Illinois '07-'08

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Tegan
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

Auburn won it all ...... I think Springfield finished fifth. Sterling third? Not sure who finished second or fourth.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by JackGlerum »

Wow, lotta surprises. Bloomington beats Wheaton North and loses to Bradley-Bourbonnais? New Trier beats Wheaton North and loses to Springfield? Congrats to Auburn, NAQT State and Masonic State in two weekends is tight. Can't wait for regionals, good luck to all.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by the return of AHAN »

Middle School Results from the Streator Northlawn Tournament (only other tournament besides mine to draw from a big geographical chunk of Illinois)...

1st: Barrington Station
2nd: Bloomington JHS
3rd: Bolingrbrook Brooks
4th: Jacksonville Turner
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by theguy914 »

does anyone have the full results from masonic state.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

Alright, what in the wide, wide world of sports is gong on? I could understand if the questions at Masonics were bad, but there is absolutely every indications that these questions were as fine as the Sectional questions, yet you've got Wheaton North going ohfer, New Trier going down in the consolation. Was everyone shorthanded? No one got a good night's sleep? Everyone downstate a lot better than everyone thought?
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by JohnAndSlation »

I'm with Tegan and so confused.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by harpersferry »

I think it seems crazier than it was. First, all of the "upsets" were close. Five, ten, or fifteen. WN had two tough rounds in a row, including the first one versus NT that saw a ton of total points scored. The second (which we watched) saw Bloomington make a hard-won comeback. Second, the way the tournament was constructed, you had to come out of the gate and play hard right away. Then if you lost, you didn't get a break. In past years, if you made it to the consolation, it was a few rounds, plus a few break rounds before you had a tough match. (Auburn last year fell to NT, but then had lunch and some other rounds off before the consolation championship v. Bloomington) The consolation bracket was tougher than the championship. That meant that the big schools had to play each other over and over. Somebody has to win. I also think some of the downstate schools (Springfield, B-B) did a good job at putting up fights against teams that had already been through hellfire. I can't speak for other tiredness factors and missing people, but most teams seemed pretty intact, except NT was short one player I believe. I just think it was a rough day.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Stained Diviner »

I'll agree with the above and congratulate Auburn on a well-deserved and long awaited title.

I'll add that there are a lot of good teams this year that depend on one or two stars to answer tossups. Other than New Trier's top two students yesterday, we answered two tossups in three matches, and one of those was a sports question. There were no stats posted, but there probably were some teams less balanced than us. Teams like that are a danger--both to themselves and their opponents. Upsets may continue to occur in the IHSA Tournament, though upsets are tougher with 30 questions than with 20.

Auburn and Carbondale both had several people playing well, so there is some justice that they were playing for the Championship.

As far as whether or not Southern teams are any good, my team has lost to Carbondale and Springfield in successive weeks, so my opinion is biased in their favor.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Chathamite »

As the tournament host at Glenwood High School, I would like to compliment all of the teams playing Saturday. I did have the opportunity to watch a few matches and a portion of a few other matches and noticed the competition was intense and scores for the most part were very close. While there were a few surprises, the teams were balanced and gracious, winning or losing.

I would also thank all of the coaches who worked hard to prepare for the tournament. Your efforts are to be commended.

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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by David Riley »

I read for Jamaica-Sidell and they were a very impressive if inexperienced team. They are close enough to Bloomington and Champaign, I don't know why they don't get to more tournaments.

The problem with all of the upsets Saturday was the seeding...I hope they consider a two-tier system or some such in the future. I also heard some complaints from coaches about the downtime due to the "ome natch on, one match off" format, hopefully this will change as well, though my guess is that it is done this way such that you only need four moderators.

I loved the questions. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one protest throughout the day, which I handled with aplomb. :grin:
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Stained Diviner »

The tournament was very well run. It ran behind schedule, but that was because too many people answered questions correctly, which is the best possible reason to have a tournament run late. In the future, they should either ask for harder questions from the writers or schedule a full hour for matches. If they had more rooms, that would make for a much shorter day.

The questions were good. I thought the Pangaea and Mudslinging tossups were particularly bad, but those were the exception rather than the rule, and there hasn't been a tournament yet that didn't have a clunker in there somewhere. There were enough good questions that the winners should consider themselves legitimate.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Byko »

Of all the tournaments going on this past weekend across the country, this was the one I was most curious about, especially considering the draw. Maybe it's time to stop hatin' on the downstate teams--everything I had been hearing prior to this led me (for the little bit about Illinois that I know) to believe that Carbondale, Springfield, and B-B could compete with the rest of the state--seems like that may be right.

Also, does anyone know who won the Fairfield/Peoria Christian game in the consolation quarterfinals? That's the only result I don't have.

This ought to shake up my Illinois rankings a bit.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by theguy914 »

Byko wrote:Of all the tournaments going on this past weekend across the country, this was the one I was most curious about, especially considering the draw. Maybe it's time to stop hatin' on the downstate teams--everything I had been hearing prior to this led me (for the little bit about Illinois that I know) to believe that Carbondale, Springfield, and B-B could compete with the rest of the state--seems like that may be right.

Also, does anyone know who won the Fairfield/Peoria Christian game in the consolation quarterfinals? That's the only result I don't have.

This ought to shake up my Illinois rankings a bit.

Could you please show the full results from Saturday?
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Byko »

theguy914 wrote:Could you please show the full results from Saturday?
There are a lot of scores that I don't have, but here we go:

Round 1:
New Trier def. Wheaton North 255-240
Rockford Auburn def. Bloomington 270-195
Sterling def. Bradely-Bourbonnais 180-105
Peoria Christian def. (Port Byron) Riverdale 180-60

Round 2:
O'Fallon def. Springfield 200-195
Carbondale def. (Sidell) Jamaica 290-150
Decatur LSA def. Fairfield 160-80
(Petersburg) PORTA def. Litchfield 195-155

Round 3 (consolation first round):
Bloomington def. Wheaton North 255-245
Bradley-Bourbonnais def. Riverdale 260-75
Springfield def. Jamaica 280-195
Fairfield def. Litchfield 200-185

Round 4 (championship quarterfinals):
Rockford Auburn def. New Trier 295-175
Sterling def. Peoria Christian 190-95
Carbondale def. O'Fallon 245-130
PORTA def. Decatur LSA 145-85

Round 5 (consolation quarterfinals):
Bloomington def. O'Fallon
Bradley-Bourbonnais def. Decatur LSA
Springfield def. New Trier 245-240
Fairfield vs. Peoria Christian (result unknown)

Round 6 (championship and consolation semifinals):
Rockford Auburn def. Sterling 380-20
Carbondale def. PORTA
Bradley-Bourbonnais def. Bloomington 160-150
Springfield def. Fairfield/Peoria Christian winner

Round 7:
Championship: Rockford Auburn def. Carbondale 290-90
3rd place: Sterling def. PORTA
Consolation championship: Springfield def. Bradley-Bourbonnais


Many thanks to Linda Greene at Rockford Auburn for providing me with information that filled the blanks I had.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by mlaird »

Fairfield beat Peoria Christian, then lost to Springfield. I don't know the score though.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Byko »

mlaird wrote:Fairfield beat Peoria Christian, then lost to Springfield. I don't know the score though.
That's good enough for me. Thanks!
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Stained Diviner »

A word of warning: There is a good chance that a couple of Regionals will be postponed today due to weather. It is normally fine to discuss IHSA questions on this forum, but do not discuss individual questions until you are sure that all Regionals have been held.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

First off: MANY regionals were postponned (check ihsa.org). definitely no posting about the Regional questions. I would not even comment on general distribution of subtopics or level of difficulty, etc.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

And then there was IMSA .....

In case you haven't moseyed over there ...... Glenbard West is claiming IMSA was an hour late (no report on whether they called or not, and then was permitted to play (under protest, according to Glenbard West officials, which doesn't exist in Scholastic Bowl anyway), and then goes on to win the regional. The scores are currently posted as "pending discussion with the IHSA", and with the two teams losing to IMSA already agreeing to meet for a makeup Regional title.

BTW .... the phone call tomorrow with the IHSA will go something like this:

IHSA: Did you play the matches
"yes"
IHSA: and the scores are reported as they happened?
"yes"
IHSA: sounds pretty official to me.

And while I feel horrible for the inconvenience of waiting an hour ... this is kind of what happens: no good deed goes unpunished.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Obviously, I won't go into any specifics, but here's my opinion of the questions, as a whole.

Take it away, spirit of Mt. Vinokurov:
Jerry, from Moon Pie 2007 wrote:I was going to post this in the discussion forum until I realized there was really nothing to discuss. If you're still playing this tournament, you should probably go home; if you're on the west coast (OK, southern Illinois) and about to start, you probably shouldn't.
I'll have more later.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by harpersferry »

I will concur: God awful.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

The questions MUST have been awful: Joliet Township's quest for a repeat appearance at State has already ended.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Byko »

Tegan wrote:And then there was IMSA .....

In case you haven't moseyed over there ...... Glenbard West is claiming IMSA was an hour late (no report on whether they called or not, and then was permitted to play (under protest, according to Glenbard West officials, which doesn't exist in Scholastic Bowl anyway), and then goes on to win the regional. The scores are currently posted as "pending discussion with the IHSA", and with the two teams losing to IMSA already agreeing to meet for a makeup Regional title.

BTW .... the phone call tomorrow with the IHSA will go something like this:

IHSA: Did you play the matches
"yes"
IHSA: and the scores are reported as they happened?
"yes"
IHSA: sounds pretty official to me.

And while I feel horrible for the inconvenience of waiting an hour ... this is kind of what happens: no good deed goes unpunished.
Yeah, this could get interesting. Here's the official statement right now on IHSA:
IHSA wrote:IMSA was over 1 hour late for their match, and they should have been disqualified. The coaches and moderators agreed to allow them to play the match (under protest) because they came so far, and we decided that we would consult IHSA tomorrow for advice. If IMSA is disqualified, Glenbard South and Glenbard West have agreed to play a make-up match for the regional title.
Considering this is a state/organization that assesses a 30 point penalty for not having respectable matching uniforms, as long as there's proof that IMSA showed up late, this should be open-and-shut.

Then there's the other note that just plain disturbs me:
IHSA wrote:Sycamore HS had a threat of violence today at their school and several students did not attend school including members of the scholastic bowl team. Due to these circumstances Marengo received a bye and advanced to the championship match.
That's just simply sad and unfortunate for Sycamore not to even have a chance because of that.

Having said all that, who is the question provider this year for IHSA?
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by AKKOLADE »

Oh, Illinois.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by the return of AHAN »

Tegan wrote: BTW .... the phone call tomorrow with the IHSA will go something like this:

IHSA: Did you play the matches
"yes"
IHSA: and the scores are reported as they happened?
"yes"
IHSA: sounds pretty official to me.

And while I feel horrible for the inconvenience of waiting an hour ... this is kind of what happens: no good deed goes unpunished.
QFT! If I was TD and a team wasn't present within the allotted time, I'd declare a forfeit and let everybody else get moving with their games. It's not fair for the whole tournament to be held up on account of one team.
They should've refused to let them play.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by David Riley »

Re IMSA: Unaware of specifics other than those posted; but....Aurora is not that far from Glen Ellyn.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Byko »

David Riley wrote:Re IMSA: Unaware of specifics other than those posted; but....Aurora is not that far from Glen Ellyn.
Yeah. I mapquested it to see if they'd get any sympathy points from me. They don't: it's only 20 miles (35 minutes) away.

And yes, there's even more as I'm going through entering all the results thus far today. Out at Oak Park-River Forest, how in the world did Niles Notre Dame win their quarterfinal match and then forfeit their semifinal to Berwyn-Cicero Morton?????
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

BTW: that information posted on IHSA's Scorezone:
IHSA wrote wrote:IMSA was over 1 hour late for their match, and they should have been disqualified. The coaches and moderators agreed to allow them to play the match (under protest) because they came so far, and we decided that we would consult IHSA tomorrow for advice. If IMSA is disqualified, Glenbard South and Glenbard West have agreed to play a make-up match for the regional title.
is not actually the IHSA's words - it's the regional manager who inputs text into those boxes, so that is, to my knowledge, NOT IHSA's official position.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Matt Weiner »

Byko wrote:Having said all that, who is the question provider this year for IHSA?
They contract with several (20-30) individuals from a variety of backgrounds to write particular categories. I am one of the writers, and several other people who are heavily involved in collegiate quizbowl, not necessarily with an Illinois connection, write as well. Other writers are alums of playing or coaching high school quizbowl in Illinois, some of whom have experience writing good questions, and many of whom do not. From the portion of the sets that I see, I imagine the end result is a fairly jarring mix of styles, with 30-50 percent of the final product tending towards the style of "unacceptably short, trivial, and bad."

It is really great that the IHSA has listened to some of the more enlightened coaches and asked leading writers from across the country to work on the set, but it would be even better if their work comprised the whole thing.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Matt Weiner wrote:I imagine the end result is a fairly jarring mix of styles, with 30-50 percent of the final product tending towards the style of "unacceptably short, trivial, and bad."
Yep. Although some questions are long, I've seen ping pong balls with more clue density. (among other problems I can't yet discuss)
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

Matt Weiner wrote:I imagine the end result is a fairly jarring mix of styles, with 30-50 percent of the final product tending towards the style of "unacceptably short, trivial, and bad."
In years past, this was certainly more the case. Fortunately this year, this was less the case. There were only 4-5 questions that were "short". Most of the "bad" questions were more of the variety "insert really obscure facts here". Who was the first president of the United States? type questions.

It is an evolving process. What I am worried about is that there was a lot of bloodletting last night over the questions. Did tournaments run late. Sure. Why?

1. Some Class A regionals played 4 rounds of 30 tossups and bonuses.
2. Most regionals started at 5:30 (we started at 4 pm)
3. The IHSA has not changed the alotted time for rounds since going to more pyramidal questions (even Colby Burnett could not do 30 tossups and bonuses of this nature in less than an hour and 15). The current schedule calls for 45 minute matches.
4. We are trying to do this on a weeknight instead of a weekend.
5. We are now using pyramidal questions which take longer to read.

Yet, a lot of people just want to blame the questions. I hada few complaints along those lines, and my response went along the lines of: the times are changing. These questions are the quesitons being used more and more across the country. More and more writers simply wwon't write the short questions, and frankly, that's a good thing. We in Illinois need to work on taking measures to revise the scheduling, not so much the questions.

Though ..... there were a few questions (very few) that did go on a little long.

Overall, the questions were good.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by BGSO »

Though some of the questions may have run a little wrong, and the time alloted for matches was way to short (we finished the championship match at 905) I would much rather be here complaining that the questions were too long, then complaining that they were all one line buzzer beaters.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Tegan wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:I imagine the end result is a fairly jarring mix of styles, with 30-50 percent of the final product tending towards the style of "unacceptably short, trivial, and bad."
In years past, this was certainly more the case. Fortunately this year, this was less the case. There were only 4-5 questions that were "short". Most of the "bad" questions were more of the variety "insert really obscure facts here". Who was the first president of the United States? type questions.

It is an evolving process. What I am worried about is that there was a lot of bloodletting last night over the questions. Did tournaments run late. Sure. Why?

1. Some Class A regionals played 4 rounds of 30 tossups and bonuses.
2. Most regionals started at 5:30 (we started at 4 pm)
3. The IHSA has not changed the alotted time for rounds since going to more pyramidal questions (even Colby Burnett could not do 30 tossups and bonuses of this nature in less than an hour and 15). The current schedule calls for 45 minute matches.
4. We are trying to do this on a weeknight instead of a weekend.
5. We are now using pyramidal questions which take longer to read.

Yet, a lot of people just want to blame the questions. I hada few complaints along those lines, and my response went along the lines of: the times are changing. These questions are the quesitons being used more and more across the country. More and more writers simply wwon't write the short questions, and frankly, that's a good thing. We in Illinois need to work on taking measures to revise the scheduling, not so much the questions.

Though ..... there were a few questions (very few) that did go on a little long.

Overall, the questions were good.
With all due respect, no. The questions were not good. Some questions were good. Some categories were good. Some categories were so atrociously bad I almost felt the need to apologize, not that any of the teams in my regional would have understood why.

The problem with the questions isn't necessarily the length. Many of these questions were of a decent length, really - some were too long, and some were too short, but a good majority were of acceptable length. The crux of my complaint isn't that the tossups were all one-line garbage (although there were such questions, and so here it is again - "One-line or one-clue tossups needed to stop 3 years ago"), my complaint is that the majority of questions were simply bad. It's clue quality, it's clue density, and it's answer selection. Friday morning, as soon as the regionals results are all up, my full question-complaint rant goes up.

I also have a bone to pick with 30/30. I have a colossal bone to pick with single elimination, and with weeknight play, and with getting out of the high school at 10 pm. But the questions were also bad, so I'm going to be hitting on them too.

But, because I can pick the other bones, here we go:

Re: 30 question matches. No one uses these anymore anywhere else. If I remember correctly, 30/30 was ratcheted DOWN from 40/40 or 45/45 in the old days, and I think we're pretty much ready for another ratcheting down now. Big Northern Conference is preparing to go from 24/24 to 20/20 next year, so there are people who feel longer than 20 = bad. I like that 30 question matches hypothetically make it harder for upsets to occur, but on these questions, upsets can definitely happen with ease. I'd rather have top quality questions where you only need 20 to get the right winner.

Re: weeknight play. We're all used to being able to play 6-8 or even 10 games in a Saturday. Driving an hour and a half to play two games on a Monday night, then driving back an hour and a half to get home at 8 or 8:30 is absurd, and the same argument applies to Regionals. Hampshire won their semifinal against South Beloit last night and groaned - they knew they then had to play Winnebago, who they knew from previous experience they'd lose to, before they could drive their 2 hours home. They couldn't have gotten home before 10:30.

Scholastic Bowl:every other IHSA sport:: computational math:every other category. We can play a ton of matches per day, so put Regionals on a Saturday. And while we're at it....

Re: single elimination. I feel terrible for any school that drove to their regional, played one game, lost, and went home. I feel worse for Regionals down south, where the drive can be > an hour or two. I feel worse for teams who know their first match is against the Auburns or the Latins of the state. How can they possibly be interested in this? The teams in Winnebago's regional not named Bago had attended a total of 1 Saturday tournament over the course of the year (Hampshire went to the Decemberist, and - holy crap! - going to Saturday tournaments can help make your team better, and they earned a top 8 seed in the Sectional and their best conference performance ever).

Regionals on Saturday can lead to a round robin format. In Class A, the Sectionals are between 35-40 teams, Class AA it's about 28 teams each - break it up into 6 Regionals, then play round robin on Saturday for a total of, at most, 7 matches. If you drop it to 20/20 matches, 7 games requires roughly 5 and a half hours, plus your lunch break. 9:30-4 sounds about par for most tournaments, doesn't it? If you can get it down to 6-team regionals, you can even get it done in 5 games - like most Class AA regionals would be. Sectionals and State would both also be full round robin affairs with 6-8 teams.

It's really different, but Scholastic Bowl can play 7 games in a Saturday. Nobody's weeknights are compromised, no one drives 2 hours for one game, and you can actually come up with a pseudo-fair qualification system.

I got through my round of 30/30 last night in 50 minutes with about 60% tossup conversion. First off, rounds with 60% tossup conversion should be taken out back and shot (and I don't care if it is Podunk vs. empty desks!). Second, I think it's time to start considering the end of Illinois' bonus format. If you want the real reason why matches take forever, it's the bonus format. Sterling's Kickoff took over an hour per 20/20 prelim match with slow moderators, longer pyramidal questions, and Illinois formatted bonuses. My tournament at RVC in December dropped it to 25 minutes per match with moderators who had NEVER read a single match. The questions may have been a bit shorter (it was an IS set), but not a full 30 minutes shorter. New Trier Varsity's matches were of similar length and they were running one staffer per room! Illinois' bonus format is a blatant waste of time, given the obvious benefits of ACF bonus format.

It'll take a gradual change, but as teams get introduced to ACF bonus format via Earlybird, New Trier Varsity, the RVC Decemberist, etc. etc., people will realize the benefit. I've turned half the Big Northern Conference and half of NIC-10 on to NAQT format, and next year I'll hopefully reach all of both conferences. This conversion can happen, and hopefully will.

So, to recap - Use 20/20 rounds, play Regionals on a Saturday with a round-robin schedule so people can play more than 1 game, switch the bonus format to ACF style, and people will be happy with the matches. And on Friday prepare for a rant about the dismal question quality.
Brad Fischer
Head Editor, IHSA State Series
IHSSBCA Chair

Winnebago HS ('06)
Northern Illinois University ('10)
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Coach, Keith Country Day School (2012-16)
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

styxman wrote: my complaint is that the majority of questions were simply bad. It's clue quality, it's clue density, and it's answer selection. Friday morning, as soon as the regionals results are all up, my full question-complaint rant goes up.
Ja. There were some of these, but I wouldn't say most, or even a healthy percentage. They stuck out as you read them. The fact that they stuck out tells me that they were not the norm. I will say that there were two particular subjects which tended a little toward the difficult, which may have slanted the results a little against any team which was strong in those areas.
styxman wrote:I also have a bone to pick with 30/30. I have a colossal bone to pick with single elimination, and with weeknight play, and with getting out of the high school at 10 pm.
I have been to high school sporting events that got out around that time, and I never remember hearing anyone complain about "That basketball game went on forever". Is it tough. Yes. It is also one night a year. Honestly, I would prefer to see these played on a Saturday, but some the people who I hear complain about "this goes on too late" wouldn't bat an eye doing something else to all hours on a weeknight. (not directed at you, Brad)
styxman wrote: I'd rather have top quality questions where you only need 20 to get the right winner.
True, but remember, this is not a tournament where the teams have played a pool, and have been legitimately seeded. With geographic representation, you can end up with prime matchups early, and 30 questions is a better way to determine the better team. With the single elimination (see below), it also means you get teams traveling multiple hours to play a single 20 question match.

When round-robin play began in state and sectionals, the rounds were curtailed to 24 questions. Few people liked it because there was a feeling that there was too much a chance to cause upsets. We went back to 30. No complaints. Admittedly, these are both on weekends.
styxman wrote:Scholastic Bowl:every other IHSA sport:: computational math:every other category. We can play a ton of matches per day, so put Regionals on a Saturday. And while we're at it....
I'm fully in favor of it, and would support it wholeheartedly, but .....
"Its gets in the way of masonics"
"It gets in the way of basketball"

I've heard these issues before. It was brought up about five years ago. The major people standing in the way were downstate teams who felt it was too difficult to get transportation on the day of sectionals or state basketball. That's right, we held up the entire state series, because a few representatives felt it might inconvenience their basketball team if their team made it that far. With the Advisory Committee totally dominated by downstate teams (there are only two Chicago area reps), I am betting that this may not be easily done (but, after this year, maybe it will).
styxman wrote:Re: single elimination.
This will never change. We were able to get the sectional and state altered by some miracle. I'm not even sure how it was done. Very recently, the IHSA very nearly returned them to single elimination. We are constantly reminded about Scholastic Bowl being the exception to single elimination. This is a very prickly subject. The fact that it exists for two levels is something I am happy about, but I fear that bringing it up and fighting for it in regionals will raise the possibility of losing it for sectionals and state.

Even if we got regionals to a Saturday (which I would like), getting round robin means the IHSA would have to pay for 3-4 more rounds. The IHSA has shown tremendous reluctance to increase any finds for scholastic bowl unless there is some money coming in for it. Their term is: "Any changes must be revenue neutral".

Regionals on Saturday can lead to a round robin format. In Class A, the Sectionals are between 35-40 teams, Class AA it's about 28 teams each - break it up into 6 Regionals, then play round robin on Saturday for a total of, at most, 7 matches. If you drop it to 20/20 matches, 7 games requires roughly 5 and a half hours, plus your lunch break. 9:30-4 sounds about par for most tournaments, doesn't it? If you can get it down to 6-team regionals, you can even get it done in 5 games - like most Class AA regionals would be. Sectionals and State would both also be full round robin affairs with 6-8 teams.

styxman wrote:I got through my round of 30/30 last night in 50 minutes with about 60% tossup conversion. First off, rounds with 60% tossup conversion should be taken out back and shot (and I don't care if it is Podunk vs. empty desks!).
So, the determination on how good a question set is would be based on the worst, and least likely to work teams? Remember, there are about 50 teams that enter Regionals with records of 0-0 .... they play no tournaments, no conferences. They practice for a week or two, show up, and get beaten soundly. I researched this when I got the master teams records about three years ago. I asked some coaches more familiar with this to comment, and this is where I learned this. Two years ago, I tried to get a "minimum match" requirement, arguing that teams should be required to play a minimum of five matches prior to seeding to be included, and that by doing so, we would eliminate teams that are more likely to cause problems by knowing the least about the activity (though there are plenty of those among more active teams), and would likely eliminate many of the "preliminary" rounds, reducung the Class A regionals to three rounds. I was chastised. I was stealing these teams' seasons! My response was "What season?" None of these teams had won more than one match in regionals. Can a season be one match long?? When I asked why, I was told that it was hard to get transportation (competing with basketball yet again!!), and in some cases, the teams simply couldn't afford to do anything else. I feel for those teams, but again, we are holding up progress for the whole state, to grant 10% of the total teams in the state a chance to get waxed. Then I hear that they complain about traveling that distance to lose. There's a simple solution.

This sounds cold hearted. I am fully behind anything that expands good quizbowl, especially expanding the number of teams involved. However, this is not existence. Showing up to do this one match a year borders on the comedic. I am not saying that every team has to go play 60 matches a year, but asking for minimal competency is not asking for much, I would think. Showing up to get beat once a year, IMO is not helping these teams in any way.
styxman wrote:Second, I think it's time to start considering the end of Illinois' bonus format. If you want the real reason why matches take forever, it's the bonus format. Sterling's Kickoff took over an hour per 20/20 prelim match with slow moderators, longer pyramidal questions, and Illinois formatted bonuses. My tournament at RVC in December dropped it to 25 minutes per match with moderators who had NEVER read a single match.
I am not opposed to this, and, in fact, there may be a proposal along this line in April. We bounced it off the heads of a few people. Some were fine with it. Others, not so much.

You hit on another issue. Moderators. Most moderators I have seen in my life are bad. If this made it easier for moderators, I am in favor. If it keeps things moving, I am in favor. There is no attempt to train moderators. We have begged the IHSA to get involved with this. They have adamantly refused.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by JackGlerum »

styxman wrote:I feel terrible for any school that drove to their regional, played one game, lost, and went home.
I also felt bad, because while most teams at our regional were pretty close to Wilmette (plus we're next to a highway), York from Elmhurst did show up, and proceeded to lose by 200 to GBN and then go home. However, this is a state tournament and it's hard for me to feel bad for a team who doesn't attend Saturday tournaments and who then gets blown away by a middle-of-the-road team come state series time. After all, this is what you prepare for (even if the questions were terrible), and I don't think a legitimate postseason tournament should be "non-single elimination."
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Wait, are you saying that you think straight single elimination is fine for a state tournament?
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Tegan »

JohnGlerum wrote:However, this is a state tournament and it's hard for me to feel bad for a team who doesn't attend Saturday tournaments and who then gets blown away by a middle-of-the-road team come state series time. After all, this is what you prepare for
You would be shocked how many coaches (and players) disagree with this. Just in our neck of the woods, Niles North doesn't even enter the Stat Series. They play a conference schedule, and that is it. There are at least some coaches I suspect that look at this as a "necessary evil". They are paid to coach, part of the requirement says "go to Regionals", and they go home. Regionals are an inconvenience to them.

In some cases, it is not the coaches, but the players who choose not to take the time to get better, and choose to make this activity a "secondary" or tertiary" activity for them. That is the team's choice, and thus, I reiterate what JG said: Its hard to feel sorry for a team that has the resources to do better, and chooses not to.

JG, and many of the rest of you who come from strong programs, thank your lucky stars that you have coaches who care enough about you to help you get ready; invest the time in finding better ways to get you better. Wake up early on Saturday, and get you exposed to tougher competition. These coaches are all-too-sadly the minority.

And while you are at it, make sure you thank your teammates ...... remember, a coach with all the will in the world to help can't do a thing unless at least five good players want to make it happen. If the rest of the team is "too busy", ou can be the greatest player out there, and you are not going to have a fulfilling and successful run.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Matt Bardoe »

Not that I don't love bashing questions, and dreaming up new formats, but how about we enjoy some scholastic bowl. In class A, we will have a new state champion this year. Last years champs, Decatur Lutheran lost to Macon (Meridian) by 2 points with Meridan getting the last toss-up and one part of the bonus. Probably, no one on this board was there, but it sounds exciting. Congratulations Meridian.

On the topic of 0-0 teams, I once heard that some schools conference season starts after the the state series (of course because of Basketball, etc.) so it is not that these teams have 1 game seasons it is just that there first game is part of the state championship.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote: my complaint is that the majority of questions were simply bad. It's clue quality, it's clue density, and it's answer selection. Friday morning, as soon as the regionals results are all up, my full question-complaint rant goes up.
Ja. There were some of these, but I wouldn't say most, or even a healthy percentage. They stuck out as you read them. The fact that they stuck out tells me that they were not the norm. I will say that there were two particular subjects which tended a little toward the difficult, which may have slanted the results a little against any team which was strong in those areas.
Indeed. There are definitely some good subjects in the mix, and probably better than my mind is remembering (saving discussion for later, and getting more anxious to post about specifics by the minute :)). Let me rephrase that - a majority of the questions were in some way flawed, but a smaller percentage - say, 15-20% of the total - were actually as devastatingly bad as I've been phrasing them. :)

I think an important thing to remember here is: this isn't the worst set I've heard, but among pyramidal sets, it's possibly one of the worst I've seen because of some flaws from the non-pyramidal writers. Those flaws are sticking out so bad as to jade my memory a bit. Also, those flaws will be well documented in my rant in about 36 hours.
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:I also have a bone to pick with 30/30. I have a colossal bone to pick with single elimination, and with weeknight play, and with getting out of the high school at 10 pm.
I have been to high school sporting events that got out around that time, and I never remember hearing anyone complain about "That basketball game went on forever". Is it tough. Yes. It is also one night a year. Honestly, I would prefer to see these played on a Saturday, but some the people who I hear complain about "this goes on too late" wouldn't bat an eye doing something else to all hours on a weeknight. (not directed at you, Brad)
Very true, very good point. Reading that, I'm surprised I actually wrote that I have a problem with leaving at 10. I think I'm talking devil's advocate for teams there, because I was actually playing packets til 1 last night anyway :-D
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote: I'd rather have top quality questions where you only need 20 to get the right winner.
True, but remember, this is not a tournament where the teams have played a pool, and have been legitimately seeded. With geographic representation, you can end up with prime matchups early, and 30 questions is a better way to determine the better team. With the single elimination (see below), it also means you get teams traveling multiple hours to play a single 20 question match.

When round-robin play began in state and sectionals, the rounds were curtailed to 24 questions. Few people liked it because there was a feeling that there was too much a chance to cause upsets. We went back to 30. No complaints. Admittedly, these are both on weekends.
Indeed. With the lack of true, efficient seeding, the extra 10 questions does make a considerable difference. Given this fact, I like 30 question matches for single elimination, i.e. Regionals. If it's pool play, I like shorter matches because upsets are evened out over more matches. For example, in a 6 team, winner take all pool play Sectionals, if #2 loses to either #3/4/5/6 and #1, they lose the Sectional anyway. If they beat #1, they win the sectional by head-to-head tiebreaker (or 3-way ring of death by points, potentially. In that case, you've gotta score points no matter what). If #1 loses to #2 in any other tournament, they know the consequences. When Wheaton North lost to New Trier or Bloomington on TU 20, or when any of the TONS of 1-5 point losers from last night lost, they didn't lament for 10 more questions - they knew they had their chances already.
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:Scholastic Bowl:every other IHSA sport:: computational math:every other category. We can play a ton of matches per day, so put Regionals on a Saturday. And while we're at it....
I'm fully in favor of it, and would support it wholeheartedly, but .....
"Its gets in the way of masonics"
"It gets in the way of basketball"

I've heard these issues before. It was brought up about five years ago. The major people standing in the way were downstate teams who felt it was too difficult to get transportation on the day of sectionals or state basketball. That's right, we held up the entire state series, because a few representatives felt it might inconvenience their basketball team if their team made it that far. With the Advisory Committee totally dominated by downstate teams (there are only two Chicago area reps), I am betting that this may not be easily done (but, after this year, maybe it will).
I say, Regionals on Sectionals day, Sectionals on State day, and State the last week. (Spring break concerns?) Right now, thanks to the 4 class system, 8 Scholastic Bowl Class A schools and 0 AA schools would be inconvenienced for Regionals, 0 Class A and 8 AA schools for Sectionals, and 0 total for State. 16 out of 500 schools! 3% of schools would be potentially harmed by this, and not all of those would actually be put out by it.
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:Re: single elimination.
This will never change. We were able to get the sectional and state altered by some miracle. I'm not even sure how it was done. Very recently, the IHSA very nearly returned them to single elimination. We are constantly reminded about Scholastic Bowl being the exception to single elimination. This is a very prickly subject. The fact that it exists for two levels is something I am happy about, but I fear that bringing it up and fighting for it in regionals will raise the possibility of losing it for sectionals and state.

Even if we got regionals to a Saturday (which I would like), getting round robin means the IHSA would have to pay for 3-4 more rounds. The IHSA has shown tremendous reluctance to increase any finds for scholastic bowl unless there is some money coming in for it. Their term is: "Any changes must be revenue neutral".
I'll bet the price comes down if the number of writers in the pool goes down (says the person with 0 knowledge about the process). Shall we get rid of some of those that don't know what they're doing?

Alternatively, knocking it down to 20/20 frees up 5 additional rounds, so if we need 7 for Regionals, 5 for Sectionals, and 7 for State, that means we only need a total of 80/80 more, an increase of less than 20% of the current order. Adding in printing/shipping costs, if each participating school pays $2.50-5 extra... (also, personal note - if they don't, screw 'em)

I see why IHSA can really want revenue-neutrality out of Scholastic Bowl. I can justify it on their end. But there's a lot of money being wasted by requiring you to pay adults to time and keep score, especially when schools like Bago, Byron, etc. with large F/S contingents can adequately use a stopwatch and a freakin' calculator.

Here: $10/scorer and $10/timer = $20/match...times 7 or 8 matches per Class A regional, times 32 regionals, plus 5 or 6 matches per Class AA regional, times 32 regionals...

The IHSA is spending (max. estimate) $7500 in Regional, non-moderator staffers. Let's assume they only spend $5,000 right now. Allowing regionals to use child labor (hee hee) would probably cut MORE than enough to buy another 80/80 questions.
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:I got through my round of 30/30 last night in 50 minutes with about 60% tossup conversion. First off, rounds with 60% tossup conversion should be taken out back and shot (and I don't care if it is Podunk vs. empty desks!).
So, the determination on how good a question set is would be based on the worst, and least likely to work teams? Remember, there are about 50 teams that enter Regionals with records of 0-0 .... they play no tournaments, no conferences. They practice for a week or two, show up, and get beaten soundly. I researched this when I got the master teams records about three years ago. I asked some coaches more familiar with this to comment, and this is where I learned this. Two years ago, I tried to get a "minimum match" requirement, arguing that teams should be required to play a minimum of five matches prior to seeding to be included, and that by doing so, we would eliminate teams that are more likely to cause problems by knowing the least about the activity (though there are plenty of those among more active teams), and would likely eliminate many of the "preliminary" rounds, reducung the Class A regionals to three rounds. I was chastised. I was stealing these teams' seasons! My response was "What season?" None of these teams had won more than one match in regionals. Can a season be one match long?? When I asked why, I was told that it was hard to get transportation (competing with basketball yet again!!), and in some cases, the teams simply couldn't afford to do anything else. I feel for those teams, but again, we are holding up progress for the whole state, to grant 10% of the total teams in the state a chance to get waxed. Then I hear that they complain about traveling that distance to lose. There's a simple solution.

This sounds cold hearted. I am fully behind anything that expands good quizbowl, especially expanding the number of teams involved. However, this is not existence. Showing up to do this one match a year borders on the comedic. I am not saying that every team has to go play 60 matches a year, but asking for minimal competency is not asking for much, I would think. Showing up to get beat once a year, IMO is not helping these teams in any way.
Rockford East has had a team for three years now, and two of those years were spent going 0-8 or 2-6 or some such in the NIC-9 conference before losing their first match in the Regional quarterfinal and going home. Their captain, Bruce Spencer, has been a strong player by most standards this year - 3rd top scorer at the Decemberist, ahead of All-State caliber players like Aaron Deets, Madeline Dillner, and Michael Jiang, followed by 4th place at UIUC Solo last month, and he just led his school to a Regional championship. Rockford East just won a Regional Scholastic Bowl championship - nothing I've seen in Scholastic Bowl has filled me with as much happiness as that. This is Rudy caliber heartwarming, folks.

There are going to be some freshmen who go along with the seniors who lose in the Round 0 play in game who think to themselves, "That was pretty cool - I wonder why we don't do that more often?" Those players need their opportunity to learn about Saturday tournaments, about this board, about the nation....but it shouldn't infringe upon the serious players.

There should be some sort of pre-State tournament to kick off the festivities... (wait, like Kickoff?) Well no, that's early, in November... (wait, like Masonics?) well sure, but apparently that hasn't worked yet... (well, conference competition?) apparently, that hasn't worked either... we need something geared towards the weaker teams (wait, like Turnabouts?)

There's plenty of opportunities for these players to get their early exposure. PLENTY of opportunities. You want more? So do I. But if it's not working now, these bad schools need some good coaches. Period. That's the first step.
Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:Second, I think it's time to start considering the end of Illinois' bonus format. If you want the real reason why matches take forever, it's the bonus format. Sterling's Kickoff took over an hour per 20/20 prelim match with slow moderators, longer pyramidal questions, and Illinois formatted bonuses. My tournament at RVC in December dropped it to 25 minutes per match with moderators who had NEVER read a single match.
I am not opposed to this, and, in fact, there may be a proposal along this line in April. We bounced it off the heads of a few people. Some were fine with it. Others, not so much.

You hit on another issue. Moderators. Most moderators I have seen in my life are bad. If this made it easier for moderators, I am in favor. If it keeps things moving, I am in favor. There is no attempt to train moderators. We have begged the IHSA to get involved with this. They have adamantly refused.
ACF bonus format is definitely on a different level of difficulty in terms of converting people's minds, compared to 20/20 matches or the like -- but the benefits are so considerably extensive, it's possibly the most important of it all.

Out of curiosity, how many Illinoisans here favor ACF over Illinois bonuses? (If we want a poll, I can start a poll.)

Also, I wouldn't say that it was easier at Decemberist to teach ACF format over Illinois format (although some were unfamiliar with Illinois format, so I didn't have to un-teach anything for a couple people, so those were easier). I'd say that teaching moderating - in general - was easy with the people I had, and I heard no complaints about moderating quality. If you've got someone who's been moderating since 1994, it might be harder, but I've found that it takes a total of maybe 5 bonuses to get in the swing of things. If those 5 bonuses happen before the first match (either in the week, day, or hour leading up to the tournament), the moderator is set up fine.

Of course, a switch to ACF bonuses might require some training...wink wink... :)
Brad Fischer
Head Editor, IHSA State Series
IHSSBCA Chair

Winnebago HS ('06)
Northern Illinois University ('10)
Assistant Coach, IMSA (2010-12)
Coach, Keith Country Day School (2012-16)
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by theguy914 »

I'm jealous of the northern schools ability to attend tournaments. we were in the O'Fallon tourney and the masonic, but other than that there wasn't a tourney within an hour and a half drive of us. actually the wash u. tourney was and we were going to go to it, but WYSE regionals were on the same day. we (marquette catholic) won regionals tonight with below average performance in the final match(blew 4 in the 2nd half on stupid mistakes or early buzzes) and a decent performances in the quarters and semis. we are now 24-7.

If you had to deal with our conference questions this year these playoff questions would look like a gift from heaven to most of you. I do see what you mean by really obscure clues to really obvious ones, but most of you(as have I) would want to quit the match with the rediculous questions they ask.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Matt Bardoe wrote:Not that I don't love bashing questions, and dreaming up new formats, but how about we enjoy some scholastic bowl. In class A, we will have a new state champion this year. Last years champs, Decatur Lutheran lost to Macon (Meridian) by 2 points with Meridan getting the last toss-up and one part of the bonus. Probably, no one on this board was there, but it sounds exciting. Congratulations Meridian.

On the topic of 0-0 teams, I once heard that some schools conference season starts after the the state series (of course because of Basketball, etc.) so it is not that these teams have 1 game seasons it is just that there first game is part of the state championship.
This is definitely something we forget, that real fun and victory is going on here too :) I think we forget that the teams here are guaranteed their victories at Regionals and they've played their Sectional opponents a total of 2 dozen times. Like I said earlier, Rockford East's victory is a colossal victory for their school, which has been thought of and portrayed as the inner-city slum no-good school of the city.

Also, umm... Andrew Friedman from Latin put up 15 questions to win the Regional? I've never seen a Class A team put up 400 points in a game, and over a quality team like Lisle, that's seriously impressive.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

theguy914 wrote:I'm jealous of the northern schools ability to attend tournaments. we were in the O'Fallon tourney and the masonic, but other than that there wasn't a tourney within an hour and a half drive of us. actually the wash u. tourney was and we were going to go to it, but WYSE regionals were on the same day. we (marquette catholic) won regionals tonight with below average performance in the final match(blew 4 in the 2nd half on stupid mistakes or early buzzes) and a decent performances in the quarters and semis. we are now 24-7.

If you had to deal with our conference questions this year these playoff questions would look like a gift from heaven to most of you. I do see what you mean by really obscure clues to really obvious ones, but most of you(as have I) would want to quit the match with the rediculous questions they ask.
Email me right now. styxman42 AT gmail DOT com.
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

This is a little off topic, but did TWO different games at Kankakee McNamara really finish with 66 total points? How is that POSSIBLE?
Greg Peterson

Northwestern University '18
Lawrence University '11
Maine South HS '07

"a decent player" - Mike Cheyne
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Irreligion in Bangladesh
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Frederick Dukes wrote:This is a little off topic, but did TWO different games at Kankakee McNamara really finish with 66 total points? How is that POSSIBLE?
What's more, two Class A teams showed up without 5 players?!? Why waste the gas? Alternatively, why coach without knowing the (unbelievably silly and far too official) rules?
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theguy914
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by theguy914 »

styxman wrote:Email me right now. styxman42 AT gmail DOT com.
email sent
Trevkeeper
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Trevkeeper »

/shameless plug/ I wish I knew a question writing company that provides questions for conferences..../shameless plug

I didn't hear the regional questions so I can't comment, but I think it's interesting that people think they are worse than last year, since that was supposedly the best they have ever been.

It's too bad I can't attend Sectionals (UIUC Novice). I am toying with the idea of attending state, though, if NT makes it.
Nick, IU and Aegis Questions
theguy914
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by theguy914 »

honestly, I am in the dark on the best question writing companies. what is a good company that provides pyramidal questions, but is still in the ihsa playoff format as far as bonuses is concerned? This was the first year this company did our questions, and I'm almost certain other teams would approve of a change aswell.
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dtaylor4
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by dtaylor4 »

Aegis Questions produces conference sets in Illinois format, and is the company Trevkeeper was referring to.
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Maxwell Sniffingwell
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

Trevkeeper wrote:/shameless plug/ I wish I knew a question writing company that provides questions for conferences..../shameless plug

I didn't hear the regional questions so I can't comment, but I think it's interesting that people think they are worse than last year, since that was supposedly the best they have ever been.

It's too bad I can't attend Sectionals (UIUC Novice). I am toying with the idea of attending state, though, if NT makes it.
Which reminds me, Nick... is Luke Pacold playing for you guys? And who's your fourth?

I'm looking forward to playing you guys on Saturday, though I have you picked to win by 50 points.
Greg Peterson

Northwestern University '18
Lawrence University '11
Maine South HS '07

"a decent player" - Mike Cheyne
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Re: Illinois '07-'08

Post by STPickrell »

theguy914 wrote:I'm jealous of the northern schools ability to attend tournaments. we were in the O'Fallon tourney and the masonic, but other than that there wasn't a tourney within an hour and a half drive of us. actually the wash u. tourney was and we were going to go to it, but WYSE regionals were on the same day. we (marquette catholic) won regionals tonight with below average performance in the final match(blew 4 in the 2nd half on stupid mistakes or early buzzes) and a decent performances in the quarters and semis. we are now 24-7.

If you had to deal with our conference questions this year these playoff questions would look like a gift from heaven to most of you. I do see what you mean by really obscure clues to really obvious ones, but most of you(as have I) would want to quit the match with the rediculous questions they ask.
I forgot the exact rules regarding out of state travel but there are a few tournaments on the Missouri side of the river. You and/or your coach can email me (shawn_pickrell at yahoo dot com) if you want the info I know.
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