Jr. Wildcat @ Northwestern University (3/5/11)

[Dan-Don]

So I just sent this to coaches.

Northwestern University in Evanston, IL will be hosting a middle school scholastic bowl tournament on 3/5/11 called Junior Wildcat. Your school is invited to enter a team (or teams) in the tournament. Check-in will occur between 8 and 8:30 am, with matches starting at 9 and ending around 2:30. The questions will be written by members of Northwestern's team, and books will be awarded to the top teams and the top individual scorers.

MATCH FORMAT
There will be some changes made to standard IESA rules:

*Tossup play will remain the same, but there will be no computational math questions in tossups or bonuses. There will be 16 or 20 tossups per match depending on how productive our writers are. There is no conferring among players on tossups.
*All bonus questions will be 3 parts, each worth 10 points for a total of 30 points. Each part is asked one at a time, with the controlling team having up to 5 seconds to respond. (Teams will be prompted for an answer at 4 seconds.) If a bonus part is answered incorrectly, the other team may answer it within 1 second. Both teams are encouraged to confer during the reading of a bonus.
*Any player may answer a bonus, but the first answer clearly directed at the moderator will be treated as the official answer. If two different answers are directed simultaneously, the captain will choose which answer the moderator should consider to be the official answer.
*Teams will be allowed one "timeout" per match.
*If a match is tied, a single tiebreaker tossup will be read. The team to answer it correctly wins the match.
*Substitutions will only be allowed at halftime or before the reading of a tiebreaker tossup.
*Matches will be played 5 v. 5, but each team is limited to 7 players total. If you have more than 7 players, you must enter a B team.

If you have any questions about these rules, please email me. If you have attended previous Jr. Wildcats or last year's Barrington Invitational, you may already have some familiarity with these rules. You are strongly encouraged to use other modified ACF question sets for practice. I have attached two: the 2009 Jr. Wildcat and the 2010 Collaborative Middle School Tournament.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT
The tournament will make use of round-robin pools, the size of which will be determined by the size of the field. After the prelimanary round-robin pools, there will be playoff and consolation pools. There will be no single elimination, and teams must stay the whole day and play all their matches. At most, there will be 10 matches.

FEE STRUCTURE
+$60 for a team.
+40 for each subsequent team (B, C, D....)
-$5 for each functional buzzer system brought by a school, up to a maximum of -$10

Other discounts, for example if your team cannot afford the fees or you are traveling a great distance or you are playing shorthanded, can be negotiated privately. Checks made out to Northwestern Quizbowl should be brought on the day of the tournament or mailed in advance.

Please respond to this email by telling me the number of teams and buzzers your school intends to send to Jr. Wildcat. If you believe a coach should have received this invitation but hasn't, please let me know. If you have any other questions, please ask.

Thanks,

Daniel Donohue
Northwestern Quizbowl

Coaches may also post here with registrations or relevant questions.

REGISTERED FIELD
Barrington Prairie x 2
Barrington Station x 2
Cary
Daniel Wright x 3
Holy Cross of Deerfield x 2
King's Academy
Liberty (Burbank) x 2
Maneteno x 2
Marlowe x 2
Rhodes
Rockford Washington
St. Mary's Visitation (WI) x 2
St. Raymond x 2
Summit Hill
Sunset Ridge x 2
Thomas Metcalf x 2
Union Ridge x 2

[Stephen Colbert]

I would be happy to staff this tournament if needed.

[jonah]

I'll staff this if Northwestern promises to order enough pizza and to get drinks this time. Otherwise I'm going to watch the tragicomedy at Masonic State.

[Dan-Don]

I'll be in touch in potential staffers closer to March.

[the return of AHAN]

Field update?

[abnormal abdomen]

I feel like my little brother told me that Washington Gifted Academy (Auburn's feeder school) might be going to this, or something.

[David Riley]

I can probably staff this is needed, let me know.

[Dan-Don]

I feel like my little brother told me that Washington Gifted Academy (Auburn's feeder school) might be going to this, or something.

I got an email expressing interest from the coach, but it didn't contain relevant information like the number of teams and buzzer systems.

[the return of AHAN]

Holy Cross of Deerfield A, B
Maneteno A, B
Marlowe A, B

Is this Manteno Middle School (Coach = J. Quinn)? Or Martino Middle School of New Lenox (Coach = K. Smith)?

{EDIT: Oh, and what's your cap for this tournament?)

[Dan-Don]

Holy Cross of Deerfield A, B
Maneteno A, B
Marlowe A, B

Is this Manteno Middle School (Coach = J. Quinn)? Or Martino Middle School of New Lenox (Coach = K. Smith)?

{EDIT: Oh, and what's your cap for this tournament?)

The former. I think I'm going to have to cap the field at 28 or 30, not for lack of interest but because of staffer availability. I'll be sending out one email to registered teams and teams that have expressed interest asking them to finalize their number of teams if they haven't already. I'll then send out another email to non-registered teams telling them that the field cap is nearing.

EDIT: Due to room availability, the cap will be at 28.

[jkulesza]

If it's not too late to enter, King's academy is interested in playing on 3/5. We're a home-school co-op that had an opportunity to play on the CMST question set at IVCC last spring and would love an opportunity to play at Northwestern. If you could get the info to me ([email protected]), and if there's still a spot, I'll get a check in the mail.

[Dan-Don]

We found room for 30, and we now have 29 teams. So the field is capped at 30. Room for one more team. Email me if interested.

EDIT: the 30th spot was taken, so I'll post the final field soon

[the return of AHAN]

Which Liberty? New Lenox or Burbank?

(Or Edwardsville, Bourbonnais, or Liberty, IL, for that matter...)

[the return of AHAN]

Any last minute updates?

The kids can't wait.

[Dan-Don]

Any last minute updates?

The kids can't wait.

The field is now up-to-date, and the set is being finished tonight. We finally wrangled enough staffers. We're pretty excited about the tournament too.

[the return of AHAN]

... the set is being finished tonight.

[Stephen Colbert]

Leaving home shortly on very little sleep. Will nap in thirty second intervals on the Dan Ryan to pay homage to a day of no computational math. Given the events of this week at NU, I just hope I don't walk into the wrong auditorium. Assuming I do, someone should probably be sent in after me.

[the return of AHAN]

Given the events of this week at NU, I just hope I don't walk into the wrong auditorium. Assuming I do, someone should probably be sent in after me.

Yeah, the timing couldn't have been worse for certain MS quizbowl coaches... especially when the TD says, "Parents stay away!"

[David Riley]

Will an award be given to the coach with the most subapalooza?

[jonah]

Will an award be given to the coach with the most subapalooza?

Rosters are, mercifully, capped at seven (five play at a time).

[abnormal abdomen]

Is Rockford Washington there with just one team? My little brother said something about how 12 kids were going, but only one team would play. I really hope this wasn't the case.

[Dan-Don]

So, I'm in the process of correcting the scoresheets/salvaging the stats. I just finished the prelims. A more comprehensive tournament wrap-up post will be coming. Stats corrections are welcome.

Oh, and, in response to Abid, I think Washington only had 7 players.

[the return of AHAN]

So, I'm in the process of correcting the scoresheets/salvaging the stats. I just finished the prelims. A more comprehensive tournament wrap-up post will be coming. Stats corrections are welcome.

Oh, and, in response to Abid, I think Washington only had 7 players.

I can confirm that Washington had a traveling part of at least 10 people who were not in the game. Of those, maybe 5 were adults. Ergo, IMO, they could have fielded a B team if they wanted to.

[the return of AHAN]

BTW, thank you, Dan and the NUQB staff for a great, fun day of competition. The kids had a great time and really enjoyed the packets.

[Dan-Don]

Prelim stats.
Playoff stats.
Combined stats.

Just to explain a couple weird things about the stats: the reason Rhodes appears in the stats is because Rhodes canceled a week or so ago, but the email didn't get through to me. We erroneously believed that they had checked in with us yesterday morning (and were at the tournament), but by the time we realized they weren't, it was round 1, and we didn't bother making a scab team. Also, the reason that there is a seven TUH game is because in Round 7 one moderator read 9 tossups of a playoff match between two teams (Sunset Ridge B and Metcalf B) that weren't even in the same playoff bracket. After the mistake was realized, the two teams that should have been playing (Holy Cross A and Metcalf B) agreed to play a seven-tossup match, while Sunset Ridge B forfeited the game they should have been playing against Marlowe A. Additionally, I am completely missing the scoresheet for the Round 10 game between Metcalf B and Sunset Ridge A, and I am also missing individual stats for Metcalf B in their game against Station B in Round 9.

Many, many thanks to the people who came out to staff: Colby Burnett, Nick Curran, Tom Egan, Jonah Greenthal, Nathan Hollinsaid, Mike Laudermith, Neva O'Laughlin, and Jack Trimberger.

There were no finals packets, so the tournament was won by Barrington Station A with a record of 10-0, who, in the process, had two grails, two fifteen-tossup games, and a game with perfect bonus conversion.

Like I said, I'm happy to take stats corrections. I fell behind on the stats (bouncebacks, subapalooza, rounds being so short, etc.), so thanks to Jonah Greenthal for doing a round for me at lunch, allowing the rebracket to happen on time.

If you'd like a copy of the set, just email me. Feedback is always appreciated. I think the questions were extremely well received by the players and coaches, but the moderators caught their fair share of inaccuracies and things that could have been fixed by better copy-editing. I'm also open to mirrors, just email me at [email protected].

All matches except 2 were done well before 4, and I think we ordered more than enough food for lunch. (Sorry for leaving the drinks in my car.) The biggest issue was the fact that we didn't print the requisite number of playoff packets (Neva O'Laughlin kindly read 3 rounds off her iPhone while that was being fixed.) Anyways, feel free to post any postive or negative feedback here. I'll also send out an email to staffers and coaches sometime in the next day or two.