2022 MSNCT predictions.

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Kierangeo
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2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by Kierangeo »

It's that time of year again! MSNCT is just 2 and 1/2 weeks away and the season so far has been a fun one. With MSNCT so close and there being a number of top-tier teams in close contention for this year's title, what are your predictions for this year?

My Top 3:
1.Greenhill
2.Harvest Park
3.Westminster
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Re: 2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by CCMMSQB_2089 »

I 100% agree with your assessment of Greenhill. Greenhill A and Middlesex A were both outstanding last year and they are the finals I (and maybe we?) anticipate this year. Westminster, Longfellow, Harvest Park, and Challenger-Strawberry Park are also very powerful teams and they should definitely be ranked towards the top.
Here are my top 10, though unfortunately my memory falters and I may have messed this up:
1. Greenhill A
2. Middlesex A
3. Challenger-Strawberry Park A
A bit of justification- those three, as shown in the December TQBA tournament that they played- have been locked in a death cycle. They all do extremely well, and that has been proven consistently! Going into each team's players, Greenhill did a whopping job proving its players amazing at IPNCT, where there were three top ten finishers! Evans Senvalds, Kate Ponnambalam, and Aaron Kuang finished second, fifth, and tenth, respectively. Similarly at IPNCT, Challenger-Strawberry Park's Neha Pandya and Sudhanva Belur finished seventh and eighth respectively. Middlesex A's Neev Sahgal and Maya Pujara broke the Hoppes-Mikanowski Limit on SCOP, which is extremely impressive.
4. Westminster A
5. Longfellow A
6. Harvest Park A
A bit of justification- Westminster, Longfellow, and Harvest Park are all impressive teams. Westminster is number 4 on MSQBrank and the best in its area (exempting Texas), which is no small feat when there are so many impressive teams in the South. Coach Huang has always proven well in finding amazing players that perform well even when facing difficult teams, as shown in SPRING. Harvest Park played so many great teams like Churchill, and they had a sterling performance on MS-40!
7. California-Montessori Orangevale
8. Middlesex B
9. Burleigh Manor A
10. Beckendorff A
A bit of justification- Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan of Montessori won IPNCT, which is no small feat against powerful players from Greenhill and Andrew Gao from Chenery. I anticipate great things from the terminator team. Middlesex B should not be counted out either- they have defeated many powerful teams, such as Beckendorff A. I would like to note the combo team "Dragons", which was a mix of Middlesex A and B, also performed well against teams like Burleigh Manor (without Neev, Maya, or Aiden on the team!). Burleigh Manor and Beckendorff, nonetheless, are still incredible teams. Burleigh Manor A won the Ceres National Mirror Tournament over many nationals-level teams, and Beckendorff A has countless top 5 finishes at tough TQBA tournaments.
Also teams that should not be counted out: Chenery and Churchill.
Y'all should vote here too for MSQBrank!: https://forms.gle/JWunomnFA7u4Y6Wv5
Looking forward to a great MSNCT! :dance:
Last edited by CCMMSQB_2089 on Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by komododragon655 »

MSNCT will certainly be an interesting tournament and something I look forward to! There are countless top teams, 7 of which are above 100 points in March MSQBRank rankings. IPNCT is probably our best gauge for who to look out for at MSNCT individually, though some conclusions about teams can be made too.

I'm aware many top players weren't able to attend IPNCT - players from Middlesex A, Longfellow A, and Burleigh Manor A didn't go to IPNCT, to name a few. Those teams should definitely not be counted out, and were very good when I played them. I will be analyzing IPNCT stats below (analysis is in random order):

- Harvest Park falls into the category of having two great players, Shounak and Karthik, who on their own would perform very well. That duo has probably put up the best tournament showing of the entire season, 83/26/5 and 22.5 PPB across only seven (!!!!!) games. Harvest Park has remained at 1st place on MSQBRank, and is still hanging on by 0.12 points.

- Greenhill will likely make it far in playoffs at MSNCT. Evans Senvalds (who finished 2nd at IPNCT) and Kate Ponnambalam (5th at IPNCT) make a great and balanced team with Aaron Kuang (t-9) and Maya Jagsi. Each player on Greenhill A seems to have a category they are very strong in, so as a team, they basically cover every category. Greenhill's PPBs are predictably amazing - an average of 26 on MS sets and 21.6 on IS-A sets.

- Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan is a great generalist and solo player. Pranavkrishna is very, very good in basically any academic subject, especially history and geography. With the exception of a high school tournament, Pranavkrishna has either won or qualified for MSNCT at every tournament he has attended (his team results page is literally a sea of green).

- Chenery will be a good team too, though not being a super balanced team does have some drawbacks for us (especially PPB-wise). I'm honestly not sure how, but my IPNCT stats show that I'm I generalist (my better categories being literature, geography, and current events). My teammates Zym Zeldovich, Luca Hu, and Daniel Sheffield provide good support and I'm glad I get to play tournaments with them. Chenery will probably have some good games and some bad games at MSNCT, but our goal is to make playoffs and have fun!

- Challenger-Strawberry Park is a balanced team that will also do very well at MSNCT. Sudhanva Belur and Neha Pandya both made finals at IPNCT, and it looks like Raaghav Chakravarthy provides good support to the team as well. From my experience at IPNCT, Sudhanva and Neha are both very nice and very good at quizbowl!

- Westminster is a really good team too. I've had the experience of playing against Samanyu Ganesh twice at the Matador Invitational and three times at IPNCT. As his stats show, Samanyu is insanely good at anything math-related, as shown by his 1st place finish in the category at IPNCT. Most middle school teams don't have very good science coverage, so Westminster will likely have an advantage in knowing science. Their win at Matador, Samanyu's 6th place finish at IPNCT, and Alan Marhic's t-9 place finish at IPNCT demonstrate the strength of Westminster.
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I'm sure I missed a lot of good teams going to MSNCT, but I believe the general formula for success is having two or more good players. That being said, my personal favorite for winning MSNCT is definitely Greenhill A. Their whole A team is made up of four very talented players who would do well on their own without a doubt. Their consistency and ability to win games will serve them well at MSNCT.

I will hopefully be able to see everyone at MSNCT in 15 days! Good luck!
Andrew Gao (he/him)
Chenery Middle School '23, Belmont High School '27
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[email protected] | pandruwu on Discord
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Re: 2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by BulldogBuzzers »

Predictions? I'll go with Patrick Matthews' prediction from last year...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WZ1ALkP5Ck
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Re: 2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by Nabgabber »

This is a rundown of the teams that have a decent chance of being top 10 at MSNCT that I have played this year at mainly TQBA tournaments.

Greenhill A: My pick to win overall. Kate Ponnambalam, Evans Senvalds, Maya Jagsi, and Aaron Kuang are all really good players in their own right and together they will be able to accomplish a lot at nationals. Evans and Kate were in the finals of this year's IPNCT, finishing 2nd and 5th respectively, with Aaron just missing finals and finishing 9th. As a team, they have been consistently able to beat other top tier teams (some of which are mentioned below) and, when they lose, it is usually by a thin margin. They have won all but one of their TQBA MS and IS-A tournaments this season, the one being TQBA Winter Roundup, in which they lost to Challenger-Strawberry Park by in the finals.

Challenger-Strawberry Park A: Challenger-Strawberry has also played very well at TQBA tournaments this year. Sudhanva Belur, the team's leading scorer, is supported by Neha Pandya, Raaghav Chakravarthy, Anika Ganu, and Nolan Woo (Their exact roster for MSNCT is unknown to me but these are the team members I have seen them play with so far). Sudhanva finished 8th at IPNCT, and Neha finished 7th. At TQBA HoHoHo XVIII, Sudhanva and Neha split, and, each playing on their own teams, ranked second and first respectively among players. Sudhanva also got an incredible 6.4 powers per game playing IS-209A. This team will probably land in the top 5 with a strong chance of ending up in the top 3.

Middlesex A: Middlesex A is another strong team to watch out for. Their roster consists of Neev Sahgal, Maya Pujara, Roman Gagliardi, and Matthew DelVecchio. Their greatest performance (according to MSQBRank) is Charter Oak X, in which they swept the field on their way to a 415-265 win over their own B team. They also played TQBA HoHoHo, in which they got second after a close final against Greenhill A that was decided by 30 points. Their one glaring weakness is that they neg a lot, and they could lose earlier than expected if they go on erratic negging runs.

Harvest Park A: Harvest Park is comprised of the duo of Shounak Bhindwale and Karthik Anbazhagan, who have broken the Hoppes-Mikanowski limit on numerous occasions, and are supported by Riddhi Bhashkar and Saketh Ramini. Shounak finished 4th at IPNCT this year, and has typically been the leading scorer on this team. They don't seem to neg a lot, except for the one time I've played them, but from their stats that seems like an outlier. They will likely finish in the top 5 at MSNCT.

Westminster: Westminster's roster is made up of Samanyu Ganesh, Alan Marhic, Madeleine Hathorn, and Anselm Bell. Samanyu and Alan ended up 6th and T-9th at IPNCT. They won Matador Invitational, competing against teams like Chenery, Middlesex, and Beckendorff. Just like Harvest Park, I have only played Westminster once, at the aforementioned Matador Invitational. They have also won many tournaments in their home state of Georgia, dominating the field in the process. I predict that Westminster will end up T-5 at MSNCT.

California Montessori-Orangevale: This team is comprised of only one player, namely Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan. He first came onto the quizbowl scene last year, placing third at IPNCT, and he placed first in this year's IPNCT. He routinely gets 100+ ppg at on high school sets and has qualified in all but 2 of his tournaments, those two tournaments being against high school teams. He can get lots of subjects outside of his main, geography. He will probably finish in the top 7.

Beckendorff A: Honestly I just wanted to put us here. Our roster is comprised of me (Aditya Khambekar), Raghav Ahuja, Andy Truong, and Aarush Akella. We have done decently well at tournaments this season, qualifying at every TQBA tournament we have attended, with numerous top 3 finishes, and finishing 7th at Matador against a strong field. We played with our nationals teams at Texas Invitational Middle School, in which we placed T-3rd after a close semifinal game against Greenhill that came down to the last tossup. We have also played (but typically with not all of our 4 current A team members present) at other TQBA events, including Bluebonnet, in which we placed second while playing with 2 people.

Some other teams that I haven't played all that much but I think will do well at Nationals:

Chenery A
Burleigh Manor A
Longfellow A
Churchill A
Harker
Middlesex B
Aditya Khambekar
Beckendorff JH '22
Seven Lakes HS '26
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Re: 2022 MSNCT predictions.

Post by CPiGuy »

I think this year is rather unusual in that there are a large number of very good teams but there aren't really one or two teams that stand out as obvious favorites. I am not going to attempt to predict the final rankings but will instead think of things in terms of tiers.

Tier 1: Burleigh Manor, Greenhill, Harvest Park, Longfellow, Middlesex, Strawberry Park, Westminster
These teams are all (obviously) very good and have two or more players capable of contributing lots of points in playoff games against other top teams. Being balanced enough to pick up if one player has a bad game is really important in tournaments like this. These teams also have players who have experience playing in the late playoff rounds at nationals, and have shown that they are capable of scaling up to the high-school-level questions used in the MSNCT playoffs. I think it is likely that one of these teams will win the tournament, but it is very hard to pick any of these teams against any of the others.

Tier 2: Beckendorff, CA Montessori Orangevale, Middlesex B, Noe, Seoul Foreign
These teams have a good chance of going far but are, I think, generally disfavored against teams from the above tier. If none of the tier-1 teams win the tournament, I think one of these teams will win the tournament. In general, these teams have performed well this year but lack one or more of nationals experience, experience with HS-level questions, and scoring balance. I do want to shout out Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan, who scores lots of points and will almost certainly be the individually leading scorer. He is incredibly good. Unfortunately, "incredibly good" has not been good enough for a solo or near-solo player to make it to the title game since playoff questions were made more difficult. Of all these teams, though, I think it is most likely that Pranavkrishna's team will finish ahead of multiple teams that I have identified as "tier 1".
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