2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll: RESULTS POSTED

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Berniecrat
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2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll: RESULTS POSTED

Post by Berniecrat »

Hi everyone!

Groger Ranks is excited to kick off the new season by announcing the 2020-21 Preseason Poll. This poll is open to all players, coaches, and others who feel they have a grasp on the high school quizbowl landscape for this upcoming schoolyear. Please rank the teams that you feel will be top 30 next season and fill out your ballot in order. Our poll has some changes from previous years so even if you have participated before, make sure to look at the bolded changes.

Some quick notes on filling out the ballot:
- When filling out this poll, please do not abbreviate team names at all. Specifically, please use the name of the team as it appears in the official standings for the 2019 HSNCT (https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... nt_id=9500). If a team did not go to HSNCT, use your best judgment but try to be as standard and official as possible with your naming conventions.
- Use symbols as they appear in NAQT statistics (for example putting Thomas Jefferson Science & Tech A instead of Thomas Jefferson Science and Tech A)
- In addition, please put a letter with every team, even if you don't think it needs it. For example, Uni Lab should be input as University Lab A, even if they did not carry a letter designation at HSNCT.
- Try to avoid putting spaces after team names (instead of "Richard Montgomery A " put "Richard Montgomery A")
- You don't have to be a high schooler to vote
- We reserve the right to remove any ballots with very "hot takes" or obvious ulterior motives if they lack coherent justification
- Any ballots without any justification can be struck down (for example just putting "thoughts and feelings" or "stats" will no longer be enough - we do not require essays of course but we would prefer to see people put thought into their ballots)

The biggest change from previous polls is that we are no longer allowing responses to be anonymous. If you have special circumstances that require anonymity, please email us at [email protected].

The poll will close September 5 at 11:59 PM Central. The poll can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... Q/viewform

Thanks for voting!
Last edited by Berniecrat on Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll

Post by king_crimson »

Plugging a podcast that some friends and I made a couple months ago. It's a rundown of what we (collectively as a group) thought would be a possible top 25 for 2020-21. Feel free to check it out if you need any inspiration.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEx9X1iL7Wo

I might write something later if I have time.
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Re: 2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

I'm going to remind everyone filling out this poll that DCC A has a very, very, *very* well-proven ability to reload from the loss of top scorers, and should be on your ballot. DCC has never finished worse than t-21 at HSNCT and has finished in the top 20 literally every year but one in the history of HSNCT.
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Re: 2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll

Post by eygotem »

I'd like to add that St. Louis Patriots A will be returning both Owen Farra and Sam Lindsey, their two primary scorers. They were already very good and arguably top-30 last season, and will only better after a summer of studying – the only reason they weren't included in the QB Happy Hour podcast was due to the then-uncertainty about their roster this season. They should definitely be considered for your preseason ballot.

(You can see more detailed analyses of this team in the Missouri regional discussion thread).
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Re: 2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll

Post by jzlau2 »

Although this year is one of the comparatively weaker years in the Illinois circuit, there are still teams in Illinois that are capable of making deep runs at 2021 nats (assuming that they aren't cancelled). I thought that I might mention some Illinois teams that the Quiz Bowl Happy Hour excluded from the top 25 and arguably deserve a spot among the teams that were ranked.

Barrington loses its entire A team except for Liam Starnes, who retains his impressive history and geography knowledge that led Barrington to a 3rd place finish at the 2020 NAQT Illinois State Championship and even a win against history powerhouse Stevenson at NHBB. Sophomores Michael Karpov and Colin Stewart provide good support for Liam and made up the core of Barrington's B team in 2020. They will most likely be joined by Charles Young, a very accomplished generalist who was a top-3 middle school player last year, Rohan Kher, voted 10th in the MS Postseason Poll, and Kaushik Gollamundi. Barrington Station definitely demonstrated their ability to do well on HS sets last year. For example, Charles put up an impressive 75 powers at WAIT and Barrington Station placed in the top bracket of the HFT Online Mirror, beating TAG Magnet and nearly defeating Ladue. Barrington will definitely be capable of upsetting the teams that were ranked on the Happy Hour podcast once the new players scale up to more difficult HS questions.

Fremd brings back the entire core of their A team, who are all seniors this year. Danny Kim was arguably the next best literature player in Illinois after Ethan Ashbrook and will likely be the best literature specialist in the state for this year's season. Danny was also very good at FA and RMPSS, making him a formidable opponent on mACF. He is joined by Bryan Wan, who specializes in history and geography, and Shreya Seetharam, who specializes in science. Fremd almost defeated an Ethan-less Uni A at the 2020 NAQT State Championship. They seemed to have some trouble with negstorms as seen by their NAQT State performance, with 4-6 negs in many of their games, but once they get that under control, Fremd definitely has potential to make a deep run at nationals this year.

Finally, I guess I will say a few things about my own team, University Lab. Despite losing 80% of our scoring from last year's A team, I think we have a definite shot at being top 30 by the end of the year, if we aren't top 30 already. Uni B had an underwhelming showing last year, with 11.5 PPB and more negs than powers at NAQT State. However, the players who have moved up from the B team have improved tremendously due to being younger students with more time to study this summer. Lawrence Zhao retains his deep science coverage and will likely be one of the best science players in Illinois this year, and Arjun Kala has improved tremendously at literature. We also gain new freshman science specialist Shreyas Singh, who was one of the best middle school players in the country last year despite having never played pyramidal quizbowl before.
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Re: 2020-21 Groger Ranks Preseason Poll: RESULTS POSTED

Post by Berniecrat »

Results have been posted here: https://grogerranks.com/2020/09/06/2020 ... l-results/

Thank you to everyone who submitted a ballot and looking forward to an exciting season of quizbowl!
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