NorCal 2021-22 Midseason Discussion

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Gemomania
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NorCal 2021-22 Midseason Discussion

Post by Gemomania »

General Thoughts
With Cal Cup 3, the first in-person tournament in the NorCal Circuit after just under two years :party: , coming up very soon, I thought I’d do a post on the teams in this circuit. This was originally supposed to be sent in the preseason, but a lot of things got in the way, so here are my midseason assessments. I want to note that this isn’t really a set of rankings (the order is mostly arbitrary), and I was only really able to comment on teams that I had some experience playing — I apologize if I couldn’t speak about your team. Feel more than free to mention/highlight them or another team out in a response.

Going into the season, I felt like NorCal was one of the most wide-open regions for good teams to emerge. Many of the old guards graduated last year, leaving the circuit up for grabs. While teams have separated themselves from each other in some form, there is still a lot of parity. For example, Mission San Jose seems to have Saratoga’s number even though the latter won the latest Cal Cup and the former has not qualified for HSNCT. Richard Lin from Bellarmine beat my team while playing solo at ACF Winter. Though Mira Loma may have established themselves as the best team this year, I don’t think anyone in the top 8 is heads and shoulders above anyone else.

I wrote this post in part because I wanted to revitalize some discussion within NorCal. I’m not necessarily scared of the circuit going away or fizzing out (shout out to the folks at NCQBA for doing a fantastic job through the pandemic), but I’d guess that less than twenty-five percent of current players have played a full season that wasn’t online. Most of us haven’t met each other, and it’s now harder to become acquainted with people from other schools or form friendships with them. This is my way of attempting to create some sort of dialogue or conversation. All that being said, let’s get into the post.

Stanford Online
Despite being a freshman, Arin Parsa has been beating high school teams in the circuit since he was in elementary school. Any team with him remains competitive, but Stanford Online’s reliance on one person to score means that there will be times when they’re at a disadvantage against otherwise similar-caliber teams. If a strong second-scorer emerges, they’re likely to shoot up in the rankings, but Arin’s generalism is enough to keep up with the best of teams.

Mira Loma
Mira Loma has rebounded from the loss of Rohan Shelke well. Keeping Elyas Nuh and gaining the core of an MSNCT winning Churchill team in Aatreyo Bhattacharyya and Tanay Bodducherla certainly helped with that. Indeed, if nationals were played with teams of six instead of four, this team would have a good shot at winning it all. Their high neg rate doesn’t get in the way of their ability to win games and tournaments, and their power numbers at Cal Cup 2 while not playing full strength is a testament to their balance and depth.

Guilder
Keshav Kumar was the second-highest scorer on a very good California B NASAT team, and he continues to be one of, if not the best player, in the circuit. While the rest of last year’s Guilder team has graduated, they’ve evidently gained some good support on categories like current events, which has proven especially beneficial on NAQT. Couple this with Keshav being able to buzz on nearly every category, and you’ve got yourself a team that is regularly in a position to win tournaments.

Saratoga
A core of Anthony Wang and Siddharth Kamanavar helped lead Saratoga to a t19 HSNCT finish, and Toga returns these two along with a reliable set of third and fourth scorers. Anthony has been a very solid lead scorer, while Sid K is good at geography and gives them an edge on NAQT, making them dangerous on all sets. They don’t even seem to be taking the loss of their science player Rohan Kumar too hard, as they’ve had the highest PPB at both Cal Cups so far (not to mention that Saratoga won Cal Cup 2).

Bellarmine
In my mind, Richard Lin is the best player in the circuit at a specific category. In fact, I’d put him top three in the country at literature. He also has one of the best buzzer skills I’ve seen. Bellarmine has Nimai Talur as well, who is a good history player. Their program depth means that Bellarmine always has some good backend scorers that can get an extra tossup or two in close games, making seemingly better teams sweat a bit when they play them.

Mission San Jose
MSJ has had some tough bracket luck and is probably the best team in the circuit to not have an HSNCT qualification yet. They’ve retained their top two scorers from last year’s nationals, Pareekshith Krishna and Sahas Goli, but the loss of Ashish and Vibhav has done them no favors. This team is a far cry from the one that placed t19 at HSNCT and beat Beavercreak and DCDS along the way. I think that the abundance of competitive teams emerging in the circuit has made them underperform standings-wise relative to their true strength.

Archbishop Mitty
This is obviously the team I have the most familiarity with, but I think it’s going to be the hardest one to write an entry for. I cover literature and philosophy/social science, while my teammate Advaith Modali is good at history, science, and knows fine arts. I’m also good at “other” questions and know some modern art and macrobiology. We’ve proven that we’re capable of beating teams statistically better than us, but our top-heavy scoring means we’re sometimes inconsistent.

Irvington
Kaiwen Xiao and Vincent Wang are a strong duo and have helped Irvington stay above 20 PPB at every tournament they’ve played so far, even when the latter was absent at Sacramento Fall. Irvington seems to play better on NAQT sets, but the fact that their other scorers have almost without fail put up 20+ PPG means that the team is very consistent and can pull off some upsets. They’re of the caliber to play in the top bracket but are pushed out by some strong fields.

Harker
I’m unsure about how good Harker is. Statistically speaking, they don’t fall too far behind the other teams I’ve mentioned, but it looks like their top two scorers have only played together at one tournament so far, Cal Cup 1. Their PPB there was a capable 22.5, but some of their results were enigmatic — they beat Saratoga while losing to our B team in the same prelims. Maybe Harker’s performances are symptomatic of how close teams are to each other this year.

Final Thoughts
I’d like to hear your thoughts on how things have been going this year. If you disagree with anything/think I missed something/made an error/have anything else you want to note, once again, feel free to comment. On a different note, good luck to everyone who’s playing Cal Cup 3 tomorrow. I hope to meet as many of you as I can there.
anuttam
sagittarius '22
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Gemomania
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Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:55 am

Re: NorCal 2021-22 Midseason Discussion

Post by Gemomania »

I think Cal Cup 3 bore out the above assessment pretty well. Three teams finished 5-3, and I don't know if anyone would have predicted a championship game of Bellarmine–Irvington going into the day. While some good teams like Stanford Online and Saratoga were missing, there seems to be a lot of parity within NorCal — the circuit is very much up for grabs this year.
anuttam
sagittarius '22
cal
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