09-10 College Quizbowl Prediction Thread

[Cheynem]

Hey, school's about to start, so perhaps it is a good time to get some predictions out there.

I'll start things off not with national rankings, but just my general feelings on midwestern quizbowl. (If I omit some teams, it's probably because I just don't have a feel for that team)

The midwest should feature another exciting season of tournaments, what with three national championship contenders and some other excellent squads. None of the three contenders is getting dramatically worse and one is probably getting quite a bit better.

Chicago is still, obviously, the team to beat. Shantanu gets better and better every time I see him, and the team sports two other top ten caliber players in its starting rotation. It is also capable of starting a formidable B team with especially strong history/humanities knowledge.

Illinois should be interesting this year, what with the arrival of Ike Jose. Ike, like a lot of high caliber high school players I've noted, is tremendously deep in some areas, especially the more "obscure" ones, and a little erratic in some areas. Illinois last season featured a high degree of turnover in a lot of his tournament appearances due to several top players presumably being unable to attend, and I believe they are losing Jeff Crean, so Ike's arrival should help to stabilize the starting four and make them rather scarily deep in a number of disciplines. This team is actually pretty big and could (and has) sport a very strong B team with a little more commitment.

Carleton is losing NAQT ace Garrett Ryan, but it played well at non-NAQT events, such as ACF Regionals and MUT. This team certainly knows a lot of stuff, although it remains to be seen if certain team members will fully get onboard the ACF and packet-writing trains. Carsten Gehring is an avid supporter of good quizbowl and it was also encouraging to see members of this team attend higher-level events (like Chicago Open). This team's major weakness is not having a real science person.

Iowa, as far as I know, is basically the same. Led by the highly underrated Paul Drube, Iowa's national reputation was somewhat unheralded by an inability to attend high profile events. Paul knows a lot of stuff, as does Quentin Roper, and they can get on a roll to basically beat any team, but from what I've seen, they tend to neg more than any of the other midwestern teams and their supporting cast was a little enigmatic. Hopefully this program will continue to grow, host high quality events, and develop its young players.

I don't know much about Minnesota's "recruiting class," but it doesn't matter a whole lot right now because the A team is set in stone anyway. Brendan Byrne's continual acquisition of new information means good things will probably happen for this team, which is still easily the best all undergrad team in the country. Regarding a B team, I'll assume it will only improve, although the lack of a science player other than the enigmatic Tom Soderholm is a major problem.

Others: Michigan has a legitimately impressive player in Kurtis Droge and ideally would benefit from the talented crop of Michigan quizbowlers at the moment. Grinnell needs to attend more quality events with regularity, but there are encouraging signs what with their SCT and MUT performances. Despite Greg Peterson's best efforts, I have no idea if Lawrence will develop further, as it obviously needs a few more committed people. Wisconsin actually has some talent, but they just need to attend things (perhaps Jeff Crean can help in this regard). If Northwestern could get organized a bit more, they could at least improve because there are some committed folks up there.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Because I'm a quizbowl drama queen who needs his fragile ego stroked, exactly what are you defining as the midwest?

[Cheynem]

Heh, more of the upper midwest, I guess.

I started to write a paragraph about the Missouri teams, but then realized it was going to be pretty lame because I don't know anything about them other than the fact that the University of Missouri is the best team there and that there are some good players down there, like Charlie Dees, Matt Chadbourne, Jason Loy, Kent Buxton, and Gordon Arsenoff. Also, I don't have much knowledge about Ohio State and Carnegie Mellon, but they also have legitimately good players (I've been particularly impressed with Trevor Davis at the last few tournaments I've seen him in action)>

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Yeah, Trevor's getting hot these days, he was doing very well on my team at Taco. I've heard some unfortunate rumors about Rolla becoming less active, so I hope that doesn't pan out. Wash U has tons of people, and some incoming freshmen like Charles Hang in particular who got very good by the end of high school. I hope he plays a lot, because he could help make a very competitive D2 team. I think Mizzou is going to have a fun freshman class from the people I already know who are joining, with a lot of my NKC teammates. I have no idea who is going to be at Missouri State beyond the players who are already there, so they should be pretty competitive with Jason. But I don't think our circuit will be very insular or anything, Mizzou will probably be going to Illinois and Chicago for tournaments, and presumably anything in Iowa. Hopefully the people at St. Louis University can actually start their team this year too, it would be cool to have another team in our circuit.

[Cheynem]

Yes, certainly various Missouri teams appeared at some of the Illinois and Chicago hosted tournaments this last year, so I hope that trend continues. It's good to hear that Missouri's freshman class might be promising, as I know you have had difficulties getting a consistent team.

[Matt Weiner]

Last year, I correctly predicted the entire ICT playoff bracket in August and made the not-exactly-earth-shattering proclamation that either Chicago or Brown would win national championships. I also got a lot of other stuff wrong. Let's see how it pans out this time.

Last year's theme in the predictions was upsets and the lack of a great history player in quizbowl. Both of those things will continue this year, but I suggest that the new theme is a very solid freshman class. Shantanu Jha and Dallas Simons made huge impacts at high levels last time around, and Kurtis Droge and Charlie Dees also proved their bona fides. This time, you're going to see a group that may not be as immediately relevant at the highest levels, but is deeper and will be responsible for racking up a greater quantity of wins throughout the year.

Your major contenders remain Brown and Chicago, with Harvard, Minnesota, Illinois, MIT, Stanford, and Irvine capable of pulling upsets. Dartmouth drops into rebuilding mode for the time being. Programs like Maryland, Penn, VCU, and UCSD make up a solid third tier, not quite ready to knock off a title contender but still clearly ahead of the masses.

Region-by-region, here's how things go:

MID-ATLANTIC: Things get way more interesting in the greater DC area as Eric Mukherjee moves to Penn, trailing a U-Haul full of Balz-Schiemann Reaction knowledge behind him, and last year's respectable Penn team also comes back to form a very solid starting four. Maryland loses solid contributor Jeff Amoros but returns everyone else. VCU will see reduced playing time from Andrew Alexander as he moves to med school, but picks up NAQT CCCT champion George Berry and a gaggle of newly eligible high schoolers taking dual-credit classes. These three teams will contend for all of the titles as the year starts, but as the weeks go on they may be joined by others, such as a reinvigorated UVa, which recruits 140 PPG PACE NSC player Chuhern Hwang to join Will Butler and continues to pine for the return of Leo Wolpert. Swarthmore returns all of their scoring and adds high school nationals standout Ben Geselowitz. Columbia did very well last year at all of the events they played, and will hopefully play more this time. UNC seems to be fading from contention, but they still have the raw talent to get good quickly if they start focusing again. What's going on at Duke? No one knows. UMBC and George Mason will hopefully show up to things, and Virginia Tech gets both enthusiastic freshman and TJ veteran Harry White, and experienced player and organizer Dan Goff, as motivation to start playing more tournaments. I don't know if Chris Horng is coming back to Rutgers or not, but he almost had a breakout year last spring and could turn some heads if his improvement continues, especially if he can convince Jeremy Hixson to show up to some tournaments rather than just writing solid packets for every event Rutgers participates in. Princeton seems like it could do well with Kunle and Dan still participating; hopefully last year's scanty tournament attendance schedule for this team was a fluke. I heard a rumor that the GWU club discovered a heretofore forgotten cache of money, which I hope they will use to attend more events. Also, I see that Dan Puma is going to Loyola-MD so let's hope he gets a team started there. Does William & Mary still have a team?

MIDWEST: The cold truth is that Chicago and Minnesota are better than Illinois right now. However, both of those teams tend to have less than perfect attendance by their best possible foursome at regular-season events, so who knows where the early winners will come from. As Illinois integrates Ike Jose into the equation and sees what Will Turner can add to a Mike Sorice who knows his championship eligibility window is closing, we very well may see a changing of the pecking order here. Iowa is legit, Carleton is a team of the future, and a bunch of other people in the upper Midwest like playing high school questions and therefore will continue to suck. Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio State are on the same page as Carleton with enough talent to win more games than they lose even in a stacked event, but not enough to challenge the national contenders for at least another year. Michigan State seems likely to attend some more real tournaments this year, so good for them. I don't know what to expect out of Lawrence, WUSTL, or Truman right now. Carnegie Mellon will do solidly in both Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic events. Chicago B and C are big wild cards; Chicago B pulled off some impressive performances last year (including beating both the 2nd and 3rd place teams at ACF Nationals) and Chicago "C" won DII ICT. The sky's the limit for the Chicago bench.

NORTHEAST: There's going to be some changes from last year. Harvard graduates a lot of people and probably can no longer expect its B and C teams to soften up opponents, but its A team will only get better. Dartmouth is temporarily off the radar with the loss of its entire starting four. The big story is the crazy influx of good players to Brown, which may actually get better despite losing Top 10 national player Eric. Not only did grad student Dan Klein prove his mettle while playing on the big stage at ACF Nationals this past year, Brown will also benefit from sophomore Michael Wright's increased participation and the arrival of blue-chip recruits Ian Eppler, Guy Tabachnick, and Ben Cohen. Jerry will have some tough decisions to make about who plays on the A team at the major tournaments, and hopefully will amuse us all by making them in "Glen Jerry Glen Ross" fashion. Whoever ends up on Brown B will find themselves on a team that can contend for high finishes in the second bracket of nationals or possibly for the second spot behind Minnesota in the undergraduate race. Anyway, Harvard and Brown will win all the tournaments held during the year, with MIT usually finishing third, though Brown B could surprise if the full Brown roster is able to show up to the same event that they aren't editing. Also, Cornell will still be good and Brandeis will be decent, and Doug Yetman will show up to things for CUNY and do fairly well. Yale is poised for a renaissance, as the iron-fisted dictators who were holding the program back have moved on and newly enlightened people have emerged over the summer as both interested in good quizbowl and obviously talented at several major categories.

WEST: I'm not sure who Stanford loses (though I think Kevin's time is mathematically up), but I'll just assume they continue to be plagued by West Coast apathy about actually showing up to tournaments with your full team and consider them a team that can win from time to time. I'm pretty sure everyone comes back to Irvine and this is the year they make their push for an NAQT medal spot, and hopefully get the bad taste of 08 ACF Nationals out of their mouths and return to that event as well. UCSD is really a team to watch, as they pulled some huge upsets and laid down great stats last year and are now adding new grad student Chris Chiego. Caltech seems more enthusiastic about attending tournaments than in the recent past, so hopefully along with UCLA and Pomona they will provide a solid field for events in the southern part of the region. Note, events held in SoCal may be jeopardized by an army of high school players occupying the building to re-enact their favorite Dragonball Z episodes; do not be surprised if the stats from NAQT Sectionals California are just a picture of a shirtless guy vibrating for thirty minutes.

SOUTHEAST: South Carolina won everything in this region last year, returns all of its players, and actually cares about good quizbowl, so I predict for them to win 10 events this time. Vanderbilt adds blue-chip recruit Daichi Ueda. Georgia Tech continues to get serious. Clemson has a huge pool of talent to draw from if they can get organized. Florida always seems to do very well when they show up to things, which is not often. Does Georgia return enough good players to do OK? Maybe. I'm not sure who else in this region has a chance at not sucking, but I've been pleasantly surprised before.

SOUTHWEST: I think TAMU has already blinked out and the Texas program is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The future may belong to Rice, whose reborn program includes not only Henry Gorman, the lead scorer of the double national HS champions, but a bunch of other apparently dedicated people coming out of the Texas circuit. With Angelo having moved on to rainier pastures at Portland State, I'm not sure if Tulsa will continue to glue this region together by hosting eighty-five tournaments a year. Hopefully Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and the Chris Romero cabal can keep things going.

CANADA: Canada is a land of both syrup and contrasts. It's never been more clear that certain people at Western Ontario and Guelph are ready to make the leap into real quizbowl and are prepared to be competitive right off the bat. At the same time, the older generation has openly declared war on all that is good and made clear that they will fight this ambition until red in tooth and claw. Assuming Peter McCorquodale and Eric Smith don't build towers on the border and try to machine-gun dissidents as they flee southward to ACF Regionals, expect some Canadian teams to contend for titles here and there over the course of the year, and perhaps for the first Canadian participation in ACF Nationals to materialize.

What will happen at ACF Nationals: I fear for what might happen to the physical location of the tournament if Brown finishes second to Chicago for a fourth straight year, so I'll play Pangloss and say that, while Seth remains Seth (albeit a Seth whose motivation might be dented by having nothing left to prove), and Shantanu will continue to improve, Jerry and friends will pull it off this time, if for no other reason than that they have to get a favorable finals packet eventually. Minnesota, Illinois and Harvard will fight for third place; whether Minnesota has a chance at upsetting one of the top 2 depends more on how seriously Gautam tries to lock down science and the team as a whole takes advantage of the history gap, than on Brendan's inevitable continued all-around improvement. Minnesota is a lock for a third straight UG title, with Brown B, VCU, and Carnegie Mellon the likely contenders for the other medal spots there.

Over in the ICT department, Brown takes their usual hit on the NAQT format. Chicago is obviously the huge favorite to be in the final here, with Illinois and Minnesota the likely matchup to determine their opponent. I don't see Harvard finishing third again; Kyle was a real NAQT beast, which Bruce isn't, and it's not like anyone else on this team really cares about NAQT either. It's Minnesota finally winning the UG gold here, with the same teams as above shooting for the lesser UG trophies. Invoking the principle that Chicago always wins and that Illinois has good NAQT abilities on top of their impressive normal standing, I will predict that ICT ends with Chicago defeating Illinois in the final for the third year out of four.

What's going on in Division II? Not a lot, since it seems that a great deal of this year's impressive recruiting class is going to be pressed into service on the A team right off the bat. Let's say that Rice and Vanderbilt will be the teams led by former high school greats who inevitably lose to the unexpected balanced foursome of recruits from the next tier of HS programs at NAQT DII; last year I said that's what always happens and indeed it happened again. A Brown B team that is also playing for UG placement would be eligible for ACF DII as well, so I'll predict they win that. I am assuming such a team would play DI at ICT; if they opt for DII they have a nearly sure shot of winning it. I'm not sure what level Anurag will play at for MIT, but he's quite good and will either help their A team or make their DII team a contender.

Who will win the CCCT? Is that Northeast Alabama team coming back? I don't know.

Who will win TRASHionals? Probably some old people who like Maxim a lot. Who will win Mike Bentley's new trash national? I predict the Chicago team that finished third at TRASHionals last year will capitalize on the better questions and better air quality and pull this one off.

Preseason Top 25:

1. Chicago A
2. Brown A
3. Minnesota
4. Illinois
5. Harvard
6. Irvine
7. MIT
8. Stanford
9. Penn
10. Maryland
11. VCU
12. UCSD
13. Chicago B
14. Iowa
15. Brown B
16. South Carolina
17. Florida
18. Carnegie Mellon
19. Missouri
20. Michigan
21. Columbia
22. Cornell
23. Virginia
24. Chicago C
25. Western Ontario

Last teams out: Swarthmore, Ohio State, Yale, Carleton, Princeton
Watch out in six months for: Vanderbilt, Rice, Clemson

[Mike Bentley]

So are you assuming that Yaphe doesn't play on the Stanford ACF Nationals team again, Matt?

[Matt Weiner]

So are you assuming that Yaphe doesn't play on the Stanford ACF Nationals team again, Matt?

For the purpose of the above predictions, yes.

[Joe Romersa]

Note, events held in SoCal may be jeopardized by an army of high school players occupying the building to re-enact their favorite Dragonball Z episodes; do not be surprised if the stats from NAQT Sectionals California are just a picture of a shirtless guy vibrating for thirty minutes.

whats that supposed to mean?!

[Mike Bentley]

Also, in case anyone cares about the Northwest circuit:

Washington presumably is returning most of its better players, including Brittany, Eric, Sally, Joel and Michael. I haven't heard of any recruits from outside of the Northwest circuit. We'll see if the team can make a transition from "quizbowl as a fun activity" to "quizbowl is something we want to become serious national contenders at". The team will continue to be relatively decent at trash.

As far as I know, Boise State is returning everyone. Hopefully Gonzaga will be coming to more tournaments next year. Their leading scorer is presumably returning. They seem to gravitate more towards NAQT at the moment, though. I look forward to Angelo getting some things going in Portland. Someone from Whitman college in the eastern part of Washington State e-mailed me and said he was forming a team. Hopefully something comes out of this. Lakeside has graduated their best player, Steven Diamond, so it's unclear if they'll haev a strong presence at college tournaments next year. JFK and Peninsula also graduated large numbers of people. There is a decent chance I might take an art history class or two at Bellevue College (which changed from being Bellevue Community College this year). If I do, I plan on getting a team together there, although I personally won't be playing in many or any non-trash events in the Northwest. If NAQT classifies the team as a Community College and we can get the funding, it's possible they'll go to the CCCT.

Until the circuit develops more, most tournaments in the region are going to be won by hybrid teams including people like Philip Huang and Chris Grubb. There also seemed like there was interest amongst people at VETO in attending both academic and trash tournaments, so we'll see how that goes. I am cautiously planning on mirroring a harder tournament in the winter sometime that will be intended to draw open players in the region like me, Philip, Chris, Angelo, Matt Keller, Sean Cole, VETO people, and anyone else home for winter break.

[Frater Taciturnus]

If NAQT classifies the team as a Community College and we can get the funding, it's possible they'll go to the CCCT.

If the school still awards Associate's or other 2 year degrees, then students in those tracks are CC eligible for that school, if i recall the NAQT rules correctly.

Also, since I am probably going to take the classses needed to finish my associates next spring, don't count me out of the CC scene quite yet

[Cheynem]

I'm not sure what the statement that Minnesota had "less than perfect attendance" from its members at early tournaments meant, since the only person of the "Big Four" who didn't attend each tournament the team did was Gautam. Without Gautam, a Minnesota team nevertheless still won its EFT mirror and Illinois Open, and despite intentionally different A team configurations (i.e., every member of the "Big Four" was there), Minnesota still won its T-Party mirror, Penn Bowl mirror, and SCT site. I do not recall any tournaments where Andrew, Rob, or Brendan were unable to come besides tournaments in which the entire team did not attend.

[cvdwightw]

Someone with more knowledge than me can confirm this, but I hear Kevin is moving from Stanford to Yale and will hopefully help reinvigorate that club. I anticipate Mike Sexton, assuming he has eligibility left, being bumped up to take Kevin's spot on the A team, which will make them only slightly weaker than last year.

In the West, Stanford is still the team to beat on ACF and Irvine on NAQT. The next tier is UCLA and UCSD, both of which continue to grow; even with the West Coast apathy toward putting all the best players on one team or even showing up to tournaments, every tournament winner should come out of these four teams. Berkeley and Caltech are still rebuilding but have enthusiastic people in charge and will hopefully get out to more tournaments. As far as I can tell, USC's club is in disarray; hopefully they can rebuild and get out to some tournaments. It remains to be seen whether the nascent program at Santa Cruz continues to attend tournaments, whether Alejandro can find some teammates with transportation, and whether Ron can turn Fresno State into a full-fledged program. As far as non-California teams, BYU still has a club, though they might join the Northwest Circuit. Arizona State surprised a lot of people with their D2 ICT performance, but no one is sure whether they'll make an actual club and if they do whether they will actually attend WIT on the right date in the right city. UNLV may or may not have taken steps toward a semblance of a program last year.

As far as D2 West goes, it's a giant mess, as most or all of last year's impact HS seniors are going to be making an impact on a different circuit. Maybe this is the year Caltech finally gets over the hump; maybe UCSD can develop raw talent coming out of Academic League; UCLA and Stanford always seem to have a bunch of D2-eligible people and who knows how good those teams could be; we could get yet another ex-CBI team finally getting a chance to show real knowledge. Suffice it to say that no challenger for the D2 title at either national is coming out of this region.

[grapesmoker]

Kevin Koai is indeed moving to Yale [private communication]. Rumors of Michael Wright's participation in quizbowl are, however, vastly exaggerated. I don't think I've seen Michael at more than 1 tournament all year last year, so I'm not exactly holding my breath for his appearance.

[ezubaric]

Princeton seems like it could do well with Kunle and Dan still participating; hopefully last year's scanty tournament attendance schedule for this team was a fluke.

I am mostly to blame for that, as I was trying to graduate and my station wagon was the de facto transportation to most tournaments. I don't see that improving in the short term unless other graduate students are recruited (or others reactivated). That being said, our miserable travel options meant a lot of good players stayed home; hopefully somebody will acquire a car there soon.

Princeton's Guy David is also headed off to UCLA and Mason Liang is headed to Berkeley; they're both good players and hopefully will continue to play. Not that anybody cares, but I'm taking a job at the University of Maryland, so I'll probably end up reading at tournaments there.

[Mike Bentley]

As far as D2 West goes, it's a giant mess, as most or all of last year's impact HS seniors are going to be making an impact on a different circuit. Maybe this is the year Caltech finally gets over the hump; maybe UCSD can develop raw talent coming out of Academic League; UCLA and Stanford always seem to have a bunch of D2-eligible people and who knows how good those teams could be; we could get yet another ex-CBI team finally getting a chance to show real knowledge. Suffice it to say that no challenger for the D2 title at either national is coming out of this region.

Lakeside's Steven Diamond is going to Stanford and he was a resonably good high school player. I am fairly certain he's going to play in college. If there are other people who know stuff who are DII eligible, they're probably the DII team to beat on the West Coast.

[The Goffman Prophecies]

Virginia Tech gets both enthusiastic freshman and TJ veteran Harry White, and experienced player and organizer Dan Goff

I'm in Richmond for one more year. My desire to singlehandedly carry the remnants of the JSR team (basically, me) is waning, so don't expect to see me playing a lot this year. I will be at VT beginning next fall.

[Important Bird Area]

If NAQT classifies the team as a Community College and we can get the funding, it's possible they'll go to the CCCT.

If the school still awards Associate's or other 2 year degrees, then students in those tracks are CC eligible for that school, if i recall the NAQT rules correctly.

This is correct, per NAQT CC eligibility rule B.4.

[Alejandro]

whether Alejandro can find some teammates with transportation

We should be able to sign up for Zip-Cars this time, and if the tournament is in the LA area we can always take Foothill Transit.

As far as D2 West goes, it's a giant mess, as most or all of last year's impact HS seniors are going to be making an impact on a different circuit. Maybe this is the year Caltech finally gets over the hump; maybe UCSD can develop raw talent coming out of Academic League; UCLA and Stanford always seem to have a bunch of D2-eligible people and who knows how good those teams could be; we could get yet another ex-CBI team finally getting a chance to show real knowledge. Suffice it to say that no challenger for the D2 title at either national is coming out of this region.

I think everyone on UCSD is still eligible for DII, so if they decide to play in DII I'd bet on them.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

A little info on the South:

It is my understanding that Georgia is returning everyone with the exception of Chris Chiego, so that is enough talent for them to be pretty competitive. Of course, losing Chiego is tough for UGA and the region, both because he is a good player and because of his formidable leadership skills. In addition to helping bring UGA back into the fold of good quizbowl, he ran some good tournaments. Filling that void will be everything for UGA.

One possibly very bright note for UGA is that Wes Austin from Chattahoochee is going there. He impressed me last season as someone who would fit right in with college quizbowl due to his skill as a player and for his penchant for travelling to several tournaments (high school and college) on an unofficial basis in order to play good quizbowl. That’s the kind of initiative the Southeast needs more of: the willingness to just go and play a lot of quizbowl. I hope he plays at UGA.

Depending on who FSU has coming back, they might be regionally competitive again this year. I’m not sure if Billy Beyer is playing, but if he is, they’ll be good, especially if he has some support, especially from that dude who has some very deep history knowledge who has been there for 10 years or whatever. Also, Florida has the potential to be a contender, but they only went to two tournaments last year, so they might not be much of a factor. Both of those Florida schools came darn close to making the top 10 at ICT last Spring.

Clemson has ridiculous talent. If they fully mobilize that talent, I think they have potential to be a top 10 team by the end of the season, if not sooner. But they gots ta play. Vandy had decent enough talent last season, and with Daichi, they should be quite good indeed. And hopefully Ga Tech will get to plenty of events too.

As for South Carolina, they’ll go to a lot of tournaments and practice hard, and they’ve expressed a desire to go to some Mid-Atlantic tournaments this year and otherwise become a bit more competitive outside of the Southeast. However, if some of the teams mentioned above regularly go to a lot of tournaments, SC will have more than their hands full in their home region. Also, SC isn't that great at NAQT, so I wouldn’t expect them to win SCT.

A few other teams that showed signs of life last season at select events in the region, including Va Tech and Centre. And Furman and College of Charleston seem to be trying to get things going, so that would be good.

Anyway, on paper, the Southeast should be more competitive than it was last year. If enough teams in the region host good tournaments and enough teams go, the South will compare favorably with other regions. One thing I think would be neat would be for some of the top freshmen and sophmore players in the region to skip DII events this year and just start playing the best competition right off the bat. Also, more than one Southeastern team needs to make it to ACF Nats at Maryland in 2010.

[ValenciaQBowl]

To add to Eric's points above, QB theorizer-at-large Ahmad Ragab will still be carrying (or, perhaps, solely comprising) the USF team, which alone makes them a top three team in the region. I think Billy may be around one more semester at FSU, but even if he's gone, they're pretty good regionally.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Yeah, how could I forget that guy. At best, he'll beat you in quizbowl, and at worst he will pull an 18-wheeler with his teeth like he's DSF 76.

[DakarKra]

I don't know if Chris Horng is coming back to Rutgers or not, but he almost had a breakout year last spring and could turn some heads if his improvement continues, especially if he can convince Jeremy Hixson to show up to some tournaments rather than just writing solid packets for every event Rutgers participates in.

Chris is going to Columbia (though his quizbowl status is unknown for now). I sincerely doubt that I'll be any more active than I was last year.

[DumbJaques]

Dan Puma is going to Loyola in Chicago, not Maryland. Also, Jeff Amoros retains his eligibility for this year and will likely be playing at some number of events.

Penn's going to be much, much better than people are listing, and if Stanford loses Kevin, I doubt they'll be top 10 material by the end of the year.

[ieppler]

He's going to Loyola Maryland, according to his Facebook and a conversation that took place at NSC.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Matt, you're almost certainly overrating MIT. They're a good team, but no way do they consistently beat Maryland, Stanford, or Penn.

[SnookerUSF]

Yeah, how could I forget that guy. At best, he'll beat you in quizbowl, and at worst he will pull an 18-wheeler with his teeth like he's DSF 76.

Best Compliment EVER!!!

[Cheynem]

I haven't heard that they're losing either Mik or Ray, so if they aren't, then UCLA should still be pretty solid next year and should probably deserve some consideration in cracking that Top 25.

[Golran]

Both Mik and Ray will be back, but I'm not sure how much we are going to see of Avram.

[theMoMA]

I certainly disagree that our most likely scenario is to fight for third place.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I'm not sure Harvard B and C will be as bad as Weiner says. The Suns are still here and we will have three top shelf freshmen.

The glory days of Harvard D are alas most likely behind us.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I'm not sure Harvard B and C will be as bad as Weiner says. The Suns are still here and we will have three top shelf freshmen.

The glory days of Harvard D are alas most likely behind us.

Yeah, certainly we'll field one team that would make this top 25. I won't hold my breath about two, though it'd be neat.

[Camelopardalis]

CANADA: Canada is a land of both syrup and contrasts. It's never been more clear that certain people at Western Ontario and Guelph are ready to make the leap into real quizbowl and are prepared to be competitive right off the bat. At the same time, the older generation has openly declared war on all that is good and made clear that they will fight this ambition until red in tooth and claw. Assuming Peter McCorquodale and Eric Smith don't build towers on the border and try to machine-gun dissidents as they flee southward to ACF Regionals, expect some Canadian teams to contend for titles here and there over the course of the year, and perhaps for the first Canadian participation in ACF Nationals to materialize.

I wouldn't discount Toronto, who are led by ACF supporters Jason Dickson and Peter Burton. I think Chris Lionel and Eric Smith are also there next year, and together, those four had ~6 more PPB than second-place Toronto B at Sectionals. Their B team should be strong as well, with Sinan Ulusoy, Zarya Cynader and Alex Darling. Toronto also has a large club, with lots of talented incoming freshman, so they should have multiple teams in the top ten of any Ontario tournament, and likely first place at nearly everything.

I also think Waterloo will be quite strong this year, if they can get their best players to consistently come to tournaments. Their D2 team could be composed of: James Cooper (1, 2), Eric Monkman (1, 2), Jeff Gao (1) and Jeff Baer, and their D1 team could be three of those four, plus Aaron Dos Remedios. I realize some of those stats are from hybrid tournaments, which isn't a great measure, but I think in both cases these players got most of their points on academic questions (though I could be mistaken).

Western (Will Nediger) will also definitely be very good, and I think that they could finish even higher if Will were to have some other players around him. McMaster is very enthusiastic, and placed highly in DII ICT last year, so they should do strongly as well. Their top four - Jay Misuk, Craig Moysey, James Schmidt, Neil Walford - is pretty solid, and I believe remains intact from last year. Other teams that could do well are Queen's (Jordan Palmer, Matt Trudgen, Ari Doumouras, Campbell Easto(?)), Ottawa (Ben Smith, Brendan McKendy, others) and McGill. I'm not sure how Guelph will finish this year, but there's lots of enthusiasm and dedication, so with some hard work we could finish well. Laurier will likely also be involved, and Rochester tends to finish well in Canadian events.

RMC could be starting a team this year, and if they do, they could break some top brackets in Canadian events. I'd like to see if Carleton and Brock are able to start up teams again, and maybe get a few new schools involved (York, Ryerson). I'd love for there to be a strong western circuit again (isn't Adam Kemezis a prof at Alberta?), and I've heard rumblings about a maritime circuit, so the "Canada" circuit might have to be rebranded as "Ontario" or "Central Canada" or something like that.

[Cheynem]

Toronto was an excellent team both at ACF Regionals and ICT. I'm assuming they ran into a spot of bad luck, since they were by far the best team we played in our bracket at ICT and probably deserved to be in higher.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Also, Darthmouth still has Beast Frosh. He will answer some TU's. And Cam Orth is there too no?

[wd4gdz]

Preseason Top 25:

It seems weird not to include in your rankings a team that finished tied for 11th at the 2009 ICT, especially since that team will likely feature a very similar squad at 2010 national events. I will assume this a merely an oversight, and certainly nothing personally.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I guess I'll be only the second poster in this thread to try to predict (or at least discuss) Nationals.

First, I find it inconceivable for Chicago to not win ACF Nationals again, assuming there is no surprise retirement, death, or maiming of anyone on the A team. Even if all of Brown's star recruits combined prove to be as valuable as one Eric Mukherjee, I think this is insufficient to compensate for Shantanu's continued improvement. If Chicago A ever had weaknesses in the humanities, Shantanu seems well on his way to filling them. I think that he is the real deal and the weapon that makes Chicago the runaway winner.

ICT is messier to predict. I can conceive of Chicago losing; of Seth Teitler closing his eyes and nodding his head while Rob Carson or Ike Jose powers an unfortunate NAQTish tossup to steal the finals. Do we know how well-edited the ICT set will be this year? That could be an important factor.

[dtaylor4]

ICT is messier to predict. I can conceive of Chicago losing; of Seth Teitler closing his eyes and nodding his head while Rob Carson or Ike Jose powers an unfortunate NAQTish tossup to steal the finals. Do we know how well-edited the ICT
set will be this year? That could be an important factor.

If anyone from Illinois would power such a question, it would probably be Greg Baboukis, assuming he can actually show up.

Given that this is likely Sorice's last go-round (as well as the last one for a number of people here), I honestly think that they will (finally) bring home the bacon at ICT.