The Quizbowl Resource Center

This thread is usually up by now, so I figured I'd make it. Post any predictions for the upcoming season or any announcements you'd like to make.

Also, join the Illinois Quizbowl Discord for discussion, packet readings, and other stuff.

Should this not say 2019-2020?

EDIT: resolved i think. FZ this if you want.

A_Failure wrote: ↑Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:24 pm Should this not say 2019-2020?

Fixed, thanks.

My preseason rankings of the teams I believe have a good chance to do well at nationals/NAQT State:
1. University Lab (does this really need an explanation?)
2. Stevenson (Govind and Arjun are better at non-social studies categories than a lot of people think, David Lee is getting very good)
3. IMSA (Matthew Lee is very talented, so is Daniel Lee)
4. Barrington (Probably too high, we are very weak in religion/philosophy and can easily be outbuzzed in history and literature, although Abraham and Roxanne have the potential to do very well at Scobol Solo this year)
5. HInsdale Central (Returns lots of talent from last year, has the potential to make a deep run)
6. Fremd (Danny is very good at literature, it remains to be seen what his teammates can do on higher-difficulty science and history questions, but Fremd definitely could be a top-three team by season’s end)
7. Stevenson B (This team will likely have some very talented incoming freshmen as well as rising sophomore Anmol Dash and could easily make HSNCT playoffs).
8. Glenbard West (I don’t know how many tournaments they will go to, but Sophie is good)
?. Whoever I forgot (I’m sure I left at least one top-tier team out, and probably more).

Sandburg was not mentioned. They lose Aristotle and the other Vainikos siblings if I’m not mistaken. To my knowledge, Eric Webb can cover history extremely well. I’m not sure about the other players, but it looks like the team can make a decent comeback.

My S Illinois Top 8

1. Carbondale (Lose Shaunie and Jonah, but John Paul is a force. Giifti, Charles and co. will provide solid support.)
2. Springfield (Aidan Fein is very good, look out for Fr. Jared Dong to contribute as well.)
3. Collinsville (Will be lower if we don't have a science player, if we get the people we can, then we'll be alright)
4. Southwestern (Lose Luke and Carter. How will Rachel do as a #1 scorer? Look for Ashten Seniker as the future for the Birds.)
T5. Alton/Belleville West (Not sure how much these teams bring back, but both were pretty well last year.)
7. O'Fallon (Lose Gabby, Can Drake continue to grow into a solid player?)
8. Marion (A team I don't know much about, but they always seem to be pretty good, so...)

Danny Kim, Bryan Wan, Arjun Nageswaran, and I recorded a pre-season podcast for Illinois that can be found here.

A little early, but here are my Earlybird Predictions

1. Uni A (Obvious)

2. Stevenson A (How close will they be?)

3. Barrington A (Good team, good players, can they reach the next level?)


SS Champ: Chicago Christian (Ben Fry is a legit top 10 player in the state. Latin could make a push.)

Feel free to debate/predict/discuss.

Barrington A will be missing their captain. One of three things will happen with the A team;
scenario A: Liam, Roxanne, Michael K (freshman), and one more freshman TBD... Sophia or Aarya most likely choices.
scenario B: Liam, Roxanne, Michael K play short-handed
scenario C: Liam, Roxanne, Michael K, & Timothy if he isn't selected to run in next Saturday's XC meet (which happened yesterday)

Even without Abe, Barrington is still a very good team. Perhaps IMSA A, Carbondale or Sandburg will make a run for that 3rd spot.

I appreciate your confidence in my abilities. We'll have to see whether it is well-placed.
I'm quite interested in Latin's results. Tejas put up good stats last year, and it's unclear how much he was shadowed by Matt and Chetan. If he worked as hard this summer as he did the last, he could emerge as a top-tier generalist and quite high-level specialist as well.

Earlybird Results

1. Uni A (11-0)
2. Stevenson A (9-2)
3. IMSA A (8-2)
4. Chicago Christian (7-3)
5. Barrington A (7-3)

Best Individuals

1. Ben Fry (Chicago Christian) 140 PPG
2. John Paul Taylor (Carbondale) 99.44 PPG
3. Matthew Lee (IMSA A) 90 PPG
4. Ethan Ashbrook (Uni A) 75.81 PPG
5. Arjun Nageswaran (Stevenson A) 72.73 PPG

Double Post.

TheAngryBavarian wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:38 am Earlybird Results

1. Uni A (11-0)
2. Stevenson A (9-2)
3. IMSA A (8-2)
4. Chicago Christian (7-3)
5. Homewood-Flossmoor A (7-3)

To be clear, Homewood-Flossmoor swept their five matches in the bottom grouping (3 groups of 8 teams for the double re-bracketing), which makes them 17th. This is not to belittle H-F, who got off the deck to win their final seven straight, which demonstrated nice resiliency. But Carbondale, Sandburg A, Uni B, etc, technically placed higher, despite 'worse' W-L records.

Also, Barrington A won their final match over Carbondale, but the staffer somehow punted the scoresheet and stats remain unknown.

the return of AHAN wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:54 am

TheAngryBavarian wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:38 am Earlybird Results

1. Uni A (11-0)
2. Stevenson A (9-2)
3. IMSA A (8-2)
4. Chicago Christian (7-3)
5. Homewood-Flossmoor A (7-3)

To be clear, Homewood-Flossmoor swept their five matches in the bottom grouping (3 groups of 8 teams for the double re-bracketing), which makes them 17th. This is not to belittle H-F, who got off the deck to win their final seven straight, which demonstrated nice resiliency. But Carbondale, Sandburg A, Uni B, etc, technically placed higher, despite 'worse' W-L records.

This is correct, Neg5's software ranked on the basis of record, and so they were listed 5th. Thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Price.

Are there any Illinois freshmen to look out for this year? The only ones I know a bit about are Michael Karpov from Barrington, Jared Dong from Springfield, and Rishabh and Aadit from Stevenson.

Saketh Dotaraju of Keith Country Day averaged over 80 ppg on PSACA Groundhog Day in the Challenge Division of last year's Barrington Invitational. Assuming he continues playing in high school for Keith, he'll be wrecking a lot of Class A teams in northern Illinois.

Megan Wang of Plum Grove (I assume she's playing for Fremd) had the most powers of any player who played SCOP last year in the BI Standard Division.

Aarya Singh (Prairie) and Sophia Price (Station) also played in SCOP in the standard division, and averaged 98 and 61 PPG, respectively, and will take two of the seats for Barrington A at the novice tourney this weekend.

Montgomery Gold (Normal Metcalf) had a nifty 77 PPG at BI on SCOP, but I cannot confirm where he's going to high school, let alone if he's even a freshman.

The top scorer on SCOP in the BI Standard division was Soren Gjesfjeld of Bloomington (99 PPG), but he, notably, is STILL an 8th grader.

For what it's worth, Southwestern has another Tutterow this year. We'll see how he performs at the Novice.

We're not up there with the big dogs, but we can hold our own down here in the sticks.

Some people in the Illinois QB Discord have written a summary of the recent Earlybird tournament: https://grogerranks.com/2019/10/09/earlybird-writeup/

Montgomery Gold is a Freshman now and is going to U-High.

Other Rising freshmen are Arunabh Ganguli (Stevenson) and Siddhu Bangaru (Springfield)

I hear he's pretty good at History and Geo.

A name that I haven't heard, but so far is the leading scorer for the Barrington Novice site is Dhruv Pendharkar from Stevenson.

Results from the Barrington site of the IHSSBCA Novice (20 teams);

1st) Barrington A
2nd) Stevenson
3rd) Loyola
4th) Fremd A
T-5th) Hinsdale Central A & Barrington B
T-7th) Maine East A & Wheaton Warrenville South A

High scorers:
1.) Alexandra Skallas (Maine South) 77.5
2.) Megan Wang (Fremd A) 74.44
3.) Dhruv Pendharkar (Stevenson) 72.22
4.) Dev Ganguli (Stevenson) 70.56
5.) Jack Keil (Hoffman Estates) 66.15

stats are posted at http://bit.ly/BarringtonNovice

Special thanks to Arjun Nageswaran, Rishabh Wuppalapati, Aadit Junjea, Danny Kim, Gavin McCarthy, Rohan Ganeshan, Charles Young, Kate Hannon, Jack McDevitt, Roxanne Tang, Liam Starnes, and Kaushik Gollamudi for volunteering their time to help staff today! I was also blessed with an all-star cast of adult moderators, too; Mike Laudermith, Colby Burnett, Ali Nagib, Jeremy Nelson, Adam Sperber, Adam Silverman, Rob Baker, and Greg Peterson all helped make me look good by providing a great experience for all players!!

Southwestern Site Results

1. Carbondale A (8-1)
2. Pana (7-2)
3. Southwestern Gold (6-2)
4. Northwestern (5-3)
5. Granite City Red (5-3)

Individuals
1. Hunter Wood (Northwestern) 81.88 PPG
2. Corbin Tutterow (Southwestern Gold) 75.63 PPG
3. Lily Relleke (Granite City Red) 72.50 PPG
4. Avery Caselton (Brussels Blue) 65.63 PPG
5. DJ Brandon (Southwestern Green) 64.38 PPG

Full Stats: https://stats.neg5.org/t/AWdbWZnH1/novi ... -standings

The Wheaton North Falcon Kickoff and Chicago Christian Knights Novice were both held this past Saturday.

Wheaton North Results

1. IMSA A (9-0)
2. Barrington A (7-2)
3. Fremd A (7-2)
4. Sandburg A (6-3)

Individuals

1. Luke Meacham (Lincoln-Way East A) 52.5 PPG
2. Aidan Brinkman (IMSA A) 50 PPG
3. Joey LaBarbera (Timothy Christian) 50 PPG
4. Alexandra Skallas (Maine South) 48.57 PPG


Chicago Christian

1. Glenbard North A (10-0)
2. St. Edward (7-3)
3. Homewood-Flossmoor (4-6)
4. Glenbard North B (4-6)

Individuals

1. Megan Dontha (Glenbard North A) 39.5 PPG
2. Danny Schuck (St. Edward) 37 PPG
3. Isaac Van Essen (Chicago Christian) 35.56 PPG
4. Daniel Fry (Chicago Christian) 34 PPG

the return of AHAN wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2019 2:53 pm Saketh Dotaraju of Keith Country Day averaged over 80 ppg on PSACA Groundhog Day in the Challenge Division of last year's Barrington Invitational. Assuming he continues playing in high school for Keith, he'll be wrecking a lot of Class A teams in northern Illinois.

We played Keith with him as captain in the local tv quizbowl show and Keith played really well with Saketh getting some good early buzzes. The tv format and questions aren't a good showing of a team's skill because of their length and bad clue placement, but Saketh and Keith are definitely going to be a strong team currently and in the future as they're almost all freshmen.

I hear he might be going to IMSA.

Will there be an Illinois poll like last year?

Anybody have predictions about Scobol Solo in a couple weeks?

People who might make finals in order of the field list here (and erring on the side of including more, not fewer players):
Arjun Nageswaran
Govind Prabhakar
Justin Abel
Abraham Holtermann
Liam Starnes
Roxanne Tang
John Paul Taylor
Me (?)
Ken Johnson
Sophie Netzel
Thomas Mercurio
Ashish Subramanian
Matthew Lee
Saketh Dontarajus
Tejas Vadali
Ryan Tsau
Dylan Bowman
Jonathan Lau
Danny Kim

I'm most likely wildly overestimating some players' skills and blatantly discounting others': did I miss anyone particularly strong?

Here are my picks for finals:
Govind Prabhakar
Arjun Nageswaran
Ben Fry
Matthew Lee
Jonathan Lau
Dylan Bowman
Sophie Netzel
Abe Holtermann
Tejas Vadali

with Dylan winning it all, and Govind at a close second.
Illinois has definitely lost its signature generalists after the exodus of Ethan Strombeck, Hanson Hao, Kevin Kodama, and Aristotle Vainikos, but it's important to note that the players on this list who are better known for their specialism are all capable of very impressive generalism as well. I had Dylan winning the championship, because a lot of the top generalists on the list are history players who will be fighting over history with each other, while Dylan's specialty in Fine Arts and Science are pretty much uncontested in the state of Illinois, allowing him to pick up free buzzes on his strong categories.

I just checked the PACE site to see what Illinois schools have qualified for PACE NSC, and the total is.... zero.
I can give a pass to the organizers of Fall ACF since that tournament just happened a week ago, but it has been over a month since Earlybird at UIUC, and there appears to be no effort at having Earlybird certified as a PACE qualifier (ideally gold or platinum). Does anyone have a contact at UIUC that can take care of that?

the return of AHAN wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:43 am I just checked the PACE site to see what Illinois schools have qualified for PACE NSC, and the total is.... zero.
I can give a pass to the organizers of Fall ACF since that tournament just happened a week ago, but it has been over a month since Earlybird at UIUC, and there appears to be no effort at having Earlybird certified as a PACE qualifier (ideally gold or platinum). Does anyone have a contact at UIUC that can take care of that?

Might be on PACE's end; I got the auto-generated e-mail saying "report your Nats qualifiers" a day or two after Fall and filled it out right away.

I think not. There are precisely zero mentions of Earlybird on this page;
http://www.pace-nsc.org/2020-nsc-qualif ... urnaments/

the return of AHAN wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:20 pm I think not. There are precisely zero mentions of Earlybird on this page;
http://www.pace-nsc.org/2020-nsc-qualif ... urnaments/

Tournaments get in our system by either (a) being added to the hsquizbowl tournament database or (2) filling out the form listed at our qualification guidelines here: http://www.pace-nsc.org/2020-nsc-qualif ... uidelines/. Looks like we don't have a record for Earlybird doing that this year. If hte TDs can do either of these then this will get into our system. Let me know if you see any other anomalies.

Sorry about that everyone, I wasn’t aware how qualification for the NSC worked. I just uploaded the tournament.

Thanks, Iain. Perhaps leadership with the ABT should have some sort of guide/manual/checklist that they pass on to the new leadership when they graduate. It'd make it easier whenever there's a transition so that the new guys don't have to re-learn everything. Just a thought.

IAC is happy to announce it is holding the following tournaments in the region:

Varsity / JV

• Northwestern Illinois - Winnebago High School - Saturday, December 14th - on our C Set.

• Southwestern Illinois- Southwestern High School - Monday, January 20th - on our C set.

• Central Illinois - Mattoon High School - Saturday, March 21st - on our B set.

• Greater Chicago - Loyola Academy - Saturday, February 8th - on our B Set.

Teams may register at this link and find more information about a tournament on the tournament page here. The registration deadline is 7 pm Eastern time on 8 days before the tournament or 7pm Eastern time 5 days before the tournament for an additional $10 late fee per team. There are no registration deadlines for individual events (i.e. walk ins are welcome; please arrive 15 minutes before the beginning of the Bee / Exams as per the schedule on the tournament page).

We will be holding the Varsity / JV National Qualifying Exams for the US Geography Championships / International Geography Bee, US History Bee, (new!) National Science Bee and (new!) National Political Science Bee during the first part of the lunch break. Those who take exam(s) should do the exam(s) first, and then eat afterwards - there will be time to do so. These are 50-question, 20-minute time limit multiple-choice tests - it's $10 per student per Exam. Important Note! - You CAN do 3 or 4 exams, but you still only have a maximum of 40 minutes to take these. You can also do other exams at our upcoming B and A Set tournaments or with a proctor at your school / homeschool association.

Varsity / JV / Middle School

• Illinois State Championships - Lincoln Community High School - Saturday, April 4th - on our A Set.

• Chicagoland Championships - Carl Sandburg High School - Saturday, April 4th - on our A Set.

• Our A Set tournaments will not have a Middle School History Bee, but during the History Bee portion of the day, students in grades 8 and younger are welcome to compete in the International Geography Bee Regional Quiz Tournament. Any student in grade 8 and younger is also welcome to play in the JV History Bee as well. Note that the questions used in the middle school division of the History Bowl will be significantly easier than the A Set questions used by the Varsity and JV players.

If you have further questions about any of these tournaments, please email our tournament coordinator, Marshall Mullins, at [email protected]

The Illinois midseason poll is live: https://forms.gle/9vZo6bYhBRWJgCZZ6

All you need to do is rank your top 10 teams in Illinois and give justification for your picks. Happy voting!

All-State teams are posted. Congratulations to everyone!

Starting today, IHSSBCA is using its facebook page to promote this year's All-State Team. Thanks to Brad for putting this together.