2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

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CPiGuy
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2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

MSNCT has happened! I am therefore going to open this year's MS postseason poll. The poll is intended to be a ranking for the 2020-2021 season.

To vote, please send your ballots to me at [email protected] by 11:59pm on Friday, May 28th. You may vote for players, teams, or both.

General guidelines (mostly borrowed from last year's iteration)

Anyone (coaches, players, parents, interested observers) is welcome to submit a ballot, and ballots will not be weighted.

Vote for exactly twenty-five (25) teams or players in each ballot, ranked from 1st through 25th. (The team you rank first will get 25 points, the team in second will get 24, etc.) If you send me a ballot with more than 25 entries, I will count only the first 25. If you send me a ballot with fewer than 25 entries, I will ask you to re-submit it with enough entries.

Please put "MS Quizbowl Poll" in the subject line in some fashion so I can easily search for your ballot. If you don't do this, you risk me missing your ballot.

I will name all the voters but will not specify who voted for whom -- if you want to submit your ballot anonymously please tell me.

Please be reasonable with your ballots -- if you do something like rank your own team first despite the fact that you put up 10 PPB on an MS set, I will probably ask you to re-submit your ballot.

There is no need to specify "A" or "B" unless you vote for a school's B team. If you put a school twice and do not specify A or B, I will assume this is an error and ask you to correct it.

For the team poll, please specify what state each of the teams you are voting for is from (both for my ease in cross-checking with stats, and in case there are two Smith Middle Schools that receive votes).

There is no need to conform to a standard name -- for example, I'll interpret "Hunter", "Hunter College", or "Hunter College High School" as the school who won MSNCT last year -- as long as it is unambiguous who you're voting for. Please do not use abbreviations like "HCHS" or "OMS" -- there are many schools with those abbreviations, and if it's not clear who any of your votes are for I'll ask you to clarify before I accept your ballot.

If you want to vote for Arin Parsa's team (and you probably should!), vote for Stanford Online, not Challenger-Almaden or Almaden Scholars.

For the player poll, please specify the affiliation and state for each of the players you are voting for. Also please use their first and last name.

If you want to revise your ballot, just email me your new ballot. (Don't do something like "I want to switch my 3rd and 4th picks". Just rewrite the whole thing, please.)

Eligibility to be voted for in the poll:

Schools that fielded at least one team in a middle school all-subject quizbowl tournament this school year are eligible, even if they did not play MSNCT. Schools that played exclusively (for example) NHBB events, or schools that did not attend any tournaments as a team but one of their players attended IPNCT, are not eligible. Homeschool collectives and other non-traditional schools are eligible as long as they fit the other requirements.

Players who were in 8th grade or below for this school year and played at least one all-subject quizbowl tournament are eligible, even if they did not play MSNCT or IPNCT, or even any tournaments at the middle school level. Players who exclusively played (for example) NHBB events are not eligible.

New this year: 2021-22 prediction poll
There will be a third poll this year, in which you may vote for who you think will be the top five (5) teams in the 2021-22 season. (There is not a parallel prediction poll for players.)

I encourage people to use this thread to discuss which teams and players they feel are deserving of votes. I will be making such a post at some point soon. (I have already filled out my ballots, in order to not be biased by seeing others' votes.)
Last edited by CPiGuy on Fri May 21, 2021 5:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

I am extending the deadline to submit votes to this poll by one week.
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Re: 2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

As promised, time to shill some people and teams.

I don't really think I need to say much about the top teams. They're good. They showed they're good at MSNCT. I will note that Burleigh Manor B and Longfellow B are both extremely legit teams and you should vote for them highly despite being B teams. Churchill B is also better than their placement at MSNCT and probably deserves a low top 25 ranking.

Beckendorff A took their turn as the annual "4-4 team with vastly better stats than any other 4-4 team in the field"; they are certainly better than they played at MSNCT (as evidenced by the fact that, well, their B team went pretty far, and their A team has consistently outperformed their B team).

John Adams from New Jersey didn't play MSNCT but they beat Hunter A at the New Jersey state tournament and have otherwise been extremely good; vote for them probably.

On the player side: Arin Parsa is the best player in the country and possibly the best middle school player ever. You should vote him first. Aatreyo Bhattacharyya is also extremely good and should probably be #2 on your ballot.

Deven Hagen is arguably the best player in the country when he doesn't neg. Which is admittedly not often, as Deven is one of the swingiest players at the top, but he's very good and tends to make up for a couple negs with substantially greater numbers of powers. I ranked him third and endorse doing the same. Certainly he is better than his IPNCT placement.

Charles Heydt near-single-handedly dragged his team to t-5 through one of the toughest schedules at the tournament. Charles is really good at quizbowl. He beat State College A (the high school) playing solo at a high school tournament earlier this year. Put him in your top five, probably.

Joshua Wang had more powers per game at MSNCT than everyone I listed above but Arin. He is especially scary at science. Vote for him very highly.

Pranavkrishna Bharanidaran did not play MSNCT but he came third at IPNCT. His performance there was not a fluke; he statistically outperformed a number of excellent players and deserves to be ranked highly.

Tanay Bodducherla is this year's biggest victim of the shadow effect. He was 59th in total scoring and 9th in total powers at MSNCT. His PPG also went up during playoffs. He has extremely deep and impressive knowledge and would probably easily be the top scorer on teams that did not contain another top 10 player in the country. I think you should probably rank him top 5 despite his lower PPG because of these factors.

Speaking of players with lots of powers on strong teams, Claire Wang was 39th in total scoring and 8th in total powers. She knows things. Vote for her highly.

John Augustyn also didn't play MSNCT but he made the IPNCT final and has consistently excellent performances at regular season tournaments. You should put John on your ballot.

Brodie Henry had a good but not great MSNCT performance. Much more impressively, though, he was the lead scorer on a T-5 team at SSNCT. Yes, SSNCT, the high school tournament. Brodie is very good at quizbowl and should probably be on your ballots.

Steven Pan is another Alabaman who should be on your ballots. He led (by a very large margin) the scoring on the Alabama state champion Discovery MS team that beat out West Point and Monrovia (who finished t-10 at MSNCT). Steven will probably not be on your radar because Discovery has played relatively few tournaments this year, especially outside Alabama, but he is very very good.
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Re: 2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

There were nine ballots in the player poll. Thanks to our voters.

1. Arin Parsa (225 points, 9 first place votes, lowest 1)
2. Aatreyo Bhattacharyya (216 points, highest 2, lowest 2)
3. Deven Hagen (203 points, highest 3, lowest 7)
4. Charles Heydt (190 points, highest 4, lowest 6)
4. Tanay Bodducherla (190 points, highest 4, lowest 7)
6. Joshua Wang (183 points, highest 5, lowest 7)
7. Tate Osborne (155 points, highest 6, lowest 12)
8. Pranavkrishna Bharanidaran (151 points, highest 5, ranked on 8 ballots)
9. Evan Schleck (149 points, highest 8, lowest 16)
10. Claire Wang (138 points, highest 3, lowest 17)
11. Shounak Bhindwale (119 points, highest 8, ranked on 8 ballots)
12. Aarush Zarabi (116 points, highest 10, lowest 18)
13. Dhruv Veda (92 points, highest 8, ranked on 8 ballots)
14. Rohan Ramachandran (91 points, highest 12, lowest 24)
15. Abigail Lee (90 points, highest 11, ranked on 8 ballots)
16. Kate Ponnambalam (79 points, highest 10, lowest 23)
17. Neev Sahgal (73 points, highest 14, lowest 22)
18. Robert Wang (70 points, highest 12, ranked on 7 ballots)
19. John Augustyn (64 points, highest 10, ranked on 6 ballots)
20. Rajiv Pujara (58 points, highest 9, ranked on 7 ballots)
20. Sudhanva Belur (58 points, highest 12, ranked on 6 ballots)
22. Satvik Jain (43 points, highest 14, ranked on 7 ballots)
23. Karthik Anbazaghan (40 points, highest 12, ranked on 5 ballots)
24. Caroline Cox (29 points, highest 11, ranked on 6 ballots)
25. Vignesh Manjrekar (19 points, highest 19, ranked on 5 ballots)

Also receiving votes:
Omkar Bharath (17)
Raghav Ahuja (13)
Brodie Henry (9)
Steven Pan (9)
Naresh Sathya (6)
Sarah Trainer (6)
Mihir Tadeparthi (4)
Sree Paladugu (4)
Jack Hunsaker (3)
Eshaan Sombhatta (3)
Gabe Mallamad (2)
Mahit Karadigudda (2)
Samanyu Ganesh (2)
Raunak Mondal (1)
Matthew Yang (1)
Evans Senvalds (1)
Vedanth Hariharan (1)
Last edited by CPiGuy on Wed Jun 02, 2021 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

There were 11 voters in the team poll. Thanks to our voters.

1. Churchill A (273 points, 10 first place votes, lowest 3)
2. Longfellow A (261 points, highest 2, lowest 3)
3. Stanford Online (253 points, 1 first place vote, lowest 5)
4. Burleigh Manor A (240 points, highest 2, lowest 7)
5. Wisconsin Hills (227 points, highest 4, lowest 10)
6. Howard (216 points, highest 4, lowest 10)
7. Greenhill (198 points, highest 5, lowest 13)
8. Hunter (185 points, highest 5, lowest 15)
9. Strawberry Park (174 points, highest 7, lowest 17)
10. Burleigh Manor B (147 points, highest 9, ranked on 10 ballots)
11. Middlesex A (137 points, highest 6, lowest 23)
12. Herberger (130 points, highest 8, lowest 22)
13. Longfellow B (129 points, highest 10, lowest 19)
14. Bret Harte (128 points, highest 9, lowest 23)
15. Monrovia (127 points, highest 10, lowest 24)
16. Oak Valley (105 points, highest 7, lowest 22)
17. North Gwinnett (98 points, highest 12, ranked on 10 ballots)
18. Harvest Park (85 points, highest 7, ranked on 9 ballots)
19. University School of Nashville (81 points, highest 12, ranked on 9 ballots)
20. Middlesex B (80 points, highest 8, lowest 24)
21. Centennial Lane Elementary (72 points, highest 14, lowest 23)
22. Beckendorff A (56 points, highest 12, ranked on 8 ballots)
23. Churchill B (34 points, highest 15, ranked on 5 ballots)
24. Meyzeek B (31 points, highest 13, ranked on 5 ballots)
25. Heritage (27 points, highest 17, ranked on 8 ballots)

Also receiving votes:

Westminster (25)
Beckendorff B (25)
T. H. Rogers (13)
John Adams (11)
Metrolina (3)
Black Mountain (2)
Brentwood (1)
Seoul Foreign (1)
Last edited by CPiGuy on Wed Jun 02, 2021 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2020-21 MS Postseason Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

There were 7 voters in the prognostication poll. Thanks to our voters.

1. Greenhill (28 points, 2 first place votes, lowest 3)
2. Burleigh Manor A (27 points, 3 first place votes, ranked on 6 ballots)
3. Longfellow (15 points, 1 first place vote, ranked on 6 ballots)
4. Harvest Park (11 points, 1 first place vote, ranked on 3 ballots)
5. Middlesex (7 points, highest 3, ranked on 4 ballots)

Also receiving votes:

Burleigh Manor B (5)
Strawberry Park (5)
Beckendorff (3)
Meyzeek (2)
Chenery (1)
Churchill (1)
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