IESA State Series

[African threadfish]

Still waiting for brackets but the Illinois Regional Brackets now posted!

Class "A": http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/assi ... ?Year=2013

Class "AA": http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/assi ... 3&Class=AA

Any predictions Jeff or other Illinois coaches?

One thing I noticed this year, are we supposed to post each match we play regardless of win or loss on the IESA website? We post everything, win or lose. The reason that I ask is that my kids defeated one of the teams in our regional twice and that particular team did not post the results of those tournament matches in their submission. All of the other rounds of the tournament were posted because they won these ones, they did not post the two losses to us. I thought that was odd. Is it legal to do that?

[dtaylor4]

I'm not a coach, but I expect Franklin to make a strong showing at State. The only games I know of them losing are at Metcalf Sweetheart, where they were down their top two players.

Jacksonville Turner and Metcalf both impressed me in games I've read for them.

[the return of AHAN]

Still waiting for brackets but the Illinois Regional Brackets now posted!

Class "A": http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/assi ... ?Year=2013

Class "AA": http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/assi ... 3&Class=AA

Any predictions Jeff or other Illinois coaches?

One thing I noticed this year, are we supposed to post each match we play regardless of win or loss on the IESA website? We post everything, win or lose. The reason that I ask is that my kids defeated one of the teams in our regional twice and that particular team did not post the results of those tournament matches in their submission. All of the other rounds of the tournament were posted because they won these ones, they did not post the two losses to us. I thought that was odd. Is it legal to do that?

Legal? That would imply there's a rule against it and some sort of sanction or penalty for those who lie about their record.
Unethical? Absolutely. But there are a goodly number of coaches in this activity who don't have a sense of ethics. Sorry, but you were bound to find out sooner or later. At least it hasn't cost your team an actual championship yet.

[African threadfish]

Legal? That would imply there's a rule against it and some sort of sanction or penalty for those who lie about their record. Unethical? Absolutely. But there are a goodly number of coaches in this activity who don't have a sense of ethics. Sorry, but you were bound to find out sooner or later. At least it hasn't cost your team an actual championship yet.

Jeff, it did not cost us a championship yet but we were ranked a 6 seed in regionals the last two years. Last year we were 29-22 for the season (after losing to elite teams like yours, Quest, St. Mary's (WI), Marshall, and other strong programs!) because everyone else in our conference was supposedly undefeated or only posted 1-2 losses if that. The #1 seed had only posted 7 matches and had a record of 7-0. It was interesting and we set things right VERY quickly last year. I am curious where we will be seeded this year because so far everyone in our conference is currently undefeated again, even though we have beaten 3 of them this year. Last year we did not play a tournament with our conference-mates but this year we did (and won that tournament handily) and now I am noticing these things. It is interesting and too bad that they do not rank based on strength of schedule or shear number of matches played. I will be curious to see if we are a 6 seed again (3rd year in a row) as it appears that IESA does brackets based upon records and number of losses. We are sitting at 16-10 right now and have three tournaments yet to go. We shall see. I just think it is a shady practice to only post your wins. Guess there is not much we can do about it, unfortunately. We will keep posting everything as I feel that is more honest than just posting our 16 wins and ignoring the losses.

[the return of AHAN]

Your honesty is a good thing. But really, if it's causing some egregious seedings to occur, I suggest contacting John Venable at the IESA and complain. I, for one, will only be posting scores from the MLK Tournament forward. The seeding process was more meaningful 2 years ago when they seeded at the sectional level, but now that they've returned to geographic regionals, the only point of seeding is to try to ensure the top two teams (last year around here, that meant Station vs Prairie) aren't playing until the championship game.

[African threadfish]

Good luck tonight to everyone in IESA scholastic bowl regionals!

How many "burns" and other terrible questions are you expecting at tonight's Regional? Thoughts Jeff or others? I am anticipating the traditional handful of doozies but hopefully I am wrong.

[the return of AHAN]

I forgot to ask the mods for the packets, but yeah, it was the usual QG nonsense. Something along the lines of 'Which cabinet level department fights terrorism, and is charged with keeping our country's borders secure?' was asked. Fortunately, our mod, Mrs. O'Laughlin, overruled the packet.

[dtaylor4]

I had the packets for two days, but didn't have the time nor the forethought to photocopy or take notes.

The packets were full of bull. I couldn't find a single decent literature question, and some of the stuff asked made me take a step back (Seymour Krelborn? Seriously?).

I will be staffing in Peoria, so hopefully I get to see some familiar faces there.

[African threadfish]

I forgot to ask the mods for the packets, but yeah, it was the usual QG nonsense. Something along the lines of 'Which cabinet level department fights terrorism, and is charged with keeping our country's borders secure?' was asked. Fortunately, our mod, Mrs. O'Laughlin, overruled the packet.

Thank goodness for good moderators! Not so lucky at our Regional, which we got home from at 12:15am this morning because the site ran behind due to a malfunctioning buzzer system plus the 2.5 hour drive back to Rockford. Yuck!

The questions were pretty lousy and WAY too nit picky for middle school kids. I second the comment about "Seymore" as well as some crazy ridiculous lit questions. Here is hoping for better at Sectionals! At least we have a full weekend of great questions at MSNCT this weekend

[Stained Diviner]

I have offered to write the IESA questions, but the IESA is not interested in changing question providers.

Questions Galore writes the questions for free with the understanding that QG retains the rights and can sell them as practice questions. I offered to give IESA the rights and split gross sales 50/50, but they were not interested.

[the return of AHAN]

And spelling questions are always a God- adventure. When the three-time Lake County Spelling Bee Champion got negged for his apparently correct spelling of malodorous, I half-expected Ashton Kutcher to burst through the door. Only the facts that we were in a blowout game and running behind schedule stopped me from lodging yet another protest against an answer line.

[the return of AHAN]

Sectionals happened last night.
Class A Scores are here: http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/pair ... ?Year=2013
Class AA Scores are here: http://www.iesa.org/activities/scb/pair ... 3&Class=AA

A few sectionals, including the one we played in, are missing results. Entering scores can wait until the next day at these sites, obv.
Questions were.... yeah... I felt bad for the LZNorth captain who crushed the simplest radical form of 200, but then, the question asked players to state it rounded to the nearest whole number. At the end of the question. Yes, people, this is how we determine a state champion in Illinois.

[dtaylor4]

I'll be scoring for two rounds and sticking around to observe and/or make winners of those who bet on me getting thrown out during the final.

I'll probably be posting scores and documenting chicanery on Facebook for those interested.

[dtaylor4]

Class A:

1st - Palatine Quest
2nd - Champaign Next Generation
3rd - Springfield Blessed Sacrament
4th - Peoria Academy

Class AA:

1st - Barrington Station
2nd - Bloomington
3rd - Rochester
4th - Jacksonville Turner