NAQT's agreement with ACUI

[Charbroil]

No, because you and they are from different schools and you have no reason not to try to deny the other school's team an ICT bid (you want it for yourself). That's just a good, spirited competition between rival institutions. But civil wars are different, and potentially more destructive to the fabric of a new quizbowl organization.

I mean, I think you're worrying a bit much about this--I've played teams from my own school before at tournaments (including a State Qualifier for Nationals), and I've never sensed any bitterness on the part of our B team (or A team) when we beat them. Generally, I think people actually have a lot of fun playing people they know. Anyway, even if the (in my mind, fairly unlikely) event that your B team costs your A team a bid to ICT, that would only come about because your A team also lost to other teams, so those losses are just as much to blame as any loss to your B team.

In my observations so far, my D2 B team is indeed more effective against my D2 A team than against any other school's team. So, yes, this is precisely an issue for us.

Umm...may I ask how this is possible? If your D2 A team has some serious weakness in some area that your D2 B team is strong in, the obvious solution seems to be to rearrange your teams so that that weakness on your A team is eliminated, even if it leaves a somewhat weaker B team.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Yeah, if your team's collective ego is so fragile that your A-team views losing to the B-team as tantamount to club strife, maybe you should seriously be realigning your interests (and team composition, and attempts to improve.)

[Sun Devil Student]

In my observations so far, my D2 B team is indeed more effective against my D2 A team than against any other school's team. So, yes, this is precisely an issue for us.

Umm...may I ask how this is possible? If your D2 A team has some serious weakness in some area that your D2 B team is strong in, the obvious solution seems to be to rearrange your teams so that that weakness on your A team is eliminated, even if it leaves a somewhat weaker B team.

I think it's because they share a large number of both strengths and weaknesses, such that games between my own new-recruit teams (A and B) come down to buzzer races a lot more than an ideal quizbowl game should. The more buzzer races and the less actual difference in depth of knowledge, the higher the chance of upsets. But even if the chance of an upset isn't especially high, it's still there, and on something as important as Nationals qualification I consider it my duty as the organizational leader to explore all possible ways to reduce the risk of flukes that could negatively affect ASU's standing abroad. Our club's mission statement is to represent ASU as well as possible and this includes getting as many Nationals-level teams out there as we can. We're a long way from our goal, but that is our goal.

Yeah, if your team's collective ego is so fragile that your A-team views losing to the B-team as tantamount to club strife, maybe you should seriously be realigning your interests (and team composition, and attempts to improve.)

Well, ASU has a rather complex and tricky situation with our internal/intramural dynamics. In fulfilling my duty to uphold ASU's reputation abroad, I will keep our internal issues as a private matter, and simply note that "realigning our interests" is exactly what I was trying to do by asking permission to send teams to two different SCT's (so that the two teams' interests would no longer conflict!). I might indeed just be making a mountain out of a molehill, but I don't know all of my new recruits that well, and our organization is still very new; therefore I thought I would take any permissible precautions, because I care about the cause so much.

And I still believe, unless your experience can tell me otherwise, that ASU B (D2) would be a completely harmless addition to the California SCT site. Theý probably wouldn't qualify for ICT regardless of where they went for SCT, but they will be good sports who will try their best every match no matter the outcome and shake hands with every team they play. (Unless there's a flu outbreak at tournament time, of course.)

[cchiego]

But even if the chance of an upset isn't especially high, it's still there, and on something as important as Nationals qualification I consider it my duty as the organizational leader to explore all possible ways to reduce the risk of flukes that could negatively affect ASU's standing abroad.

Just to note: these posts are doing far more to "damage ASU's reputation abroad" than any ASU quizbowl performance could do. I really don't care whether or not you qualify for the ICT; I do care that you're making squirrelly arguments and seemingly trying to get an exception to the rule to ensure that your program gets a "nationals bid."

I've been on teams that barely beat our own "C" team and lost to other teams' "B" teams in extremely embarrassing fashion. Somehow, our reputation managed to survive just fine. People don't care so much about "flukes" as they do about a sustained record of high achievement and progress (the latter in particular for non-established schools such as yours). Attending and doing well at tournaments throughout the year is far more important than how you do at one specific tournament.

Our club's mission statement is to represent ASU as well as possible and this includes getting as many Nationals-level teams out there as we can

I think you're missing the point. Qualifying for "nationals" by getting a regional bid pretty much means nothing if you come from a super-weak region. If you want to represent ASU well, you should work hard to improve at playing quizbowl. Also note that noted nationals tournament ACF Nationals does not require qualification, so if you're worried about going to a "nationals" tournament for say, funding reasons (i.e. to impress school administration), well there ya go.

I might indeed just be making a mountain out of a molehill

I think you are. From my experience with recruiting new people to quizbowl, the last thing on most of their minds is intra-team competition. They enjoy playing not because they get to go to nationals or scheme their way onto the A team, but because they enjoy playing the game.

So basically, until this region's circuit becomes stronger there will be a disincentive for each school to enter more than 1 team; but how will the region ever become stronger unless more players (more teams) compete

?

The only disincentive here is the one you're inventing. People like to play quizbowl. Pretty much every other team in the country lets as many people as can play the SCT play. They don't obsess over whether or not it would cost them a "nationals bid" (indeed, check out Davidson last year, which managed to qualify two strong teams for the ICT in DII).

And I still believe, unless your experience can tell me otherwise, that ASU B (D2) would be a completely harmless addition to the California SCT site.

This just seems silly to me. Your club, I'm sure, has limited financial resources and spending them on sending a team to a far-away tournament when there's one literally right next to you makes no sense. Use those resources to send your A team to more tournaments in Cali where they can learn more instead and improve as a team.

but are also logistically planning for a potential invasion by Southern California D2 teams trying to snatch an easy autobid from the nascent and still defenseless Mountain West (Region 13)

Relax. People in QB aren't crazy zero-sum monsters. I don't know where your fears of a "California invasion" are coming from. UCSD currently isn't planning an invasion of Arizona (I recommend an invasion through the Verde River valley!), but perhaps we can be cajoled into coming and stealing your auto-bids so that this situation can go away [note: sarcasm intended].

[Charbroil]

...on something as important as Nationals qualification I consider it my duty as the organizational leader to explore all possible ways to reduce the risk of flukes that could negatively affect ASU's standing abroad.

Sure, I agree and sympathize, but I think you shouldn't worry too much about this--ASU is a young team, and I don't think you'd lose too much even on the outside chance a scenario like the one you describe happens. Personally, I think it'll help your team more if you send two teams to SCT so that more of your players have fun playing and get experience.

Also, like Seth mentioned earlier, it's just as likely that your B team will clear another team out of the way of your A team to qualify for ICT--and wouldn't that be nice? I don't think it's likely that in an SCT with a lot of closely matched teams (as I imagine is the situation with ASU A, ASU B, and the other teams in your SCT), ASU B would be particularly more likely to beat ASU A--the only reason you might think that might be because you see the two teams play each other more often.

Also, notably, while qualifying for ICT is important, it's not the only such goal around--if you don't go to ICT, there's always ACF Nationals as an option to attend.

And I still believe, unless your experience can tell me otherwise, that ASU B (D2) would be a completely harmless addition to the California SCT site.

Sure, but it's hardly fair to make an exception just for you guys (especially since I doubt you're the only ones in your situation). Also, what if ASU B knocks off a team on the bubble of attending ICT at the California SCT? That would cause the very situation you're trying to avoid, except on a different team.

Anyway, in short, you're worrying too much--just relax, enjoy the game, and on the outside chance you miss out on playing ICT due to the situation you've described, see if you can either get the money to go to another tournament (ex. ACF Nationals, where even you could play on a DII winning team assuming you're an undergrad) or save it for the future.

(Also, I endorse everything Chris said, with the caveat that it wouldn't be implausible for a team from California to go to ASU to win an easy autobid...except for the very restrictions you're trying to overturn.)

[Sun Devil Student]

And I still believe, unless your experience can tell me otherwise, that ASU B (D2) would be a completely harmless addition to the California SCT site.

Sure, but it's hardly fair to make an exception just for you guys (especially since I doubt you're the only ones in your situation). Also, what if ASU B knocks off a team on the bubble of attending ICT at the California SCT? That would cause the very situation you're trying to avoid, except on a different team.

Good point, thanks for pointing that out to me. I'd think even a bubble team in California would still beat anyone from ASU (at least until a couple years down the road when D2 ASU A and B will both hopefully be much better), but you are right, there would be an unfair risk to the 3rd or 4th place California team. I will inform my team accordingly, and we will not request this exception from the committee.

(ex. ACF Nationals, where even you could play on a DII winning team assuming you're an undergrad)

I will suggest this to my team at the appropriate time, but I'm not sure ASU really belongs at ACF Nationals, considering that even at "regular" difficulty we need to hear the giveaway on every tossup and still can't answer half of them (we've been reading ACF Winter and D1 SCT sets at practice with similar results). If we have interest and funding, we'll try to send a team.

(Also, I endorse everything Chris said, with the caveat that it wouldn't be implausible for a team from California to go to ASU to win an easy autobid...except for the very restrictions you're trying to overturn.)

Truthfully, I wouldn't mind if some good D2 teams from California came out here and taught us some lessons. It would save us the trouble of bringing our D2 teams to California for training, and would give other Region 13 schools' teams some good examples to emulate as well. So, I'm not "afraid" in any sense of an "invasion" (I was comparing it to such for fun as a military metaphor, not because I was opposed to it happening). But if promoting quizbowl to ACUI schools requires having these restrictions, fair enough.

Qualifying for "nationals" by getting a regional bid pretty much means nothing if you come from a super-weak region.

I can understand why you and most experienced quizbowlers here would scorn any "qualification" obtained from a weak region (and you're right to do so). Unfortunately, this goes into our tricky internal situation that I mentioned earlier, so our qualification worries aren't related to you guys (or the quizbowl world's opinion of us); I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, so sorry about the confusion. Obviously, we would not ask for respect from anyone in this forum until we have that "sustained record of achievement" (which I hope we will have some years from now).

[Kyle]

As long as we're discussing ways to get easy bids to the ICT, I'll repeat my encouragement for you all to come to SCT England in the lovely East Midlands city of Derby.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Radical option: if you want to go to nationals, then play both teams at one SCT and if neither qualifies, send one or both to ACF for the same or less cost of sending one to ICT.

[Important Bird Area]

I think it's because they share a large number of both strengths and weaknesses, such that games between my own new-recruit teams (A and B) come down to buzzer races a lot more than an ideal quizbowl game should. The more buzzer races and the less actual difference in depth of knowledge, the higher the chance of upsets.

ASU B (D2) would be a completely harmless addition to the California SCT site. Theý probably wouldn't qualify for ICT regardless of where they went for SCT

1. If the "A" and "B" teams are as evenly matched as you described, then it is straightforwardly obvious that playing both of them at SCT increases your chance of ICT qualification. (Consider the case where the A team has a bad day and goes 7-3 or whatever, and the B team plays a couple of good games, goes 9-1 and makes it into the final.)

2. Conversely: if the B team has no chance of qualifying for ICT out of a southern California SCT site, then why travel there at all? It's an obvious large cost in time and money to your club, and the marginal benefit of escaping this "fratricide" scenario is tiny, if it exists at all. We would encourage you to keep all of your teams at ASU, then use the time and money to go to ACF Regionals in California.

[Sun Devil Student]

2. Conversely: if the B team has no chance of qualifying for ICT out of a southern California SCT site, then why travel there at all? It's an obvious large cost in time and money to your club, and the marginal benefit of escaping this "fratricide" scenario is tiny, if it exists at all. We would encourage you to keep all of your teams at ASU, then use the time and money to go to ACF Regionals in California.

Well, the thing here is, SCT and ACF Regionals are two different things, and SCT falls under the winter appropriations cycle at our student government while ACF Regionals is under the spring cycle. Next year, if we don't host SCT again, we'd have to apply for funding to travel to both SCT and ACF Regionals, for example. (We actually applied to host this coming SCT thinking of our school's budget problems. We were saved for a year by stimulus funding and stuff, but next year, we'll have to see what happens.)

Actually, there's another question we may have on SCT's. Region 13 is very unlikely to have 4 (or even 3, for that matter) D1 teams, which means it has to be a combined-field SCT. Would the D1 qualification then be purely by S-value (like before), or would a D1 autobid still be given to the top-ranked D1 team if there were only 1-3 D1 teams in attendance? (This might be a moot point if we end up with zero D1 teams, but I'm curious just in case.)

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

Wait a minute- if you're hosting SCT, then you have an autobid anyway! You'll be able to send a team (Div II if you so choose) to ICT no matter what, rendering this (highly implausible, for the many good reasons explained above) situation moot.

[Important Bird Area]

combined-field SCT. Would the D1 qualification then be purely by S-value?

Yes.

hosting autobid

I think the hypothetical is that they wish to use the hosting autobid to send the DI team to ICT, and then qualify a DII team by playing?

[Charbroil]

I will suggest this to my team at the appropriate time, but I'm not sure ASU really belongs at ACF Nationals...

I think this discussion has pretty much been talked to death, but just to comment, if you don't think ASU belongs at ACF Nationals, then why not use your autobid to send your DII team to ICT and just use whatever other funds you have to send teams to regular difficulty and/or novice tournaments? I mean, if you don't think your best team (even if it drew from both DII & DI eligible players) can handle nationals level questions, then it might be wiser to use your resources elsewhere.

[Sun Devil Student]

why not use your autobid to send your DII team to ICT and just use whatever other funds you have to send teams to regular difficulty and/or novice tournaments?

Our D1 team has two seniors on it and is staffing instead of playing at our SCT, so we might as well send them to ICT instead of the D2 players who are all coming back next year. Also, we don't "have" funds. We have to request funding from our student government for each and every tournament we plan to attend during the coming semester.

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

why not use your autobid to send your DII team to ICT and just use whatever other funds you have to send teams to regular difficulty and/or novice tournaments?

Our D1 team has two seniors on it and is staffing instead of playing at our SCT, so we might as well send them to ICT instead of the D2 players who are all coming back next year. Also, we don't "have" funds. We have to request funding from our student government for each and every tournament we plan to attend during the coming semester.

Wait...what exactly is the problem? It seems like you have a whole lot of options to solve this unlikely "issue" without making NAQT change their rules for one team.

[Mike Bentley]

The original post mentioned the final details would be worked out by 12/1. Has this happened?

[Important Bird Area]

Not yet. I wrote to R. this morning asking for an update.

[jonpin]

Any announcements yet for SCT or ICT sites?

[Important Bird Area]

Any announcements yet for SCT or ICT sites?

We expect to post the complete list of SCT sites on Monday. ICT sometime later.

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

The original post mentioned the final details would be worked out by 12/1. Has this happened?

Any announcements yet for SCT or ICT sites?

We expect to post the complete list of SCT sites on Monday. ICT sometime later.

Any progress on either front?

[Important Bird Area]

We're working on the SCT stuff this afternoon; expect the sites to be posted after we nail down the last few details with one of the hosts.

I've asked for an update from R. on the ACUI status.

[Important Bird Area]

...and done.

[bsmith]

What's stopping me from running an Ottawa/McGill dodectuple round-robin for Region 2, with 2 ICT qualifications up for grabs? It's the mid-2000s Vancouver circuit all over again!

No, Ottawa is crossing an imaginary line and going to McMaster.

[Rococo A Go Go]

We're roughly 4 hours from both UT-Knoxville and a bit closer to IU-Bloomington. If we decide to go to SCT this year we'll have to make a decision on whether to make the slightly shorter trip or go to Knoxville and play in our region.

[MicroEStudent]

A question for us in the southwestern part of Region 2:

If there is no Region 2 SCT, is there a consideration geographically for not entering Canada? A quick Google Maps shows that RIT is only about 15 miles closer to Region 7 than Region 4, but there is a possibility of having a player that is on a student visa that would be ineligible to go to Canada, would that be a legitimate reason to go to Region 4 or 1? What if a member just doesn't have a passport?

These are unlikely possibilities for this year, but the chance of them occurring is non-zero for us at this point. I should be able to clarify this in a week or so, but it would be nice to know as a reference for future years.

[Important Bird Area]

A quick Google Maps shows that RIT is only about 15 miles closer to Region 7 than Region 4, but there is a possibility of having a player that is on a student visa that would be ineligible to go to Canada, would that be a legitimate reason to go to Region 4 or 1? What if a member just doesn't have a passport?

-Players on student visas: absolutely legitimate.

-Just doesn't have a passport: almost certainly legitimate (would likely be approved immediately by NAQT, because it's obviously faster/cheaper to drive the trivial distance than stand in line/pay fees to renew your passport just to go play quizbowl).

[MicroEStudent]

A quick Google Maps shows that RIT is only about 15 miles closer to Region 7 than Region 4, but there is a possibility of having a player that is on a student visa that would be ineligible to go to Canada, would that be a legitimate reason to go to Region 4 or 1? What if a member just doesn't have a passport?

-Players on student visas: absolutely legitimate.

-Just doesn't have a passport: almost certainly legitimate (would likely be approved immediately by NAQT, because it's obviously faster/cheaper to drive the trivial distance than stand in line/pay fees to renew your passport just to go play quizbowl).

Thanks for the quick response! I hope to have this squared away before classes end on Friday.

[marnold]

Now that I've seen the SCT hosts and actually thought about the consequences of this, I feel comfortable saying this system is absolutely unfathomably horrible for good teams and good regions.

[Frater Taciturnus]

Now that I've seen the SCT hosts and actually thought about the consequences of this, I feel comfortable saying this system is absolutely unfathomably horrible for good teams and good regions.

I think I get your point, and I'm really not sure I disagree.

[Important Bird Area]

Now that I've seen the SCT hosts and actually thought about the consequences of this, I feel comfortable saying this system is absolutely unfathomably horrible for good teams and good regions.

I think I get your point, and I'm really not sure I disagree.

Would either of you care to expand on this? Because I don't think I get the point right now...

[marnold]

I guess I should concede that the IRC has talked me back from the ledge a bit, but I still think deep teams and regions are hurt moderately by this system in the short-term and hurt significantly in the coming years.

My original nightmare scenario was a full-strength Illinois and a full-strength Chicago A playing each other at the Illinois-Chicago site with the autobid on the line, and the possibility of that being the only way to qualify since there are so many autobids. I guess it's really unlikely that all 45 autobids possible for the D1 ICT will be taken, so there will be at least a few at-larges available. But still: the fact that the national champion and second place team from last year are figuring out how to try to game the system is ridiculous (me from 15 minutes ago: "I know! we'll just field 4 D1 UG teams, one with Shantanu, David and me that should almost certainly win that autobid so we'll have that one bid for sure!"). In the coming years when more autobids will find their way into the D1 ICT field, excluding a top 5 team in this kind of situation seems imminently possible, especially when two of those teams happen to be as near as UIUC and UChicago are.

This sort of situation is probably not a problem this year. As long as there are a few at larges, the loser of Chicago A and Illinois will almost certainly be alright. But this seems like far from a guarantee in coming years. As new teams go to D2 and attend and then feed into D1 eligibility, the number of autobids accepted will go up and the scenario like the one described above will be more and more likely.

Even this year though, it seems that teams like Chicago B are in a terrible situation (where "Chicago B" could stand for "the third-best team in a region with two powerhouses" as well as "B team on a deep team"). Chicago B finished t-9th at ICT last year and had a memorable showing at ACF Nats (a tossup or two from top bracket while beating the second and third place teams). The fact that a team like this is being sacrificed to objectively significantly worse teams from worse regions is deeply troubling to me - obviously this is somewhat self-interested, but the situation certainly isn't hard to sever from my personal interest in Chicago B by making it Minnesota B or Harvard B or a team like Swarthmore caught behind Penn and Maryland. Making the third-best team in a really strong region worry about whether Bumfuck A is going to take their autobid in D1 or D2 seems terrible.

[marnold]

So that should explain my concerns Jeff.

Ways to redress these issues (in order of most to least likely to happen by my guess) include (1) expanding the size of the ICT, (2) having performance at a previous ICT guarantee you an extra bid (for example, top bracket teams automatically get +1 bid or something), or (3) having some sort of application procedure where an "emergency" at-large could be granted to the loser of UIUC A v. Chicago A in my nightmare scenario.

[nobthehobbit]

Michael's concerns were addressed here. Of course, R. didn't say how much the field would be expanded. It's also worth noting that this could have happened in previous years.

[Important Bird Area]

I've asked R. for his thoughts on this, but in the meantime:

I believe we would be open to expanding the ICT field size if there were a substantial increase in autobids as a resul of adding additional SCTs.

In particular, we think that many SCTs will not produce the full 3 possible DI autobids, whether as a result of DI/undergraduate champions being the same teams or as a result of hosts taking their autobids in Division II.

[marnold]

Michael's concerns were addressed here. Of course, R. didn't say how much the field would be expanded. It's also worth noting that this could have happened in previous years.

I've asked R. for his thoughts on this, but in the meantime:

I believe we would be open to expanding the ICT field size if there were a substantial increase in autobids as a resul of adding additional SCTs.

In particular, we think that many SCTs will not produce the full 3 possible DI autobids, whether as a result of DI/undergraduate champions being the same teams or as a result of hosts taking their autobids in Division II.

Right, I get this. That's why I'm no longer worried about this year.

But the question I don't see answered here is how the move from "Random School taking a D2 autobid in year X" to "Random School taking a D1 autobid in year X+1" won't come at the expense of a better team, or even potentially an elite team. The traditional Weinerian argument is "well the excluded team sucked and wouldn't have won the tournament anyway so who cares" seems to be refuted by the tight geographical restrictions that pit potentially really good teams against each other for a very limited number of bids.

[Important Bird Area]

Right, I get this. That's why I'm no longer worried about this year.

But the question I don't see answered here is how the move from "Random School taking a D2 autobid in year X" to "Random School taking a D1 autobid in year X+1" won't come at the expense of a better team, or even potentially an elite team. The traditional Weinerian argument is "well the excluded team sucked and wouldn't have won the tournament anyway so who cares" seems to be refuted by the tight geographical restrictions that pit potentially really good teams against each other for a very limited number of bids.

Glad to hear that you're no longer worried about this year. I'll go out on a limb (not speaking for R. or for NAQT's other members) to say that if we see substantial expansion of the DI SCT field (such that much more of the existing field size is taken up by autobids), we will expand the ICT field accordingly. We have no intention of squeezing out teams that are likely to finish near the top of the ICT field.

More generally, the goal of our partnership with ACUI is to spread SCT participation to more teams; we do not intend to reshape the structure of the ICT field.

[nobthehobbit]

Before we go any further with this, I think it would be useful to see a few numbers.

Jeff, for each of last 3 or so D1 ICTs, how many of the 32 initially awarded bids were wildcards, and how many SCT sites were there in each of those years?

I'm thinking that if the "nightmare scenario" of 45 D1 autobids comes to pass, depending on how much the D1 ICT field is expanded (say, to 64 teams? Probably no more than that) there could in fact be more wildcard spots available than in previous years.

At the least, I'd hope that if the number of D1 autobids is close to 32, NAQT would expand the field anyway so that traditionally strong teams that happen to be in regions with lots of other strong teams (and hence would likely in previous years have qualified as a wildcard) still qualify for ICT. (Jeff's reply gives me more hope that this will in fact happen, for all that it's his own personal opinion.)

And as for Michael's concern that "Random School takes D2 autobid in year X" --> "Random School takes D1 autobid in year X+1," I don't think this is much of a concern, since with ACUI regions and former CBI schools in the field of potential hosts, it's unlikely that the same school will host twice in a row (unless there's a very compelling reason to have that happen), and (admittedly depending on the region) a team that just came out of D2 and is in their first year of not being D2-eligible is unlikely to win a D1 bid playing.

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

Did we ever get an answer as to whether sectionals run entirely by ACUI people (i.e. no help from the school's quizbowl-playing students) still receive autobids?

or a team like Swarthmore caught behind Penn and Maryland.

<broken record>If there was actually a Region 3 site, this particular hypothetical wouldn't be an issue.</broken record>

[Important Bird Area]

I don't think this is much of a concern, since with ACUI regions and former CBI schools in the field of potential hosts, it's unlikely that the same school will host twice in a row

This misrepresents the concern, I think- a school wouldn't have to host twice in a row. Just that once a bunch more schools start playing DII, it is likely that the DI field might see expansion in subsequent years (whether that particular school had hosted before or not).

Number-crunching on recent SCT fields coming soon.

[nobthehobbit]

This misrepresents the concern, I think- a school wouldn't have to host twice in a row. Just that once a bunch more schools start playing DII, it is likely that the DI field might see expansion in subsequent years (whether that particular school had hosted before or not).

The only teams absolutely guaranteed an ICT bid (with their choice of division included) are the hosts. So if hosting in a region rotates among schools, with each new host not having sent an ICT team before (or, if they did, they saw all those players graduate), that would lead to hosts taking D2 bids. We would see the D1 SCT field expand, but this would not necessarily have to lead to expansion of the D1 ICT field (or squeezing out of contenders), if there were enough regions in the scenario I just described and many of the teams coming into D1 from just having played D2 ICT were not particularly strong teams.

[Important Bird Area]

Did we ever get an answer as to whether sectionals run entirely by ACUI people (i.e. no help from the school's quizbowl-playing students) still receive autobids?

or a team like Swarthmore caught behind Penn and Maryland.

<broken record>If there was actually a Region 3 site, this particular hypothetical wouldn't be an issue.</broken record>

I've asked R. about ACUI-host autobid policy.

Interested region 3 hosts should contact us, please.

[Important Bird Area]

Before we go any further with this, I think it would be useful to see a few numbers.

Jeff, for each of last 3 or so D1 ICTs, how many of the 32 initially awarded bids were wildcards, and how many SCT sites were there in each of those years?

I don't have the initial bid lists to hand right now, so I decided to look at the final ICT fields. (I think that's ok if "diluted field strength" is what we're concerned about; I can't think of a reason why the ACUI partnership will make teams more or less likely to decline bids, but if someone can come up with a plausible effect I'll dig through our archives.)

2009: 12 SCTs produced 9 autobids and 6 hosts in DI
2008: 10 SCTs produced 7 autobids and 5 hosts in DI
2007: 9 SCTs produced 7 autobids and 5 hosts in DI

So recent history indicates that the number of reserved spots in a given ICT field is likely to be about 1.25x the number of SCT hosts; it has not generated anything close to the theoretical maximum of 3x.

Therefore, a ballpark estimate for the 2010 SCT would look like:

2010: 15 SCTs will produce 11? autobids and 7? hosts in DI. That would still leave 14 wildcard spots. As I said above, I'm not comfortable speculating about what precise numbers would compel R. to start expanding the field; but I don't think we are close to the "nightmare scenario."

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

this would not necessarily have to lead to ... squeezing out of contenders

I brought up that point in the IRC, but it was pointed out to me that I'm obviously missing the other way this is a problem. If this year, a bunch of new teams lose their D2 status through a mix of hosting and high performances in the weak new fields, that will mean that next year there will be an even greater increase in the number of D1-only Undergraduate teams, meaning that probably all sites will have to give away an autobid for the undergraduate winner in addition to the graduate winner in the many sites where these teams will be different.

[Matt Weiner]

The traditional Weinerian argument is "well the excluded team sucked and wouldn't have won the tournament anyway so who cares" seems to be refuted by the tight geographical restrictions that pit potentially really good teams against each other for a very limited number of bids.

Hopefully my argument against changing all the rules so that Arizona State can qualify is not being construed as an argument against Michael's reasonable and possible scenario of Chicago and Illinois fighting for a single bid.

My contribution to this discussion is as follows: with ICT still able to have spots for just about the number of interested teams in the past, it was already a bad idea to try to compare stats on qualifiers held with mixed D1/D2 fields, and for D1 teams who played on D2 questions or vice-versa. If we really expect that there is going to be a squeezing-out of all but the absolute best wild-card qualifiers this year, then it's imperative that any combining of fields, on either question set, be completely disallowed, because it's literally meaningless to try to compare the stats across sites if they don't at least play the same questions.

[Coelacanth]

a full-strength Illinois and a full-strength Chicago A playing each other at the Illinois-Chicago site

Is Illinois planning on playing at the Chicago site? Seems like Bloomington is approximately the same distance for them and is actually, you know, in their ACUI region.

I don't mean to diminish your concern about deserving non-autobid-winners being left out of the field, which I think is valid. It just seems like this particular scenario seems unlikely.

[millionwaves]

a full-strength Illinois and a full-strength Chicago A playing each other at the Illinois-Chicago site

Is Illinois planning on playing at the Chicago site? Seems like Bloomington is approximately the same distance for them and is actually, you know, in their ACUI region.

I don't mean to diminish your concern about deserving non-autobid-winners being left out of the field, which I think is valid. It just seems like this particular scenario seems unlikely.

Actually, I think Chicago would be much the preferable site for us, both because it is closer, and because many members of our team live there.

[Captain Sinico]

And has a much, much better field.

MaS

PS:

...actually, you know, in their ACUI region.

Is this supposed to start mattering?

[marnold]

Hopefully my argument against changing all the rules so that Arizona State can qualify is not being construed as an argument against Michael's reasonable and possible scenario of Chicago and Illinois fighting for a single bid.

Sorry that was unclear: I didn't think you would actually make this argument here, but I just wanted to illustrate how this case might be different than cases like Arizona State.

Also, did the new S-value ever get rolled out? I sort of lost track of what was happening with that.

[nobthehobbit]

PS:

...actually, you know, in their ACUI region.

Is this supposed to start mattering?

If Bloomington is closer to your school than Chicago, then yes, it does matter. Still, if a lot of your players live in Chicago as Trygve says, then you might get an exemption for some teams at Chicago.

And thanks for the numbers, Jeff; I agree with you that it probably won't be too great an issue this year, but in future years, as D1 SCT fields expand, it may become one and Michael Arnold's worries may come to pass. But I'm confident NAQT will keep an eye on this.

A few other questions (that may already have been asked and answered):

1. Who gets the autobid for the Region 9 SCT?

2. With the new centralized billing system, how will discounts (like buzzer systems, clocks, and staffers) that cannot be finalized until the day of the tournament be handled?

[Important Bird Area]

Did we ever get an answer as to whether sectionals run entirely by ACUI people (i.e. no help from the school's quizbowl-playing students) still receive autobids?

R. writes:

"By default, ACUI Regions that host events will not receive autobids.

If they receive substantial staffing support from a school's most experienced players, then they will receive one, but we'll need to be appraised of this situation in advance."