The Quizbowl Resource Center

With the addition of LIsgar A/B and Villa Duchesne, there are 16 slots left in the field for the 2011 NSC, which will feature 72 teams this year.

If you have registration or entry fee questions, email me at donaldtaylor dot pace at gmail.com

If you have any other questions, email TD Gautam Kandlikar at gkandlikar at gmail dot com.

Also, as it stands, the current field is as follows:

Simon Kenton (KY)
Quince Orchard (MD)
IMSA x2 (IL)
Northmont (OH)
St. Anselm (DC)
Loyola Academy (IL)
DCC x2 (MI)
St. Joseph (NJ)
Rockford Auburn x2 (IL)
Carbondale (IL)
George Marshall (VA)
Hunter College x2 (NY)
Dunbar x2 (KY)
Maggie Walker (VA)
St. Ignatius (IL)
Stevenson (IL)
Seven Lakes (TX)
Warren Harding (OH)
Rock Bridge x2 (MO)
TJHSST x2 (VA)
Torrey Pines (CA)
Clayton (MO)
Olmsted Falls (OH)
Bainbridge (GA)
Danville (KY)
Mission San Jose (CA)
Frenchtown (MT)
Jefferson City (MO)
Parkway West (MO)
Walnut Hills (OH)
Dorman x2 (SC)
Bellarmine (CA)
Helias (MO)
State College x2 (PA)
Walter Johnson (MD)
Oakville (MO)
Lisle (IL)
Alpharetta (GA)
Champaign Centennial (IL)
Macomb (IL) (tentative)
Lisgar x2 (ON)
Villa Duchesne (MO)
Team A
Wauconda (IL)
LASA (TX)
Richard Montgomery (MD)
OPRF (IL)
New Trier (IL)
Clover Hill (VA)
Cistercian (TX)
Fenton (IL)

And Alpharetta? We're listed on the NSC website.

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:And Alpharetta? We're listed on the NSC website.

You're in, I just omitted you from that particular list. Apologies.

just out of curiosity- has the tournament format been announced somewhere?

Not yet, but there's one we're strongly considering at the moment. I anticipate that we'll announce it soon if no one in PACE comes up with anything better in the next few days; in my personal estimation, it's a very strong choice.

Donald, I sent you an email to register LASA A earlier today. We aren't sure we're going to be able to put together a B team at this point, but we're going to try. I'll register them separately if that becomes necessary and if there's still room.

Just looking at this field and comparing it to Fred Morlan's recent blog post, I see only 1 top 10 team (according to his ranking) that isn't in the field (Centennial, GA), one more top 15 team (Richard Montgomery, MD), and 3 more top 25 teams (Copley, OH, Rancho Bernardo, CA, and Ladue Horton Watkins, MO) that aren't in the field. Is this the highest rate of very top teams going to PACE yet?

Update:

There are now 13 slots left for teams to enter this tournament, as three teams have registered within the past 12 hours. From the looks of it, Dees is right in that this is the most stacked tournament in terms of the quality of teams playing.

If you want in, I strongly suggest getting your registration in sooner rather than later.

As of now, there are TWELVE slots remaining in this year's NSC. Four have gone in the past 24 hours, so those who are on the fence should get a move on before they get waitlisted.

After a couple drops, there are now 10 spots left in the field for this year's NSC.

With the NSC a little more than 5 weeks away, is there any concern that the field will not reach the target of 72 teams?

While we can't say for certain that we will reach the number of teams, we are beginning to aggressively recruit teams that haven't signed up yet and have every reason to expect that we'll get enough of them. Additionally, we have several teams on the stand-by list who may not be able to afford the entry fee, but have qualified to enter and will be allowed to play if not enough paying teams sign up.

Why wouldn't you instead decide to move down to 64 teams and retain a more competitive field and a much less controversial, much more ideal prelim/playoff schedule that is less reliant on small prelim sample sizes and pre-event seeding than the proposed 72 team format?

I'm not going to speak for PACE before we've had a meeting to discuss that (which we will do on Sunday), but that thought had certainly crossed my mind also.

I personally like the number 72 a lot more than 64. With 64 you're pretty much forced into using 8x8 bracketing and nothing else. With 72, you can do 6x12, 8x9, or even 12x6 if you can do that many rounds.

OK, but last year that 64 team format basically worked as well as you could ask any format to work. On the other hand, the proposed 72 team format above relies on what I and some others think is not enough preliminary rounds, and by using smaller pools, it becomes more sensitive to wrong seeding information. I would rather go with the proven, logical format.

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:by using smaller pools, it becomes more sensitive to wrong seeding information.

While I would also be happy to work with the 64-team format, I believe in Andrew Hart's rebuttal of the above point, i.e. smaller pools mean that incorrect seeds have to put a team in the wrong one-sixth of the field to have a substantial effect, rather than a wrong one-eighth. It's easier to put a team in the right group of 12 than the right group of 8. That all said, I'm format-neutral; there's something aesthetically nice to be sure about the equal size of the prelim and playoff brackets, but the 72-team format does keep a larger part of the field alive longer, which is nice.

When you only have 62 qualifying teams interested in playing the tournament, the question of which format is more fair becomes moot. You simply cannot justify forcing people who have paid the substantial entry and travel costs of this tournament to play 17% of their games against freshmen from IMSA D who weren't able to qualify. How on Earth is this being considered?

Matt Weiner wrote:When you only have 62 qualifying teams interested in playing the tournament, the question of which format is more fair becomes moot. You simply cannot justify forcing peope who have paid the substantial entry and travel costs of this tournament to play 17% of their games against freshmen from IMSA D who weren't able to qualify. How on Earth is this being considered?

We haven't yet made any format decisions in case we don't hit the 72 mark. We're in the process of contacting qualified teams who have not yet registered to take survey of how many new registrations we can expect. Expect an update in the coming weeks.

Im sure the powers-that-be have realized this, but choosing between the 64-team format and the 72-team format doesnt really matter that much because its likely neither of those is going to happen. If PACE is making a last-ditch effort to fill the field (currently at 62, and looks to have been stuck around that number for at least a month) by both recruiting and offering up free spots, it seems that theyre going to end up with somewhere between 65 and 70 teams, that have either paid to attend or made arrangements to attend or both. The problem is going to be when its the week before the tournament and theres 67 teams signed up, and nobodys sure what to do about the format.

You may need to either have a plan for every field size between 62 and 72 or cap the field at 64 (or 68 or whatever) and fill those last couple spots.

Right, which is why it would make far more sense to cap it at 64 right now than end up with something above that but not at 72.

After a recent drop, the field is at 58 teams.

Is the field still frozen at 58 teams?

Edward Powers wrote:Is the field still frozen at 58 teams?

Two standby teams have been invited and we're waiting to hear back from them.

The problem with this tournament is that its on the same day as our graduation. Our team really wanted come, but we cant. Obviously, I understand that you cant change the day of the tournament for one team, but I'm sure we are not the only ones who have this conflict. I hope it is somehow possible for you guys to take this into consideration in future years (I have no idea when other schools have commencement, but I think the week before HSNCT would be accessible to a lot more teams perhaps).

HSNCT misses lots of teams because of graduation, PACE misses lots of teams because of graduation, NASAT misses lots of teams because of graduation, there is absolutely nothing PACE can take into consideration because graduation schedules vary so widely.

Lion81 wrote:The problem with this tournament is that its on the same day as our graduation. Our team really wanted come, but we cant. Obviously, I understand that you cant change the day of the tournament for one team, but I'm sure we are not the only ones who have this conflict. I hope it is somehow possible for you guys to take this into consideration in future years (I have no idea when other schools have commencement, but I think the week before HSNCT would be accessible to a lot more teams perhaps).

Charlie's right; moreover, the week before HSNCT often has trouble due to finals (or, indeed, other schools' graduation dates). The absolute most that could happen--assuming that the places HSNCT/NSC/NASAT reserve for their tournaments don't privilege people able to reserve the same date in consecutive years, which is by no means a given--is to rotate dates at least a little, so that you're missing a different national tournament every year. But, again, that's sort of an unnecessary nice thing they could do, not something they have to.

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:

Lion81 wrote:The problem with this tournament is that its on the same day as our graduation. Our team really wanted come, but we cant. Obviously, I understand that you cant change the day of the tournament for one team, but I'm sure we are not the only ones who have this conflict. I hope it is somehow possible for you guys to take this into consideration in future years (I have no idea when other schools have commencement, but I think the week before HSNCT would be accessible to a lot more teams perhaps).

Charlie's right; moreover, the week before HSNCT often has trouble due to finals (or, indeed, other schools' graduation dates). The absolute most that could happen--assuming that the places HSNCT/NSC/NASAT reserve for their tournaments don't privilege people able to reserve the same date in consecutive years, which is by no means a given--is to rotate dates at least a little, so that you're missing a different national tournament every year. But, again, that's sort of an unnecessary nice thing they could do, not something they have to.

At the same time, PACE seems to have gotten the worst of it (at least this year) because Saturday, June 4, is an SAT date. Although significantly less detrimental, PACE also conflicts with a large national math tournament (ARML) that attracts thousands of students, and certainly makes attending PACE difficult for some. This year, the combination of those events made it impossible for my school to send a team to PACE. Although I am unsure of a good solution, rotation would be beneficial so that the same tournament is not hurt by the SAT date every year. I also think that moving one of the tournaments to the weekend before Memorial Day and completely avoiding the SAT date would raise attendance. It is also likely that just as many schools have finals this weekend (June 4) as had finals the weekend of May 21.

I will strenuously object to all national tournaments running before Memorial Day weekend because that means that all Missouri teams will be banned by the MSHSAA from attending that tournament, due to the fact that you can only attend nationals in the "summer," defined by them as any time from Memorial Day weekend onward. Given that we sent 8 teams to the HSNCT and are sending another 8 completely different teams to the NSC, which are some of the largest attendances at nationals from an individual state this year, and some of our teams are beginning to place more highly at nationals, I think a national tournament choosing a date that is banned by an entire, very active state would do them a good deal of harm.

Is it really the case that there are players who aren't coming to this tournament because it's an SAT date? There are SAT dates throughout the year, whereas the dates for the NSC or HSNCT are set at essentially the beginning of the year. It seems like this would be something to relatively easily schedule around.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Is it really the case that there are players who aren't coming to this tournament because it's an SAT date? There are SAT dates throughout the year, whereas the dates for the NSC or HSNCT are set at essentially the beginning of the year. It seems like this would be something to relatively easily schedule around.

I know my reason for not going is primarily ARML (the math contest mentioned earlier), and I know of some others who aren't going for the same reason.

(I do not speak on behalf of PACE)

What would people say to nationals being bumped back a week? Given the high amount of overlap in terms of teams and staffers, would it not hurt for there to be a breather in between?

Of course, this means we'd be stepping on HSAPQ's toes, but I'm just putting it out there.

dtaylor4 wrote:(I do not speak on behalf of PACE)

What would people say to nationals being bumped back a week? Given the high amount of overlap in terms of teams and staffers, would it not hurt for there to be a breather in between?

Of course, this means we'd be stepping on HSAPQ's toes, but I'm just putting it out there.

I think that's a good idea. Two years ago when CR attended both nationals, it was a crazy and stressful two weeks that created a lot of upheaval in many people's schedules. I don't know how some people and teams do this every single year on back-to-back weekends.

A breather would be pretty nice, especially as far as West Coast teams are concerned. We end up flying across the nation for every national tournament, so travel fatigue can set in rather quickly. A larger break between the tournaments gives us a larger buffer for it to wear off.

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:

dtaylor4 wrote:(I do not speak on behalf of PACE)

What would people say to nationals being bumped back a week? Given the high amount of overlap in terms of teams and staffers, would it not hurt for there to be a breather in between?

Of course, this means we'd be stepping on HSAPQ's toes, but I'm just putting it out there.

I think that's a good idea. Two years ago when CR attended both nationals, it was a crazy and stressful two weeks that created a lot of upheaval in many people's schedules. I don't know how some people and teams do this every single year on back-to-back weekends.

I would also like to support this suggestion. This would avoid the SAT date and ARML and allow Missouri teams to attend. However, the HSAPQ NASAT issue is problematic.

jlchockey94 wrote:

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:

dtaylor4 wrote:(I do not speak on behalf of PACE)

What would people say to nationals being bumped back a week? Given the high amount of overlap in terms of teams and staffers, would it not hurt for there to be a breather in between?

Of course, this means we'd be stepping on HSAPQ's toes, but I'm just putting it out there.

I think that's a good idea. Two years ago when CR attended both nationals, it was a crazy and stressful two weeks that created a lot of upheaval in many people's schedules. I don't know how some people and teams do this every single year on back-to-back weekends.

I would also like to support this suggestion. This would avoid the SAT date and ARML and allow Missouri teams to attend. However, the HSAPQ NASAT issue is problematic.

Well if NSC is presumably scheduled for the same weekend next year, is ARML and an SAT date also scheduled for that weekend? I presume this is the weekend of June 2nd-3rd 2012; do we even know that far ahead yet?

ARML dates are typically decided right after the last one.

Are there any plans for an NSC blog?

George Berry's doing it again at pacensc.wordpress.com.

Any word on whether or not the prelim brackets will be released before Saturday?

Has PACE routinely released the brackets ever before? I know they accidentally posted incorrect 2008 prelim brackets in a typical old PACE moment of incompetence, but I don't remember them ever being released otherwise. I certainly hope PACE doesn't release the brackets, I don't think people need to know their opponents before the opening meeting of a tournament, at a tournament like this I'm sure you will see lots of people complaining about the bracket they are in and some teams trying to influence the TD to change their schedule. This would be a bad move.

They had by this point last year.

Yeah, I thought we'd gotten an email last year from PACE in the days leading up to the tournament with our bracket. Glad I wasn't remembering that incorrectly.

Twitter hashtag: #nsc or #pacensc? I prefer the latter because I feel that #nsc is too generic but if everyone (anyone?) else is doing that then I'll use that.

Wurzel-Flummery wrote:Twitter hashtag: #nsc or #pacensc? I prefer the latter because I feel that #nsc is too generic but if everyone (anyone?) else is doing that then I'll use that.

#NSC looks like it's in use by other people. Let's use #PACENSC.

Pending internet access Nick Bergeon and I will be attempting to live blog today. It will start whenever we get to northwestern. Link will be forthcoming.

This liveblog has now been merged with George's.

Liveblog

EDIT: maybe this will work?

I think you linked it incorrectly. When I open it I get a page saying "You are no longer logged in."