Southern California 2016 - 2017 Discussion

[rahulkeyal]

Hey everyone!

I thought it would fun to make a thread to discuss the state of Southern California quizbowl this season. Better late than never, right .

I also included a poll in the post, as it seemed like a good way to summarize discussion, however this thread is not meant to merely serve as a poll. Hopefully, it will also provoke some interesting discussion both before the season starts next week with TPAIN, and throughout the season as well. Don't feel compelled to have any sort of formal analysis either; any insight on your own or other teams is welcome!

P.S: If you feel any teams are missing in the poll, feel free to indicate so, and I'll try to get it changed ASAP.

[shivanknayak]

James hasn't graduated (as I recently recalled) so La Jolla is probably going to remain a very formidable team.

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[rahulkeyal]

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.

[dnlwng]

Canyon Crest also loses mythgod Nathan Mar, who was their top playoff scorer at PACE, but hopefully doesn't lose too much other depth.

[acrosby1861]

Hi everyone.

In terms of graduations, Los Alamitos loses:

• everyone except myself from our team at last year's IHOP V (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/3212/stats/regular_division_%28combined%29/teamdetail/#t3)
• Shellbi Malone from our 2016 SoCal state championships roster (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/3543/stats/combined/teamdetail/#t7)
• all our science players, which means that our science barrier gets bigger (!)

I'm looking forward to the new season. Good luck to everyone.

[rahulkeyal]

Yeah, I didn't include Nathan in the list for that reason. While he was clearly a major contribution to the team and got points in a lot of areas, the members of CCA's team who are returning seem to have a strong foundation in most of the areas he covered (save maybe religion and myth, which account for less of the distribution than the cases I described above with LJ, TP, and RB).

Regardless, I am really excited to see Canyon Crest this year. They seem to have a lot of potential players to pull up to their A-team to replace Nathan. In addition, Jeffrey improved super quickly last year, and if he and his teammates make similar progress this year, Canyon Crest has the ability to improve on their 6th place PACE performance last year.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Hello! NHBB's planning a slate of three tournaments in Southern California this year:

*A tournament in San Diego on C-set, which will be on November 19th at Westview;
*A tournament in Los Angeles on B-Set; we haven't yet confirmed specifics for this tournament, but I'll post here when things have been settled;
*The Southern California Championships on A-set; this wlil be on February 11th at UC-Irvine.

If you have any questions about these events, please let me know. Have a great season!

[Eddie]

Westview A won TPAIN, going 3 - 1 overall over Arcadia A. It looks like people's predictions were mostly right - they and likely La Jolla look to be some of the top dogs, but Canyon Crest hasn't yet lived up to people's expectations.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

NHBB will run B Set at the International School of Los Angeles in Burbank on March 25th; you can now register for the tournament. If you have any questions, please let me know! Thanks!

EDIT: This is now on April 8th. Note that this is not yet updated on our website.

[An Economic Ignoramus]

I see you already have a poll from the beginning of the year in this thread. Here's a more recent player poll, conducted over the past few days as part of my national player poll.

SoCal (9 ballots returned) (Top 8 teams were ranked)
1) Westview (9 adjusted votes)
2) Canyon Crest (7.004 adjusted votes)
3) Arcadia (3.677 adjusted votes)
4) La Jolla (2.347 adjusted votes)
5) Torrey Pines (2.317 adjusted votes)
6) Irvine (2.127 adjusted votes)
7) Rancho Bernardo (1.179 adjusted votes)
8) North Hollywood (0.425 adjusted votes)
Also receiving votes: Los Alamitos, Del Norte, Santa Monica
Electors: Daniel Wang (Canyon Crest), Kevin Y (Westview), Rahul Keyal (Westview), Justin Le (North Hollywood), James Malouf (La Jolla), Roger Lin (Arcadia), Matt Forster (Arcadia), Shirpad Badithe (Irvine), Russell Chiang (Torrey Pines).

Thoughts?

[Eddie]

A short preview I wrote up of what to expect from each team going to nationals this year.