The Quizbowl Resource Center

People have been asking for an update here; with registrations coming in at the rate of 5-10 a day, I've been waiting to update these, but these are now up to date: http://www.historybowl.com/nationals-teams/
Do not assume that this will necessarily be your final seed, since many teams have still yet to sign up and a double check will be made before final seedings. Also, for teams who are not ranked #1 in their group of 6, the overall seed may be adjusted up to a few places (this is basically statistically insignificant) in order to ensure placings at Nationals that minimize competition against teams from your home circuit, or to accommodate reasonable requests (i.e. a need to play at the hotel in the morning due to accessibility concerns).

How is the Madden Score calculated? Just by PPG, or is there weighting for a easier field or what?

Definitely not just based on PPG since we are tied for the highest PPG listed on the page in JV and we played on A set, yet we're ranked ninth. I assume its adjusted for field strength because we haven't played any really strong history bowl teams in the past year, which is probably why we're ranked ninth. Also, our Morlan ranking of 110 is still not listed on the page as Farragut B http://hsqbrank.com/2014/03/16/top-200- ... /#more-507 but I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore since we're happy with our ranking.

gustavus.adolphus wrote:How is the Madden Score calculated? Just by PPG, or is there weighting for a easier field or what?

I look at a bunch of different factors including:
1. Game scores
2. Who the specific opponents were and how strong the field overall was
3. If multiple tournaments were played in, I weight more recent ones higher.
4. Was the team playing short-handed or at full strength? Is there team at Nationals going to have its best players?
5. Final placing at an event
6. What question set was used at an event (2000 on A set is more impressive than 2000 on C Set)
7. Does the team play quizbowl on a regular basis? If so, what's their reputation/Morlan ranking?
8. Has the team come to Nationals before, and how have they done, keeping in mind they were likely playing with different players.

It's not foolproof, but NHBB doesn't have standard bonuses, so we can't go off of PPB the way the Morlan rankings do. Still, the rankings have proved pretty accurate over the past three years, and in each year, the Varsity #1 team went on to win the event. I will add, that there is far more uncertainty regarding the JV divsion than Varsity. That's partly due to uncertainties of who will represent many teams at Nationals (since for some schools, they move their top JV players at regionals up to the Varsity team for Nationals) but also because 9th and 10th graders are more common to improve substantially than 11th and 12th graders, so that's where we often see the largest jumps. On top of that, there's less of a historical record for many JV teams, making comparisons harder at the National level, and just in general, the top JV teams seem very evenly matched this year. I would add that if LASA were bringing their top 9th and 10th graders for a JV team, they would be a clear favorite, but LASA has only signed up a Varsity team. Interestingly, the top 3 Varsity teams this year are the same as last year. Most of the top players on those teams are back, and all three teams were very evenly matched last year. This year, LASA gets the nod over Bellarmine, as Sameer has only played one event, and Bellarmine lost to 4 seed Saratoga at that event, though Sameer won the Bee. However, Sameer will also be playing with teammates this year, which should also make Bellarmine stronger than last year too. We'll see how it all shakes out in four weeks!

johntait1 wrote:Definitely not just based on PPG since we are tied for the highest PPG listed on the page in JV and we played on A set, yet we're ranked ninth. I assume its adjusted for field strength because we haven't played any really strong history bowl teams in the past year, which is probably why we're ranked ninth. Also, our Morlan ranking of 110 is still not listed on the page as Farragut B http://hsqbrank.com/2014/03/16/top-200- ... /#more-507 but I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore since we're happy with our ranking.

I've made a blanket decision not to list Morlan rankings for JV teams this year due to the problems inherent in knowing who played on which team when. It's likely to confuse more than clarify, so it's just being maintained for Varsity teams, even if a school's standard lineup is all JV players.