I think one important thing to consider in this is the members of teams that graduated. To me, the teams that have been most severely hit by graduations are, in no particular order:
Rancho Bernardo (loses Kion You and Howon Choo)
Torrey Pines (loses Casimir Kothari, Vasu Vikram, Brandon Zhang, and Walter Zhao)
La Jolla (loses Vincent Doehr, Clay Halbert, and Eric Wang)
Note: These only include the A-team graduations.
It seems like James Malouf ('17) of La Jolla will likely hold his own. given how he did without Vincent at tournaments last year like
this one. Clearly, James has solid coverage of the distribution, as a PPB of 22.68 on a set as challenging as BISB is no easy feat. I think it will be interesting to see how LJ performs on NAQT tournaments, as that was where Vincent's strengths lied. (I have a feeling it will still be
pretty good)
Torrey Pines and Rancho Bernardo, on the other hand, seem like they will have a harder time recovering. TP will keep Thomas Freedman ('18), who couldn't make it to nationals last year, but performed impressively at tournaments
throughout the season. Despite this, they have lost a significant portion of the distribution, especially in science, fine arts, and thought, which could be pretty detrimental to them this year.
As for Rancho Bernardo, the absence of Kion You will likely have a big hit on performance. It seems like Bryan Ugaz ('17) has
some serious depth, but they will need better coverage and consistency if they want to break into the top ranks.