The Quizbowl Resource Center

Bellarmine and MSJ retain our respective A teams, looking to dominate the circuit for next year.

Berkeley graduates almost everyone; they're definitely rebuilding.

San Mateo graduates Eliot; will anyone fill the void left by Jordan and Eliot? Based on stats from their one tournament of last season, my guess is no.

Mills retains Garrett and Julia, both dangerous players; with more tournaments they may finally get a chance to go to nationals.

Not sure about Gunn, Ben Bendor has graduated in a burst of alliterative glory, but Will and Emma probably will return.

Menlo-Atherton retains most of its members for yet another year, I believe. Scary. I seem to recall that one of Kurt, Dan, or Benjamin was graduating.

Harker is enigmatic, no clue on who is returning.

Several decent teams appeared on QuizKids but I am uncertain as to whether they will show up at tournaments.

If we get well-run tournaments from both Berkeley and Stanford, which we should, I predict a revived interest in quizbowl in our region.

I predict that Bellarmine A, MSJ A, Mills, Menlo-Atherton and Gunn will qualify for HSNCT. (and MSJ B and Bell B if teamsplitting is involved.) (Given states is held early enough for teams that qualify then to make travel plans)

If Bellarmine attends both high school nationals, I am certain they can contend for top 5 at both of them. At any rate, I would put them squarely ahead of the other NorCal teams, based on my knowledge.

Is Bentley also viable for HSNCT qualification?
Also, I think that based on conflicts like speech and debate, Bell will attend only 2 or 3 local tournaments. Rather, we will aim to travel more.

Harker is always dangerous. They almost beat us in November of last year on an IS-A (chuckle if you please about IS-A sets, but they're standard here). The problem with them is that they have major gaps in the types of knowledge you generally gain from quiz bowl (they lost by 20 or so because they 0'ed a Song of Roland bonus), but on "school-learned" stuff like real science, they're solid. I think they're the team that's most likely to pull off an upset, if anyone does.

I'm trying to start a team at noted "amazing at all science things ever" school Lynbrook and hopefully continuing to play a role in growing the Saratoga team, and I think those two are also potential threats for the future. I'm especially optimistic about what Lynbrook can do if they generate enough interest there (they remind me a lot of MSJ), but both of those schools have to tackle the same problem with debate conflicts that plagues our school before tournaments.

laserphaser wrote:If we get well-run tournaments from both Berkeley and Stanford, which we should, I predict a revived interest in quizbowl in our region.

This would just be the best. Not trying to be demanding here, but it would totally be cool if we could play tournaments on non-A-level sets, and from a strictly unofficial perspective, I will state that there is a good chance that some semblance of a Bellarmine team will be present at any college tournament run in the Bay Area if someone can make it happen.

NoWayItsTanay wrote: it would totally be cool if we could play tournaments on non-A-level sets

This is going to happen. Expect the number of IS sets used in the Bay Area to be closer to the maximum of six than the minimum of one.

Excellent. Expect multiple teams at most tournaments from us, and at least one at most college tournaments.

Also, my preseason rankings:

1. Bellarmine
2. MSJ
3. Harker
4. Mills
5. M-A
6. Gunn
7. Menlo
8. Bell B
9. MSJ B
10. San Mateo
11. Lynbrook

All of these teams will or will have a shot at qualifying for nationals.

NoWayItsTanay wrote:

laserphaser wrote:If we get well-run tournaments from both Berkeley and Stanford, which we should, I predict a revived interest in quizbowl in our region.

This would just be the best. Not trying to be demanding here, but it would totally be cool if we could play tournaments on non-A-level sets

In related news, we just succeeded in reserving rooms for our tournament on October 16th. We'll be using IS #96.

bt_green_warbler wrote:

NoWayItsTanay wrote:

laserphaser wrote:If we get well-run tournaments from both Berkeley and Stanford, which we should, I predict a revived interest in quizbowl in our region.

This would just be the best. Not trying to be demanding here, but it would totally be cool if we could play tournaments on non-A-level sets

In related news, we just succeeded in reserving rooms for our tournament on October 16th. We'll be using IS #96.

In all seriousness, this is beyond exciting. Thanks so much. It should also be noted that Bellarmine plans to host at least one tournament this year.

laserphaser wrote: Also, my preseason rankings:

1. Bellarmine 2. MSJ 3. Harker 4. Mills 5. M-A 6. Gunn 7. Menlo 8. Bell B 9. MSJ B 10. San Mateo 11. Lynbrook
All of these teams will or will have a shot at qualifying for nationals.

So, halfway through the year, some of these schools have played no quizbowl, others are only playing Quiz Kids!, and some have shown up to between one and three tournaments. Considering the unpredictable nature of quizbowl in the area, these rankings were impressively accurate for the most part. I would add, though, that Bellarmine B and MSJ B (in some order, though we don't really know who MSJ B is and none of Harker's seniors have played a tournament this year) are 3rd and 4th based off what we've seen so far, and that Menlo and Gunn placed ahead of Menlo-Atherton at CJC, so they are probably better at this point. Two Bellarmine teams, some large number of MSJ teams, and Harker have already qualified for nationals, but given the low number of tournaments, small field sizes at tournaments, and streaky attendance by most teams, it would be a pleasant surprise if more than two or three new teams qualified this semester. On an unrelated note, we will likely host something again this semester.