guys was really my favorite moment of the day. Scoring 100 points in the last minute-and-a-half like you guys did. That was actually one of my favorite matches ever, believe it or not. We didn't perform really well the rest of the tournament, somehow managing 2 wins; however, we thoroughly enjoyed playing you guys. I'll convince you to come out of retirement someday, surely.

As for the way the tournament was run, I really can't complain that much. Sure, there were a few things that I wish were done a little differently (such as reminding everyone what number tossup is being read), but that's really just me being nitpicky. Overall, Alabama ran a really smooth tournament as far as the D1 side was concerned. Congratulations on running sectionals so nicely and handling everything the way you guys did.

Congratulations to Vandy once again on their undefeated record. What an excellent team -- they display an impeccable way of playing the game while at the same time are just as classy before and after matches.
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Post by wd4gdz »

Speaking only as a competitor in Div1, I thought the tournament was pretty excellent. We seemed to have been flying through rounds, and the tournament format gave everyone some pretty good matches. The readers were good (I'd say we averaged ~22 tossups a round) and so were the scorekeepers.

The trophies were probably the nicest I've ever seen at a tournament, but wouldn't most people prefer books?
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Post by geekjohnson »

Here are thestats.

A few notes. We were very happy with how the tournament ran in Division I. Nothing seemed to go wrong or out of place, well, excluding Aaron's behavior in 2 rounds. I am sorry if that was a problem for any of the players. Once it reached what I thought was a critical point I talked with him alone in the hall and he was fine for the rest of the tournament. I feel like the readers were excellent and the amount of questions we got through was on par with what I expected.

Division II, on the other hand, did not go as well. As mentioned we had packet-gate, which to me was unfortunate, but was handled accordingly. The thing I am most disappointed with is the amount of toss-ups that a couple of rounds ended with. In going over the score sheets and identifying the moderators responsible I can only say I am sorry. They were the last 2 people we drafted into our ranks to help. They were by far and away the least experienced, but I thought they would be capable of getting through the necessary amount of toss-ups. I was wrong. During the day we realized how poorly one of the readers was doing and pulled him, and replaced him with a former score keeper, and that helped that situation. The other moderator we did not catch as early, nor would it have mattered, as we had no one else to replace her with. The only thing I can offer in our defense is that we had two qualified readers drop from the tournament within the 2 weeks leading up to the event. Both gave us ample time and very valid reasons. We honestly just thought the people would work out, as they had read before, with no major problems. But again, we did our best, and I apologize to those teams who had close matches decided after only 14 toss-ups.

Aside from that I was pleased with the tournament. It was nice seeing all of the south again. Especially Mr. Steinhice, who I would argue had a very nice unretirement tournament. Also, I hope he enjoyed our neg prize. And to Billy, we spent weeks mulling over the trophy choices and hoped everyone liked them. Personally, I hate it when books are given for prizes. Sorry if you were looking forward to getting the newest print edition of Under The Volcano or something of the like.
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Post by geekjohnson »

Also, our hats go off to Ga. Tech, who was involved in a car accident in route to the tourney. No one was injured, but I am under the impression Taylor may need a new vehicle.
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Post by Your Genial Quizmaster »

That was indeed a fine neg trophy, not that I was all that proud to have earned it. It did give Dren Rollins the chance to pay me back for years of gentle mocking when he joined James for the presentation. I'd never come even close to being a neg king at an academic tournament, yet somehow I managed it while playing (for the first time ever) on a team with Dren. This is analogous to having the worst free throw percentage on a team with Shaq. And you wonder why I retired?
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Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Charlie, you shot 74.5% in this tournament. I think Shaq would take that anyday. Despite being the king of negs, you do manage to shoot a good 15% better than one Shaquille Rashawn O'Neal. I think he'd take 75% anyday.
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