2005 NAQT ICT Results

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2005 NAQT ICT Results

Post by Dan Greenstein »

Craig Barker on the Yahoo group wrote:Yes, usually announcements from NAQT are the domain of R. Hentzel, but
in the interest of timely information to the community and since I am
the guy who has the laptop hooked into the internet at the moment:

Division I:
1. Michigan
2. Chicago

Michigan went undefeated and topped Chicago in the advantaged final to
win D-I.

Division I UG:
1. Virginia Commonwealth
2. Carleton College

Division II:
1. Chicago
2. Michigan
3. Harding

Chicago went into to the Finals down 1-0 to Michigan, but claimed two
straight wins to take home this year's Division II title. Chicago had
beaten Harding in a one-game tiebreaker to earn the right to face
Michigan.

Harding's Jason Loy and Michigan's Will Turner were your leading
scorers in Division II.

Division II: Community College
1. Faulkner State CC (Alabama)
2. Broward CC (Florida)
3. Northwest-Shoals CC (Alabama)

Faulkner State triumphed over Broward in the advantaged playoff game
to claim the 2005 NAQT CC title.

Obviously, we'll have much fuller result in the next couple of days,
but we wanted to get the info out to you. Thank you.

Craig Barker
Division II Statistics Room
2005 NAQT ICT
Also, on the collegequizbowl.org site, you can find some D2 stats if you do not wish to wait until NAQT posts them on their website. Go to Ideas - "Live Stats."

First off, an impressive breakout performance by Harding University, which I hope becomes a fixture in the Southwest circuit. Though if you knew about Jason Loy, you would not be surprised much about what his presense does for a team.

Secondly, congratulations to Virginia Commonwealth for their undergraduate title in Division I. Was this a Matt Weiner job or did he have teammates? If the former, for you quizbowl historians: is this the first time a champion at an NAQT or ACF national tournament has been a one-man team?

Finally, a question about the D2 competition, which I hope someone who was there can answer when they read this later today, is: Following the playoffs, Michigan was 12-1 and both Chicago and Harding were 10-3. As noted, Chicago beat Harding in a tiebreaker game, which does not officially count in NAQT standings. Why was there a finals series if Michigan was two games ahead of Chicago in the standings?
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Weiner job

Post by ineed2shave104 »

I was on the Rice team, and he crushed us by himself, like 330-155. What really impressed me is that he knew his science stuff on bonuses really well.
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Post by No Sollositing On Premise »

In DII, Michigan was two games ahead of Chicago because Chicago had a loss to Harding in initial group play, but Michigan was only one game ahead of Harding and Chicago (who didn't play each other in their playoffs bracket by virtue of being from the same original bracket) in the playoffs bracket. Jason was great all day, and he seemed to have some more support from his Harding team then he had from his Cutter team, but there still is no question whose team it is.

Matt played alone. He had a sidekick at Sectionals, but he soloed this weekend in impressive fashion.

EDIT: Also, I am proud to announce that I have now played (and beaten, thank god) the infamous Jonathon Thompson (who was playing for Faulkner State CC). He's a good player but has a voice every bit as annoying as his posts and also posesses a tendency to hilariously mispronounce answers.
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Post by steven-lamp »

Good God! They let him out of state?!?! Well, I'm glad you beat him. We beat him at state last year in our televised round. It was very, very sweet. Although I believe I've said this before, he looks somewhat like a lamprey with tooth decay and doesn't sound much better. Just keep your email address/phone number safe to avoid any unwanted "attachments".
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Post by MLafer »

In DII, Michigan was two games ahead of Chicago because Chicago had a loss to Harding in initial group play, but Michigan was only one game ahead of Harding and Chicago (who didn't play each other in their playoffs bracket by virtue of being from the same original bracket) in the playoffs bracket.
I don't understand. Michigan only lost to WUSTL in the prelims, while Chicago lost to Harding in the prelims and also to Michigan and Swarthmore in the playoffs. So either way you look at it (overall records: 12-1 vs 10-3, or playoff records: 6-0 vs. 4-2) Michigan was two games ahead. I don't have a copy of the rules. If someone does could they copy out the part regarding how the finals will be played?
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Post by Jeremy Gibbs Paradox »

MLafer wrote:
In DII, Michigan was two games ahead of Chicago because Chicago had a loss to Harding in initial group play, but Michigan was only one game ahead of Harding and Chicago (who didn't play each other in their playoffs bracket by virtue of being from the same original bracket) in the playoffs bracket.
I don't understand. Michigan only lost to WUSTL in the prelims, while Chicago lost to Harding in the prelims and also to Michigan and Swarthmore in the playoffs. So either way you look at it (overall records: 12-1 vs 10-3, or playoff records: 6-0 vs. 4-2) Michigan was two games ahead. I don't have a copy of the rules. If someone does could they copy out the part regarding how the finals will be played?
Interesting thing. I tried looking this up and as far as I can tell, there is no rule. At all. Someone should really fluff the rug from time to time, there is such a thing as too lumpy.

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Post by Larry Horse »

allythin wrote:
MLafer wrote:
In DII, Michigan was two games ahead of Chicago because Chicago had a loss to Harding in initial group play, but Michigan was only one game ahead of Harding and Chicago (who didn't play each other in their playoffs bracket by virtue of being from the same original bracket) in the playoffs bracket.
I don't understand. Michigan only lost to WUSTL in the prelims, while Chicago lost to Harding in the prelims and also to Michigan and Swarthmore in the playoffs. So either way you look at it (overall records: 12-1 vs 10-3, or playoff records: 6-0 vs. 4-2) Michigan was two games ahead. I don't have a copy of the rules. If someone does could they copy out the part regarding how the finals will be played?
Interesting thing. I tried looking this up and as far as I can tell, there is no rule. At all. Someone should really fluff the rug from time to time, there is such a thing as too lumpy.

Sean

The way they did it was that regardless of how many games ahead the first place team was from the 2nd place team, the first place team would only get a one game advantage in a best of 3 style playoff. If the top 2 were identirecordal, then they would only have had a one game playoff.
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Post by Chris Frankel »

I've noticed numerous other people mention this in private discussion of the tournament, so I'll throw my own 2 cents here to bring this question to the table, being less vociferous than I normally would if I had attended and were directly affected.

I know the show of a finals match, especially at a national tournament, can be very entertaining, and in my experience NAQT has always done a good job in running them in exciting fashion. That said, the apparent policy of forcing a finals match regardless of disparity in record between the top teams is questionable, and (whether intentional or not) makes the statement that putting on a show for the crowd is a higher priority than making sure a title is awarded fairly.

At least based on my own circuit experience, a two game differential is generally accepted as the standard for awarding a team a tournament win by default without a final. It provides the teams with an incentive to take all of their matches seriously and play to win continuously, and it rewards the accomplishments of teams who put on a dominant performance. When a team has two or more games on its next highest competitor, I think it's fair to say that that team has clinched a tournament win.

Regardless of whether playoff or overall records were counted, Michigan has a two (or more) game advantage over every other team, AND owned wins over both Harding and Chicago, the teams with the second best records. Given these circumstances, I can't see reasoning other than the sake of creating a final "just because" why Michigan would be forced to play either team again to earn a title (not to pick on Chicago, but why were they allowed a shot at the finals even though Harding already held the head-to-head advantage over them?).

Yes, we could all say that if Michigan really, really were the best, they'd have won one of the games against Chicago, but at the same time their prelim/playoff performance (especially in comparison to that of Harding and Chicago) would have earned them the title by default at any other tournament. In a way, it looks better that Michigan lost to WUSTL, because getting to the point where a team can win a title without being at least tied for the best record would raise even more questions about the finals game rule.

I'm sure this will be brushed off as meritless vocal criticism because of the source, but given the precedent of circuit tournaments, it's clear that I am not the only one with qualms about the automatic finals game policy. I know I'd definitely be a little upset if I were in Michigan's shoes, and I imagine that Lafer isn't alone in his sentiment as far as those whose program was directly affected. I hope NAQT considers revising this policy, because it seems to be the exception, and not the rule, to the circuit, and would remove an unnecessary element of randomness in determining its champions.
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Post by nafai »

According to the NAQT 2005 ICT FAQ distributed at the tournament:

"1. What is the tournament format?
...
At the conclusion of round 14, the top two teams will advance to the finals. This will be determined by overall record (i.e., teams' records from the first round-robin carry over). Ties for the top two spots will be broken in round 15, if necessary. Tie-breaker games do not count in final records.

If the top two teams have identical records, they will play a one-game final for the championship. If one team has an advantage, they will need to win one game while the other team will need to win two." (emphasis added)

Thus, the tournament outcome was in accord with the stated rules. Whether this is a reasonable rule is somewhat dubious.

However, as a UChicago player and with all respect to Will Turner and co, I will say that anyone who watched the two finals games would agree that Chicago was a better team, at least on those packets. From memory, the margin of victory was more than 200 points. There was a similar schooling of Harding for the tiebreaker.

--David
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Post by wturner »

I can only speak for myself, but I agree with David. We knew we would be playing a final no matter what our advantage, and the final rounds made it pretty clear that Chicago deserved to win that tournament. I don't really see anything wrong with the rule either. Our experience shows that a two win advantage does not really demonstrate such dominance as to obviate a final round.

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Post by No Sollositing On Premise »

Weird. I thought that Michigan had gone undefeated through the prelims and playoffs and Chicago had one loss in each, but evidentally I was misinformed. At least there doesn't seem to be any animosity about who won.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

It's good that the Michigan people are being gracious and all, and it would be unfair to expect Chicago not to play the schedule and accept the outcome as offered, but this is a problem that NAQT did promise to fix as far back as 2000, when the possibility of a team winning the tournament despite a worse overall record than the second-place team arose in D1. If NAQT is so convinced that creating some sort of dramatic final is necessary, then they should mandate that the second-place team continue winning until they have an outright better record. In this case, that would have meant playing a third game in the finals series.

Preemptive memo to any middle-aged non-players looking to mischaracterize this post as "ACF-preferring player has ire raised when 'wrong team' wins tournament" on a webpage which, cowardly, you only show to people who already agree with you: Please don't bother. I am simply saying that the team who wins more games at the tournament should necessarily be considered the winning team, and that if the tournament wishes to give a team that has won less games a chance to overtake a team that has won more, the only way to do so is to have those teams play until the relative number of wins changes.
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Post by Chris Frankel »

I just wanted to clarify that my post was not intending to challenge Chicago's legitimacy as D2 champions or claim that Michigan was robbed of a title. Both teams were unquestionably eligible, the tournament format was set beforehand, everything played out as it did, and it looks like nobody directly affected has any objections.

My concern is more on par with Weiner's in that this isn't the first time the automatic finals rule has been labelled as an issue that needs fixing, and it would be worthwhile to reevaluate its existance because of its potential to be problematic. Specifically, I refer to the allowance of a second place team with a lesser record to win a title over a team with a better one, which seems to be counterproductive to the point of having the tournament consist of a self-contained series of games against a common field.

I won't press it further since Will and his teammates appear satisfied, but were he to harbor resentment over the outcome, I think he would not be unjustified in doing so.
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Post by mrsmiley4 »

It's Sports Analogy Time (TM), folks!

In 2001, the Seattle Mariners won an astounding 116 times. The number of wins that team racked up exceeded the number of wins of the next-winningest team by a full 14 games, which (if I am doing my math correctly) is 5 games MORE than are necessary to make it to, and subsequently win, the World Series. Except the 2001 Seattle Mariners did not play in the World Series that year, because Major League Baseball has not chosen its pennant winners by regular season record since 1969. Instead, under the clearly stated playoff policy of Major League Baseball, the Mariners lost to the Yankees, a team with a clearly inferior(!) regular season record of 96-66. And then we laughed at them. (Thereby ensuring that the Cubs would falter in Game 6 of the NLCS two years later, because karma is a bitch. Why yes, I may in fact still be a little bitter.)

Yeah, it kind of sucks that the Div 2 Champ didn't have the best overall record at the tournament. In most circuit tournaments, a two game advantage would probably give the title to Michigan outright. But (and this is the important bit) NAQT is not the circuit, and thus can decide the champion in whatever reasonable manner it sees fit. I can understand the indignation if Chicago had been awarded the title in spite of not beating Michigan at all, or if there were an eligibility issue such as that with UCLA a couple of years ago, but the fact is that in the pre-announced "playoffs/finals" structure in place at the ICT, Chicago beat them twice in a row, and handily so if what I hear is correct. Doesn't this reflect their performance on those two packets rather than across the entire tournament, as did Michigan's pre-final 12-1 record? Perhaps this is true, but if that's not how NAQT wants to measure the national champion, they are certainly within their rights to do otherwise.

I guess I don't really understand what the controversy is here. Teams were told beforehand that were they to be one of the top two teams, they would play in a final match regardless of whether their winningness margin was one game or six. What's more, a member of the injured team has posted here noting that he understood and accepted the NAQT policy on this as a result of their own experience in the final match. Perhaps only winning enough to tie for the top record is sort of a mixed victory akin to a college football team being ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll but No. 2 in the BCS ratings, but as long as the NAQT policy on this is systematic such a mixed victory doesn't, to me, take away from the actual legitimacy of the title.

Unless you would have liked to have seen the Yankees make up that 20-victory difference in the 2001 ALCS.
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Post by Leo Wolpert »

mrsmiley4 wrote:It's Sports Analogy Time (TM), folks!
This is where I stopped reading.
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Post by Captain Sinico »

mrsmiley4 wrote:...NAQT is not the circuit, and thus can decide the champion in whatever reasonable manner it sees fit... I guess I don't really understand what the controversy is here...
It's fairly easy to miss the point when you beg the question. The issue here is not NAQT's ability to award the championship in any manner they see fit (which is an obvious positive fact), but whether or not NAQT's mechanism for awarding the championship is, in fact, reasonable or just or fair or whatever you want to call it; whether it's the best mechanism available, in other words.
For myself, I understand NAQT's policy here and have no problem with it. I can, however, see how others would, as NAQT's mechanism clearly admits the possibility of a team with an inferior record winning the championship. That seems unreasonable prima facie in spite of "Sports Analogy Time," which is apparently what the appeal to common practice fallacy is called now.

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Post by mrsmiley4 »

I guess I'd have less of a problem with this particular complaint if it were being made by the team that was impacted by NAQT's decision. Because really, they do have a legitimate gripe here, I think. I know I'd be annoyed if my team had the clearly superior record all day and managed not to win the tournament anyway. Seeing as how the only member of that team who has chosen to comment has agreed with NAQT, however, I wonder whether the argument is purely academic. (Yes, yes, it has repercussions on possible future scenarios like this, people have been trying to get NAQT to change their policy on this for this very reason, etc. That's a valid point, but I think that the way that it's been brought up is unproductive.)
The issue here is not NAQT's ability to award the championship in any manner they see fit (which is an obvious positive fact), but whether or not NAQT's mechanism for awarding the championship is, in fact, reasonable or just or fair or whatever you want to call it; whether it's the best mechanism available, in other words.
That's part of what I'm seeing here, yes. Matt's post and Chris' clarification in particular do a good job of making that distinction. There is also, however, a fair amount of questioning NAQT's motives, accusing them of stage-managing a finals "show" to the exclusion of allowing the best team to win, and yes, an example of the appeal to common practice fallacy. ("At least based on my own circuit experience, a two game differential is generally accepted as the standard...") There's a lot to criticize NAQT for, but I don't think that these particular criticisms are very fair, or at least appropriate, in this context.
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Post by No Sollositing On Premise »

They've posted brief results and all-star teams on http://www.naqt.com, but not detailed standings or statistics. Anyone have an idea when those are coming out?

EDIT: fixed the URL so the comma didn't register. [/url]
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Post by Matt Weiner »

I'll remind everyone again that the purpose of spectator sports is to entertain fans, while the purpose of quizbowl tournaments is to determine the best quizbowl team. In the event that the existence of NAQT is dependent on ticket and television revenues from people who would stop watching if there were not exciting playoff opportunities in which a lesser team could upset a better one, I will revise my position on the final. Since that is not currently the case, appealing to "that's the way Major League Baseball determines its champion" is about as relevant as saying "that's the way tied votes are broken in the Sri Lankan parliament."
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Post by Larry Horse »

Regardless of who should have been the D2 champion or this or that, there was really one true winner this past weekend:


Image


Thank you for the memories, Mr Kidder

with Love,
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Post by No Rules Westbrook »

Very briefly, I agree with Weiner and Frankel. Will's gracious acceptance of NAQT policy is not the issue, and Chicago clearly won fairly according to the rules. But, the policy itself is highly dubious...especially in NAQT where, for a slew of reasons, a worse team can much more easily triumph over a better team - even twice in a row (much less likely with ACF).

I'm not saying Chicago is the worse team, by any stretch. But, I would be very hesitant to trump up their apparent dominance in the second game of the playoff as conclusive proof that they were the better team. My personal qualms about NAQT aside, the format allows for funny things to happen with scores. I think that, in general, if you insist that the two top teams play a final in NAQT at all costs - even if you give the one that's ahead a one-game advantage - the probability goes up that the title will be awarded to the less-deserving team in the end.
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Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

Ryan Westbrook wrote: I think that, in general, if you insist that the two top teams play a final in NAQT at all costs - even if you give the one that's ahead a one-game advantage - the probability goes up that the title will be awarded to the less-deserving team in the end.
If you argue that a game under NAQT rules and formats is an inaccurate way to judge which team is better, then your problem becomes not only final series, but the entire tournament as a whole. If NAQT is that problematic, then you can't really say that a better record necessarily indicates a better team, because how do you then know if some of those games were not a weaker team beating a stronger one?

If we assume that a better team, despite NAQT's possible quirks, still has a better chance at winning a game against a lesser team, then, in fact, a series of several head-to-head games is a safer way to determine the better team, because one would assume that, over time, that higher probability would translate into a better record over several games; with just a single game, how do you know that's not just the 1 in the 1 of 5 or 1 of 20 chance thaat the lesser team will win?

Disclaimer time: Naturally, since I was on the Chicago D2 team and therefore was directly effected by the current rule, I am liable to a personal bias, so everything I post here should be taken with a grain of salt. Nor should this post be interpreted as saying that since Chicago beat Michigan over a series of games, Chicago is therefore the better team. That specific statement is neither an argument that I am making nor an argument with which I would agree.
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Post by No Rules Westbrook »

Yeah, you're right Bruce...what I'm saying is that, especially with NAQT, I prefer to play with the "law of large numbers". I'm not indicting the format as a whole; I don't believe that it necessarily prevents a better team from winning. I just think that two games is a dangerously low number when a given team is already up by two or more games to begin with.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

On the contrary, if NAQT thinks that a jackpot final is necessary even when one team has demonstrated a clear advantage over the field, then it is they who do not have confidence in the reliability of their own results.
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Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

Ryan Westbrook wrote:Yeah, you're right Bruce...what I'm saying is that, especially with NAQT, I prefer to play with the "law of large numbers". I'm not indicting the format as a whole; I don't believe that it necessarily prevents a better team from winning. I just think that two games is a dangerously low number when a given team is already up by two or more games to begin with.
On that, I would actually agree. Perhaps its my inner (outer?) baseball fan speaking, but I think it would be fun, if not more fair, to see tournaments consist of series rather than single games, and capped by a best of 5, if not 7.

Then again, that would be really long. But totally fun.
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Post by vsirin »

Larry Horse wrote:Regardless of who should have been the D2 champion or this or that, there was really one true winner this past weekend:


Image


Thank you for the memories, Mr Kidder

with Love,
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Pericles:

Would you hit that?

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ICT Stats are now online

Post by cdbarker »

The 2005 NAQT ICT Stats have now been posted to the NAQT website. These stats reflect the whole of the tournament, which is why the all-star awards may not match-up with the individual statistical leaders.

Division I

Division II
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Re: ICT Stats are now online

Post by QuizBowlRonin »

cdbarker wrote:The 2005 NAQT ICT Stats have now been posted to the NAQT website. These stats reflect the whole of the tournament, which is why the all-star awards may not match-up with the individual statistical leaders.

Division I

Division II
Interesting, WashU played twice in Round 2.

EDIT: Round 5 too. Somethings going on here.
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Post by cdbarker »

Jason,

Because of the one division in the building across campus, scoresheets did not come in from every round for that division, instead trickling in slowly and in bunches when they did. Joel Gluskin and I did our best to get the stats in to reflect the round numbers that we were putting in and tracking the correct round numbers/game id numbers in SQBS, but the output of the Round by Round scoresheet was not as important to us as the standings accurately reflecting the results of the games. When I get a chance, I will work to go back and adjust the results on the round by round to accurately reflect the tournament's actual schedule and I apologize for the inconvenience that this might have caused anyone.

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Post by QuizBowlRonin »

cdbarker wrote:Jason,

Because of the one division in the building across campus, scoresheets did not come in from every round for that division, instead trickling in slowly and in bunches when they did. Joel Gluskin and I did our best to get the stats in to reflect the round numbers that we were putting in and tracking the correct round numbers/game id numbers in SQBS, but the output of the Round by Round scoresheet was not as important to us as the standings accurately reflecting the results of the games. When I get a chance, I will work to go back and adjust the results on the round by round to accurately reflect the tournament's actual schedule and I apologize for the inconvenience that this might have caused anyone.

CDB
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Post by cdbarker »

QuizBowlRonin wrote:The problem is in the end, of very small concern to some, and large concern to none.
That said, thanks to a bit of advice about SQBS I was previously unaware of (and thank you Chris letting me know), I was able to make the corrections exceptionally quickly and have submitted the file for reupload ASAP. Thanks for alerting me to the problem.

CDB
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Post by mps4a_mps4a »

two things:

I'm looking at the stats, and it looks like one prelim bracket might have had Chicago A (2), Stanford (4t), VCU (9), and Princeton (10)? Is that accurate? That's an awful prelim bracket.

Also, why did Valencia play Div 1? I mean, props to them if they did it to test themselves against the toughest competition they could, but I was just wondering if there was a reason.
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Post by No Sollositing On Premise »

One of the prelims brackets had Chicago, Harding, Virginia, Florida, and UT-Knoxville. That's the 1 and 3 overall finishers, two of the three-way tie for first in the second bracket, and the winner of the third bracket. So that's 1, 3, 9, 9, and 17. Rough.

EDIT: Yeah, I forgot to mention that it was D2. And also that I had one of my worst outings since my sophomore year in high school, but that's unimportant.
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Post by bsmith »

laszlow wrote:One of the prelims brackets had Chicago, Harding, Virginia, Florida, and UT-Knoxville. That's the 1 and 3 overall finishers, two of the three-way tie for first in the second bracket, and the winner of the third bracket. So that's 1, 3, 9, 9, and 17. Rough.

EDIT: Yeah, I forgot to mention that it was D2. And also that I had one of my worst outings since my sophomore year in high school, but that's unimportant.
That's our excuse for why Ottawa had good stats, but a bad win-loss record. ;)
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Post by ValenciaQBowl »

Valencia played in both DI and DII as stand-by entrants. As some of you know, we qualified at our CC SCT in February, but found out the Monday after the tournament during a discussion of what players (all newbies) would face at ICT that one of our players (in her 30s and now going for an A.S. in her field of entertainment lighting/staging--not uncommon at CCs) had a bachelor's. I called R. and declined our bid, but wanted to reward my players for hard work, so applied to be stand-by in either division. When Southern Cal declined in DI, we got that slot. When Tallahassee CC declined in DII, we got that one. So our stronger players (with the exception of the one with the bachelor's, obviously) were in DII, making those playing in DI that much more overwhelmed. But they had a good attitude, leading to a good time. And my thanks to those players who offered them encouragement after matches.

As a sidebar, I should've checked to ensure that none of my players already had a bachelor's degree (pretty rare, as you'd guess), but I'd never encountered that before. I'll be sure to do so in the future.
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Post by ezubaric »

mps4a_mps4a wrote:I'm looking at the stats, and it looks like one prelim bracket might have had Chicago A (2), Stanford (4t), VCU (9), and Princeton (10)? Is that accurate? That's an awful prelim bracket.
It was a rough prelim bracket (technically, VCU and Princeton were tied for 9th); Stanford, VCU, and Princeton were all at two losses at the time of seeding. Stanford pulled out two wins and proved itself the better team (in pretty humiliating tiebreakers in front of everyone from our prelim bracket).

It seemed odd to have four 1st or 2nd place teams from three of the strongest regions in the same bracket. I think our team would have had a better shot of getting into the top bracket from any of the other prelim groups.
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Post by mps4a_mps4a »

As Jordan (right?) sort of guessed at where i was going, how does NAQT determine prelim brackets? Do they do some kind of power-matching (that damn S-value maybe?), or is it random? Or semi-random: maybe they randomize the brackets and try to keep Michigan, Chicago and Berkeley out of the same bracket, but don't give it much thought after that? A similar thing happened to us last year (we were bumped down to third bracket, the top two teams finished 2 and 4, the next two teams finished at the top of the second bracket, we tied for top of the third). Not trying to start anything, just curious.[/list]
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Post by DanTheClam »

NAQT's preliminary brackets look a little skewed to a completely biased observer (Dan from Princeton), but they look especially bad when compared to ACF's preliminary brackets.

ACF's took the top 2 from each of the 3 preliminary brackets, and one third-place team was taken. As it ended up, the number one from each bracket was in the 1-3 range overall, the number two from each bracket was in the 4-6 range overall, and the seventh team was 7th. I don't have any knowledge of the breakdown of the middle and lower brackets, but I suspect that that is generally harder to judge anyway.

NAQT didn't turn out quite that nicely. If NAQT's preliminary brackets were somehow power-matched, then I guess our S-ranking was just statistically unfortunate. If not... then they probably should be power-matching.
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Post by vandyhawk »

Yeah, that was nice how at ACF, all 3 prelim brackets were a perfect 6-0, 5-1, 4-2,..., 0-6. I remember looking at the brackets for NAQT on Friday and thinking that they looked a bit uneven. While ours had a pretty clear top (Mich A) and bottom, the middle was pretty jammed. Rutgers and UCLA seemed to dominate the third playoff bracket, giving us 11-16-17-18 for the middle bracket finishers. That's definitely not as bad as the Chicago et. al. bracket, but still uneven. It provided some exciting games in the prelims, though.
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Post by Jeremy Gibbs Paradox »

DanTheClam wrote:NAQT's preliminary brackets look a little skewed to a completely biased observer (Dan from Princeton), but they look especially bad when compared to ACF's preliminary brackets.

ACF's took the top 2 from each of the 3 preliminary brackets, and one third-place team was taken. As it ended up, the number one from each bracket was in the 1-3 range overall, the number two from each bracket was in the 4-6 range overall, and the seventh team was 7th. I don't have any knowledge of the breakdown of the middle and lower brackets, but I suspect that that is generally harder to judge anyway.

NAQT didn't turn out quite that nicely. If NAQT's preliminary brackets were somehow power-matched, then I guess our S-ranking was just statistically unfortunate. If not... then they probably should be power-matching.
To be fair, these things are always either successful or unsuccessful in hindsight as team lineups are so seldom consistent from tournament to tournament. As someone who spent 4 years dealing with power matching in debate, it's a royal bitch. It makes the tournaments run later and you get just as screwed up results. For example, one time I was on a team with a girl who really didn't speak English well. We lost our first 3 rounds (got clobbered actually) but won our next 3 by hitting 2 teams that finished with no wins and another team that finished with 1 win. So by virtue of 3 wins over teams in the bottom 5-10 percentile, we nearly finished in the top 50 percentile of teams there. Somehow, that doesn't strike me as the type of equity you want.
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Post by NotBhan »

DanTheClam wrote:NAQT's preliminary brackets look a little skewed to a completely biased observer (Dan from Princeton), but they look especially bad when compared to ACF's preliminary brackets.

ACF's took the top 2 from each of the 3 preliminary brackets, and one third-place team was taken. As it ended up, the number one from each bracket was in the 1-3 range overall, the number two from each bracket was in the 4-6 range overall, and the seventh team was 7th. I don't have any knowledge of the breakdown of the middle and lower brackets, but I suspect that that is generally harder to judge anyway.

NAQT didn't turn out quite that nicely. ...
I don't think the NAQT brackets were particularly skewed. The top bracket would have worked out essentially as you described, with the one seeds taking the top 4 spots, if not for Berkeley's narrow loss to Yale. As for the second tier, VCU and Princeton were the top two, but neither dominated the competition in that tier. It's not like any team had both Chicago and Michigan to deal with in its opening RR group.

As for your bracket, which had Chicago, VCU, Princeton, and Stanford, I think it was Stanford which made the bracket more top-heavy than expected. Stanford had the same lineup at the SCT and ICT, but their SCT performance, while good enough to qualify for the ICT, wasn't overly impressive statistically (e.g. the 16.28ppb, which was third in their own sectional). Stanford's ICT performance and fourth-place finish was far stronger than one would have expected from their SCT result.

--Raj Dhuwalia (who is not a member of NAQT)

P.S. It may also be noted that the bottom four teams in the bracket were relatively weak, finishing at 22t, 22t, 28, and 31. In that respect, the Chicago bracket wasn't as deep as the one which had Michigan A, Florida, Harvard, Vandy, UCLA, and Rutgers-NB.
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Post by matt979 »

(CAVEAT: Although I am fairly certain of the purely factual claims below, the aim of this post is to provide information rather than express an opinion. Any opinion here, express or implied, is purely my own and not necessarily that of anyone else in NAQT. I do not speak for NAQT.)

One practical barrier to a "trailing team must win until it overtakes leading team" plan is the number of packets available. Since adopting the current ICT format, NAQT has produced 20 packets per ICT, devoted as follows:
1-7: Prelim rounds
8: Tiebreak
9-14: Playoff rounds
15: Pre-finals tiebreak
16-17: CC final / UG final
18-19: Overall finals (D1/D2)
20: Backup/extra overtime/etc.

The quote from the FAQ distributed to teams seems to be correct; in addition, I believe Barker appraised competing teams of the exact format details in his final pre-tournament e-mail. This precise passage seems not to have made it onto NAQT's web site pre-tournament, an oversight that otherwise might have averted many of the previous comments in this thread.

Aside from the actual announced format, in the situation where teams' W/L record are 2+ apart, it's not my place to give a relative opinion on playing an advantaged final versus dispensing with the final. Whatever your own opinion, you should keep in mind that winning at least one game out of two is significantly less onerous (and less prone to sample size variation) than winning one game of one.

As for balancing the brackets, I am directly responsible for one division's brackets and (given my particular behind-the-scenes role in 2005) implicitly ultimately accountable for both divisions' brackets. Like choosing the field to begin with (not my personal doing, though I stand 100% behind the process and results there), as you might guess, that process involved mostly SCT performance itself.

[Incidentally, in the post-SCT thread, at least one user appeared to be speaking for NAQT but actually wasn't, and in fact had no role that I know of in the 2005 invitation process. Not terribly relevant by now, but still.]

For what it's worth, brackets' cumulative records vs. other brackets:
Armstrong (D1): 24-24
Beauregard (D1): 29-19
Capote (D1): 24-24
Domino (D1): 19-29

Ambrose (D2): 29-19
Brinkley (D2): 17-31
Lamour (D2): 30-18
Morton (D2): 20-28

One particular poster noted the strong finishes of teams at the top of Armstrong. Those teams did combine to go 17-7 against other brackets, although the bottom half combined to go 7-17. It's interesting data, and at first glance I'm not sure what to make of it.

If anyone can make a strong case (other than using hindsight) that one particular bracket should have been expected to be inequitably strong (or weak), I'd be very interested in hearing what data you base that opinion on, so that should NAQT use the same format again in 2006, we might consider your methodology as a sanity check to balance brackets more appropriately. E-mail or post, though I'll see e-mail more quickly. Anonymity is fine if you feel the need.

It's possible that the current ICT format resembles the platitude about democracy as compared to other forms of government.

Thank you for reading this; criticize as you see fit.

Best,
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Post by matt979 »

To correct a very unfortunate choice of words:
ICT field selection and bracketing weren't just based "mostly" on SCT performance but rather entirely, with the obvious exception of automatic host bids.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

matt979 wrote:One practical barrier to a "trailing team must win until it overtakes leading team" plan is the number of packets available.
Then an ACF-type format (no final necessary if team is ahead by 2 games) could be used, but with the number set higher--for example, at four--to ensure a final. In the rare event that a team actually finished 4 games ahead of the field, there wouldn't be a final, but in all other cases dramatic needs could be met. It's a tradeoff that would be extremly unlikely to ever come into play and would allow the problem to be solved. 99% of the time, the final could still be played, and no one would have any reason to complain about the tournament format, at the cost of writing only 1-2 more packets rather than N more where N is whatever the biggest mathematically possible difference between teams 1 and 2 is (and given that prelim losses carried over in this year's format [as well they should], that number is, admittedly, going to be something relatively big).
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Post by matt979 »

Incidentally, below are D1 teams' records strictly in rounds 9-14, for what it's worth. (D2 is easily done yourself if you feel like it.) It's tempting to suggest that a team in a harder or easier playoff bracket than where it "belonged" might go 5-1 or better or 1-5 or worse.

The most striking outlier from the middle brackets is Vandy, winless in Tier 2 even as fellow Beauregard teams (Rutgers, UCLA) rolled in Tier 3.

Of course this is all just raw data; how best to interpret it is unclear.

Michigan A 6 0
Chicago A 5 1
Rochester 3 3
Illinois A 3 3
Stanford 4 2
Berkeley 2 4
Florida 1 5
Yale 0 6

VCU 4 2
Princeton 4 2
Carleton 3 3
Harvard 3 3
Emory 3 3
South Florida A 4 2
Michigan B 3 3
Vanderbilt 0 6

Rutgers 5 1
UCLA 5 1
BC 4 2
Williams 3 3
Virginia 2 4
Columbia 2 4
Maryland 2 4
LSU 1 5

Illinois B 5 1
Brandeis 5 1
Minnesota 4 2
South Florida B 3 3
Chicago B 4 2
Swarthmore 2 4
Rice 1 5
Valencia 0 6
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Post by vandyhawk »

matt979 wrote:
The most striking outlier from the middle brackets is Vandy, winless in Tier 2 even as fellow Beauregard teams (Rutgers, UCLA) rolled in Tier 3.
Yeah, we kind of fell apart in the playoffs. We seemed to be pretty evenly matched against Rutgers and UCLA - we beat UCLA by 5 in the prelims, and lost to Rutgers in the prelims by about 100 in a rather poor performance, but beat them by about 40 in the tie-breaker in a game in which I know they weren't too happy with their performance. In the playoffs, we only had one "significant" loss - that being to Princeton - while we were within a one or two question swing in all the others, including a 5 point loss to Mich B after I apparently missed powering the last tossup by one syllable. Of course, having Paul (our 2nd leading scorer) go plus 1/neg 4 that game didn't help too much either. Basically, we aren't quite deep enough to overcome a bad round by either Paul or myself, so we go up and down a lot. It's quite possible that Rutgers or UCLA could have done better, but who knows - maybe we're just clearly the 16th, 17th, and 18th best teams out there.
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Post by Larry Horse »

vsirin wrote:
Larry Horse wrote:Regardless of who should have been the D2 champion or this or that, there was really one true winner this past weekend:


Image


Thank you for the memories, Mr Kidder

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