Trevor's Trivia/Selcer Memorial at UT-Chattanooga (9/26/09)

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

You are invited to UT-Chattanooga’s 12th annual Trevor’s Trivia: Bob Selcer Memorial High School Quizbowl. Named in memory of a UTC alumnus, author of a regular trivia column as well as many academic quiz questions, this will be a one-day team academic quizbowl competition in Chattanooga, TN, on Sat., Sept. 26, 2009. The field is open to high school and middle school teams.

There are four things that are different this year:

1) For the first time, we will have separate question sets for the respective divisions. Division I (varsity) is open to teams with players from all grades. Division II (JV) is open to teams where all players are in grades 6-10.

2) Also for the first time, I will not be editing the questions. We will be using questions from HSAPQ for the varsity division, and we will be among multiple locations using the 2009 Fall High School Novice Tournament set for JV. Please check to make sure you aren’t planning to attend another tournament using the same questions.

3) We are tentatively capping the field at 32 teams – 16 in each division. We may expand the field if we get commitments from more officials. To ensure that you have space reserved, we recommend that you e-mail utcquizbowl [at] gmail [dot] com at your earliest convenience with the number of teams your school expects to bring. Once the field is officially full, we will start a waiting list.

4) In order to bring more than two teams from the same school, you are required to provide at least one experienced full-time official. This will allow us to expand the field to accommodate the extra teams while still allowing room for more schools.

FORMAT: This will be an untimed tournament with 20 tossups and bonuses per round, with no bounceback on bonuses. Questions will cover a variety of academic disciplines, with a little popular culture and general knowledge thrown in. The field will be split into brackets for a round robin, followed by playoffs for each division. During playoffs, non-playoff teams will have the option of playing consolation rounds.

ELIGIBILITY: Students in grades 6-12 are eligible. Those in grades 11-12 are eligible to play in Division I (varsity) only. Students in grades 6-10 are eligible to play in either Division I or Division II, although we strongly recommend that players in grades 6-8 play on Division II teams only. Separate trophies will be awarded for teams in Division II (AKA JV, with all teams composed entirely of players in grades 6 -10.)

SCHEDULE: Registration begins at 9 AM EDT on Sat. 9/26, with announcements at 9:45 and play starting at 10. While we won’t have a precise schedule until we verify the field size, we expect to finish the round robin by 6 PM, followed by an exhibition “trash” round (see below), an awards ceremony for individual honors, and playoffs. We hope playoffs will be over by 8 PM.

LOCATION: Tournament HQ will be in 129 Grote Hall on the UTC campus (see directions and link to map below), with matches in Grote, Holt, and Brock Halls. Because we will splitting the tournament between two non-adjacent buildings, each with a slow elevator, please let me know if any of your team members have disabilities and we will do our best to keep their matches in one building.

JUST FOR FUN: It’s become an annual tradition! While we finish the stats and standings at the end of the round robin, we’ll have an unofficial round of “trash” (pure pop culture), tossups only. This has become one of the most popular parts of UTC’s high school quizbowls. Anyone who can reach a buzzer can play in the trash round – alternates, coaches, parents, even the bus driver. Also, during the awards ceremony, we’ll give recognition (and maybe even prizes) for the cleverest T-shirts seen at the tournament.

FEES AND PAPERWORK: Tournament fees are as follows --
• Base fee: $75 per team (4 players can play at a time with up to 3 alternates; substitutions are allowed, but between rounds only.)
• $5 discount for each working lockout buzzer system, up to four systems (whether we use them or not – recently we’ve had a rash of buzzer breakdowns, so we want as many spares as possible)

Pre-registration and prepayment are not required -- as long as we know how many teams you’ll bring, and for which division(s). Rosters may be changed at any time before the tournament starts -- but once it does, a player may not switch from team to team.

ACCOMMODATIONS: With changes on the downtown hotel scene, we don’t currently have any standing room discounts. If you are planning an overnight stay and would like some help, please contact us at utcquizbowl [at] gmail [dot] com and we’ll see what we can arrange.



Directions to Grote Hall: Come towards downtown Chattanooga on I-24. Take the freeway splitoff labeled US 27 North – Downtown Chattanooga. Follow US 27 North to Exit 1A, 4th St. (Don’t worry about which way to turn on 4th St. – it only goes one way.) Follow 4th St. about ½ mile till you see the Mackenzie Arena (the “Roundhouse”) on your right. Shortly after you see the Arena on your right, 4th St. will merge with 3rd St. After they merge, watch for the second right (Palmetto St.) Turn right on Palmetto. Go 2 blocks on Palmetto, then turn right on Vine St. You will see barriers ahead where Vine St. is closed to auto traffic. The last parking lot on the right, just before those barriers, is the parking lot for Grote Hall. Enter through the door by the dumpster. Tournament HQ is Grote 129.

Here’s a link to GoogleMaps. Use with caution – note that Baldwin St. was shortened decades ago and Vine St. is inaccurately marked as a through street.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&g ... 21307&z=16

[asdf_ryan]

I think my school will compete in Div I. Can I ask what the format of the tournament is? Is it a round robin followed by single elimination? How many advance to the single elimination? How many teams will we play in the round robin (I'd imagine a lot, since it ends at 6 PM!)

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Final details will be set when we know the field size for sure, but here are tentative plans: We'll have a bracketed round robin, followed by playoffs (probably single elim) and consolations for the teams that don't make the playoffs. Between the round robin and the playoffs there will also be one tossups-only exhibition round of "trash" (all pop culture.) There will be either seven or nine rounds in the bracketed RR.

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Here's a field update for Trevor's Trivia. Demand has been stronger for Division I (varsity), so we have shifted some of our capacity that way. Right now we expect 27 to 30 teams, close to our announced maximum of 32:

Brindlee Mtn (AL) 4 (2 varsity, 2 Div. II)
Morristown West 2 (1 varsity, 1 Div. II)
D.A.R. (AL) 4 (2 varsity, 2 Div. II)
West Knoxville 2 (1 varsity, 1 Div. II)
Webb 1 (Div. II)
Oak Ridge 1 (varsity)
Farragut 2 (both varsity)
Seymour 2 (1 varsity, 1 Div. II)
McMinn County 1 (varsity)
Murray Co (GA) 2 (both varsity)
Ezell-Harding 3 (2 varsity, 1 Div. II)
Notre Dame 1 (varsity)
Alpharetta (GA) 1 (varsity)
Ooltewah 2-3 (2 varsity, 1 tentative TBA)
Lincoln County HS and Ringgold (GA) have also tentatively reserved spots.

We are hoping we can bump the capacity up to 36; we'll make that official once we confirm a few more officials. Still, if you are interested in bringing a team, you probably need to act soon. E-mail us at utcquizbowl (at) gmail (dot) com.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

I sent you an email earlier. Alpharetta's interested with 1 varsity team. We can bring 1 buzzer system.
EDIT: Never mind, I just saw us on the list.

[quizbowllee]

Brindlee Mountain needs to drop to one varsity team. As of now, we will still have two JV teams.

Thanks,

Lee

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Congratulations to the winners at the 12th annual Trevor's Trivia: Bob Selcer Memorial High School Quizbowl, held at UT-Chattanooga on Sat., Sept. 26, 2009. Schools not otherwise noted are from Tennessee.

DIVISION I (Varsity)
1st: Alpharetta (GA)
2nd: M. L. King A
3rd: Ezell-Harding A
4th: Knoxville West A

DIVISION II (Junior Varsity)
1st: M. L. King B
2nd: Covenant Christian (AL)
3rd: Brindlee Mtn. (AL) B
4th: Ezell-Harding C

Thanks to all who participated, and to the authors of the HSAPQ and Fall Novice sets who made it possible. A reminder to all teams: Both sets are still scheduled for future use in other locations, so please do not refer to specific questions in any comments you post publicly. Full results, stats, gratitude, etc., will follow within the next few days.

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Full results and stats for Trevor's Trivia can be found at:

http://results.scobo.net/UTCQuizbowl

Thanks again to both HSAPQ and the Fall Novice Tournament for allowing us to mirror, and to all the volunteers who helped make this tournament run smoothly (and on time!)

[Joshua Rutsky]

Are playoff stats available for this tournament, or at least scores?

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

In Division II (JV), there was no need for a playoff because the champions from M.L. King B ran the table in a full round robin, with a two-game separation from the pack. In Division I, the waters were muddied because one no-show and one team that bailed early were in the same bracket out of three, and we had to adjust the schedule on the fly. We planned an eight-team playoff, and there was a five-way tie for the last three spots. Only one team had a clear edge in points per game, so we had play-in shootouts for the last two at-large playoff spots.

PLAY-IN GAMES
D.A.R. Blue (A) 90, Seymour 20
Farragut A 110, Ezell-Harding B 70

QUARTERFINALS
Knoxville West A 270, Brindlee Mtn. A 210
Alpharetta 470, D.A.R. Blue 110
Ezell-Harding A 360, Farragut A 180
M.L. King B 310, Farragut B 180

SEMIFINALS
Alpharetta 510, West A 110
M.L. King A 370, Ezell-Harding A 170

FINALS
Alpharetta 530, M.L. King A 120
Third place went to Ezell-Harding by virtue of better record in the prelims.