IHSA 2016

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IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

At this time, all IHSA Regional matches are scheduled to have completed, but we do not yet have confirmation. I think it is safe to speak in generalities, but perhaps we should avoid mention of specifics until we get confirmation that all rounds are complete.

So, what did we think of the set?
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Sylvia Pankhurst »

That horse bonus was a fantastic way to start the day
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

set was noticeably better than previous years. Needed more proofreading. Still notable amount of questions whose authors need to learn how to write a question (mostly questions with either extremely transparent leadins, some random four liners, a few tossups on easy answerlines that probably wanted easier middle clues, a somewhat ill-advised round 3 fine arts tossup)
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

I used to be the guy who posted ravings at 10 PM on Regionals night. I'm going to bed instead, and I hope to read people's complaints and thoughts tomorrow. It would be tragic if this was the year that the HSQB forums didn't host a whole bunch of angry people post-Regionals.

But I am looking forward to seeing if people are angry in the correct way -- I have a hunch that there is going to be some misdirected anger. I'll say no more now, lest I push the poll.

Unrelated to my guess, though, is gratitude to the writers for taking the AdCo's direction of "0-2 comp math tossups" and making the appropriate conclusion from it. I sincerely hope the rest of the set follows suit.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

in on these shenanigans wrote: Unrelated to my guess, though, is gratitude to the writers for taking the AdCo's direction of "0-2 comp math tossups" and making the appropriate conclusion from it. I sincerely hope the rest of the set follows suit.
YES YES YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES

Also I apologize to anyone who had to do some stupid :capybara: involving having a timer because last year some coach got :bees:hurt that I spaced out on a comp math bonus and insisted to the IHSA that the game her team lost by a few hundred had to be thrown out as a result
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by noobynoob »

I thought the math was mostly fine this time around and much less "draw out this triangle ABC" and stuff
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Viridian »

I feel like this set has definitely improved from last year, with more of the general high school canon popping up in tossups, even though there were quite a bit of easy early clues dropped. Also, some of the bonuses contain a few difficulty spikes and random info (horses). Overall, I believe this set is heading in the right direction, and will hopefully continue to improve in future years.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by heterodyne »

I leave for one year and IHSA isn't inspiring immediate rage? What has the world come to?
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by AGoodMan »

I agree that the set was much better this year. Most of the literature was pretty good.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by John Ketzkorn »

Just reiterating earlier sentiments for the most part:

The set was too transparent at times (but this is understandable because of how many teams of varying strength played)
I enjoyed the conceptual math and the lack of comp math toss-ups
Some weird bonuses
Some weird phrasing that confused players in game time, but the writing was better overall this year
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

Joker wrote:Some weird bonuses
Some weird phrasing...
Is there any way you could clarify what you meant by "weird"? All regionals have reported results at this point, so we can talk in specifics about questions (although people do not have access to the full text).
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by schen »

Dominator wrote:
Joker wrote:Some weird bonuses
Some weird phrasing...
Is there any way you could clarify what you meant by "weird"?
The Picasso question referred to Picasso as a "compatriot" of Braque, which made me wait until giveaway because I thought it had to be a French painter.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by John Ketzkorn »

Dominator wrote:
Joker wrote:Some weird bonuses
Some weird phrasing...
Is there any way you could clarify what you meant by "weird"? All regionals have reported results at this point, so we can talk in specifics about questions (although people do not have access to the full text).
Horses, gem stones, and the question about the top 10 leading causes of death bonuses come to mind.

There was one question that went "Name this..." on the second line. Andalus, implied they wanted Andalusia with "modern-day".

I don't remember any other specific phrasing, but I know there was more, so I'd have to see the text before I could comment on it.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by AGoodMan »

The stradian bonus comes to mind, although I'm not a math player so I don't know if that's notable. Quinterest has no entries.
I also think the lead-in to the Set tossup could have been better.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by AGoodMan »

randomguy1997 wrote:The stradian bonus comes to mind, although I'm not a math player so I don't know if that's notable. Quinterest has no entries.
Someone who knows a lot more about math than me just told me steradians is a legitimate HS level thing, so never mind.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Sylvia Pankhurst »

randomguy1997 wrote:The stradian bonus comes to mind, although I'm not a math player so I don't know if that's notable. Quinterest has no entries.
I also think the lead-in to the Set tossup could have been better.
I totally agree about the Set tossup. That and the Atalanta question reminded me of Brancusi lead in of "This Romanian Sculptor" from last year.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Viridian »

I think the neutrino question could have had a better lead-in... Starting off with Wolfgang Pauli's postulation of the particles seems a bit antipyramidal.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

I haven't found all the misdirected anger I was expecting, but I got enough to make a post.

The joke about "This Romanian sculptor" is that it is found in the definitional giveaway for Brancusi -- that is, every reasonable high school level Brancusi tossup should end "FTP, name this Romanian sculptor whose most famous work is Bird in Space." If you want to put Bird in Space before Romanian, fine, but that sentence in some permutation is essentially what the "definition" of Brancusi is. The idea that you could put half of the definition of a thing in the leadin is laughable, so we all laughed at it.

I don't know what the set leadin was (or Atalanta or neutrino), but I don't remember thinking "that's just what the definition of a set is;" it didn't lead in with "These collections of elements..." The clue might have been easy compared to regular difficulty quizbowl -- and there's a conversation worth having about whether that's good, bad, or not even easy enough for IHSA Regionals play -- but that doesn't make them laughable in any comparable way.


The reason I feel the need to correct the view here, as opposed to laughing with it, is that "This Romanian sculptor," like a critical mass of IHSA questions, made a mockery of what a pyramidal question is supposed to be. For years, the IHSA has hired writers who failed to understand the basic principles of pyramidal question writing and essentially wrote written exam questions instead. They've also hired extremely qualified writers but declined to provide them with substantial writing assignments. They've also declined to hire extremely qualified writers. In addition to those problematic things, they've hired extremely qualified writers and given them huge swaths of categories, and they've declined to re-hire extremely unqualified writers. There's no anti-pyramidal IHSA agenda going on making these questions bad any more than there's a pro-pyramidal IHSA cabal campaigning to purge the non-believers.

Speaking as a former IHSA writer and as a coach who heard a ton of great literature, great math, and pretty solid history yesterday, it's abundantly clear that Sister John hires good writers when given an opportunity. Speaking as a coach who couldn't stomach the science last night, it's clear that Sister John hires bad writers when given an opportunity. I've talked with Sister John on numerous occasions -- there is no waiting list for IHSA writers. The volunteers who do this are greatly needed, even as the need for their replacement might become greatly apparent. Over the years, and especially this year, I've grown a real appreciation for the hassle that Sister John has to go through finding writers and then making sure the writers do their jobs. Simply put, I'm thankful -- and we should all be thankful -- we had lit questions on No Exit and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" instead of Harry Potter characters and Hunger Games, and that the math writer ended computational tossups.

Obviously, "be thankful for the good and ignore the bad" is horrible advice. Instead, all of the above is essentially a longform explanation of why the IHSA should offer the writing contract to NAQT for 2016-17 -- which is what the IHSA, the Advisory Committee, the IHSSBCA, and the vast majority of coaches and players want. The AdCo made all the necessary rule changes last year to pave the way for that move; I'm accordingly optimistic that it will come to pass.

In the meantime, I will suggest that "being thankful for the good" translates to the understanding that, in what were the obviously good categories from yesterday (lit and math), an easy leadin was likely more a good writer's understanding of the hundreds of novice teams that play IHSA Regionals, not a bad writer's mistake in judgment. Indeed, this set found room for fine arts tossups on Ray Charles and the Barack Obama "HOPE" posters (note: as written, I think both would have been passable if they were pop culture instead), a current events tossup on the University of Missouri controversy that used the name of the resigned President as a first clue and completely forgot to include a giveaway, and a tossup on "beta minus decay" that apparently told moderators not to prompt on decay(? -- my moderator may have just made a mistake). Pick your battles correctly; there are plenty of good hills to die on.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by AGoodMan »

in on these shenanigans wrote:I don't know what the set leadin was (or Atalanta or neutrino), but I don't remember thinking "that's just what the definition of a set is;" it didn't lead in with "These collections of elements..."
It's Set as in the Egyptian god. The lead in was something like "Although this Egyptian god is often considered evil..."
The Atalanta tossup started off with something like "According to some accounts, she was the only woman on the Argo..."
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Hahaha -- fantastic. :) Shows how much I care about Egyptian myth.

Both of those cases are good examples of "that clue is way easier than a leadin you've seen at any regular tournament." Those clues are probably too easy even for Regionals leadins, and if the Sectionals tossups aren't noticeably better, they'll be problematic. That said, "only woman on the Argo" still isn't in "This Romanian sculptor" territory because it isn't the definitional *giveaway* for Atalanta. The race is the primary clue for her. That said, "debatably evil Egyptian god" is frighteningly close to Set's giveaway.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by bajaj »

There was some confusion over this when we played, but did the Markov chains bonus really just have "matrix" as one of its parts? Harrison said transition matrix given what the bonus part stated, but it was ultimately decided that "matrix" was the only acceptable answer.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

bajaj wrote:There was some confusion over this when we played, but did the Markov chains bonus really just have "matrix" as one of its parts? Harrison said transition matrix given what the bonus part stated, but it was ultimately decided that "matrix" was the only acceptable answer.
That sounds like a moderator not realizing that "transition" was said in the question itself and Harrison just parroted that additional info, which is always acceptable. "Matrix" was probably all that was in the answer line for that reason.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

So, Sectionals have been played. Thoughts?

I was disappointed to see more errors in the Sectionals questions than the Regionals ones. There were a few small (on the order of a typo) mistakes in math that should have resulted in questions being thrown out. Hopefully the correct resolution was made to any resulting protests.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by mhasquin »

Overall, we've been pleased with the quality of the questions this year. And not just with the IHSA set. I believe I can speak for our team when I say that question quality was up at every event that we have attended so for this season.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

By the way, state pools:

AA
Aurora (IMSA), Urbana (University), Rockford (Auburn), Piasa (Southwestern)
Barrington, Macomb, Hinsdale (Central), Orland Park (Sandburg)

A
Breese (Mater Dei), Athens, Chicago (Latin), Johnston City
Rockford (Keith Country Day), Decatur (St. Teresa), Port Byron (Riverdale), Toledo (Cumberland)
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by John Ketzkorn »

Overall, really impressed with the quality of this set (especially when compared to previous editions). The literature has been especially enjoyable with some really good clues used.

However, the set is not without it's faults. The fine arts seems to be one of the worst categories. I think we can get harder more substantive Brancusi toss-ups instead of describing how the bird in space series got stuck in customs for two lines. Mondrian toss-ups should not lead in with "This Dutch 20th century painter". Mendelssohn should not lead in talking about Songs without words. Diatonic should not be tossed-up.

Barbary/pequot wars seemed hard for this set. I think even at State that would be considered a somewhat difficult question, and I'm surprised it got tossed-up.

Overall, the math was really good, but as mentioned earlier, it did seem to have some errors in it. When setting z = r, you don't get a cylinder, so I'm not sure if that was a typo. Dedekind cuts and golden ratio repeated, but I'm okay with the latter considering the context was different. My issue with repeating Dedekind cuts is that if you know enough about them you are getting both the real numbers toss-up and sweeping the bonus on them, effectively making it a repeat. It's kind of like using a clue in a book for a toss-up on professions at regionals and then having a bonus on that book at sectionals. Sure, it's not exactly the same, but it certainly has some overlap that I wish could be avoided.
Last edited by John Ketzkorn on Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

If we're making predictions, I'll say that Auburn/IMSA, Hinsdale/Barrington, Latin/Mater Dei, and Keith/St. Teresa get out of their pools.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by AGoodMan »

The Ceres tossup was kinda hard, right?
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

I wrote a script to pull and analyze scores from IHSA ScoreZone. Here are the average combined scores for the matches so far. How do these look?

Also, I would be interested in seeing how the data compare to previous years. Can I access ScoreZone archives? If not, does someone have the data saved?
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

With 3 more rounds in the books, it's abundantly clear what we've got --
*competent literature (though I'm feeling like the leadins on the easier tossups are a bit too easy -- only one was buzzed by Keith, but I felt like there were going to be first clue buzzer races on a lot of them)
*competent math
*competent though incredibly difficult history (Indian Removal Act in Regionals Round 1, Pequot, Barbary, ACF Regs level 3rd parts like Lincoln's Sec of the Navy and Haiti's War of the Knives)
*garbage fine arts. I'm not even giving the benefit of the doubt on 'the answer lines are normal' anymore -- diatonic scale lost me there. You can't do a bonus on Paul McCartney, Yesterday, and Wings the way this set tried to -- Paul's not the easy part if they only thing making the answer "it's not John!" is "bass player," and Wings isn't a hard part on par with anything else in this set -- but most of all, THAT'S NOT FINE ARTS BECAUSE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME ISN'T A CATEGORY ANYMORE.
*very poorly written miscellaneous -- the Google Glass question went an entire line of text before getting to a unique clue. If you figured out which "Project X" they were asking for, then you avoided a buzzer race on "wearable VR tech" that required you to remember that they said Sergey Brin 2 lines before, ruling out Oculus Rift.
*EXCEPTIONALLY poorly written mythology. The myth tossups are half as long as the other lit tossups, and -- in what actually doesn't not make sense for their length -- leadin with clues that belong that near to the end. They're basically elementary school myth tossups.
*some fatally flawed non-history social sciences. The Current Events questions are 30% the length of other tossups -- that's just not acceptable. The government questions are exceptionally boring readings from almanacs. I will say that the psych & philosophy don't seem infected -- the bonus on Marx/Weber/Frankfort school was a pleasant surprise.
*some flawed science questions. The Ceres question got a LOT harder if you let it get past Giuseppe Piazzi -- because they told you it was named for the Greek god of agriculture, not Roman.

I'll be frank -- the negative phrasings above are very strong, and the positive ones are not as strong as they could be. I feel like Keith earned the trip to state, as opposed to "didn't get screwed out of it," which is how we made it to state my first year coaching. The questions are nowhere near Masonics or NAQT State in level of quality, but they aren't the garbage fire that kept me up until midnight raving twice a year a few short years ago. There were moments I loved -- the Langston Hughes bonus calling back to last year's "he lived in Lincoln, IL!" question was a riot and a half, and I hope your sites had to use a replacement math bonus, because you would have enjoyed the Ramanujan replacement. But there's SO much gap between this set and good quizbowl -- not to mention between this set and "what a state championship series should be" that we need to be vocal with the IHSA about the need for NAQT to provide the set.

When I get back from our TV taping, I've got some non-question related thoughts about the tournament.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Stained Diviner »

You can get a lot from the pairings column here. If you go back a few years, you have to make adjustments for the round lengths and the value of bonuses changing.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

Thanks, David. I can get what I need there, but I'll have to adjust the script to read in the data from this format first.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Stained Diviner »

The rules have been the same for the last four years. In 2012, tossups were worth 15 points and bonuses were read all at once. Before that, there were 20 point bonuses, and matches were 30/30.
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by jonah »

Yellow-throated Honeyeater wrote:The rules have been the same for the last four years. In 2012, tossups were worth 15 points and bonuses were read all at once. Before that, there were 20 point bonuses, and matches were 30/30.
Full documentation: here, here, and here
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

I'm looking forward to Noah's analysis on the scores over time, but I already expect I know the answer -- much, much better scores at the Regionals level, and better scores at the Sectionals level. Not having computational math tossups means there are 3 more tossup cycles that you can reasonably expect conversion on. But I would not be surprised if the Class A 3rd place score is similarly low compared to previous years. Indeed, I would be disappointed if this were not the case; I want the questions in the final to be challenging enough for the AA championship to question the possibility of the answerline coming up, the way that Gluck and Billiards at Half Past Nine did in 2013, my last year at State. That's going to mean dead tossups in Class A (with the exception of Latin, who should win 4 games by 300+ points a game on Friday), and that's OK -- in Class A, the challenge should be "have you studied this far in the canon?" so long as we have teams like Latin, and last year's Newman and Urbana Uni, for whom the answer is "yes" when it's "no" for everyone else.

Also, if it's Keith in the 3rd place game, you're gonna get a low scoring match no matter what -- we're down our two history-focused juniors for Friday. But I want to talk a bit more about Keith, the IHSA, and Class A.

The IHSA instituted a new rule this year -- in addition to the 1.65x multiplier that "successful" private schools have applied to their enrollment figures, there is a relatively arbitrary second rule for "really successful" teams that ignores the multiplier and automatically bumps a team up to the next class. If you're unfamiliar with this -- and it is exceptionally safe to say that many people are, as I've had to explain this rule to literally every active coach in my sectional, which has been affected by this rule more than any other -- here are three examples for how it works.

The Class A/Class AA enrollment cutoff number is 484; if you have more enrollment than that, you're AA.
*Example 1: Rockford Keith Country Day's enrollment is 113 (not, as popular opinion would have it, 3), so while we're successful enough to earn the multiplier, it is nowhere near enough to bump us up to Class AA. We haven't been successful enough to get the "really successful" automatic bump, either. So we're still in Class A.

*Example 2: Chicago Latin's enrollment is 459. They haven't enjoyed IHSA "success" in the last four years -- 3 Class AA Regional titles in a sectional with Loyola and Hinsdale and New Trier and Maine South and OPRF, but the definition of "successful" is either 4 straight Regional titles OR a Sectional title. In 4 years in AA, they came close but didn't quite reach it, so the 1.65 multiplier is waived and they're Class A this year. A definition of success that treats Class A regionals in Rockford the same as Class AA regionals in Chicago is, quite frankly, ludicrous. That said -- they'll be Class AA again next year, and three more years after that, because their Sectional title two days ago refreshes their multiplier.

(To be clear, though, I like having Latin in Class A -- they're a small school that has to deal with small school problems, which is a post for a couple months from now. And it'd be pretty hypocritical for me, the coach of a Class A private school that won 3 straight trophies a while ago and just won the Masonic tiny school title, to complain that Latin shouldn't be Class A. So I mention them for two reasons -- one is that they're a fantastic example of how bad the IHSA's success rules are, and the other is coming later.)

*Example 3: Sterling Newman's enrollment is 247; two state trophies in the last two years engages the 1.65 multiplier (which is not enough to reach 484), but also the IHSA's new "really successful" rule, which automatically places them in Class AA regardless of size. Newman earned those trophies thanks to Elliot Frankfother, a phenomenal player who is now in college. Newman lost in Round 2 of Regionals this year, and will be in Class AA again next year due to this rule. This rule punishes Newman's younger players for good previous performance, and the end result was probably just letting a different private school (hello!) win that sectional again.

Urbana Uni is also affected by the "really successful" rule; they deserve a ton of congratulations for making it through their AA sectional this year. They play Piasa in Round 2 on Friday; that should have been this year's Class A state title matchup, and instead they have to play Auburn and IMSA. I hope some people go watch that game.

In the hands of another author, the "why do private schools get bumped up?" card might be an argument; I have no theoretical problem with a "make the private schools have a harder time of it" policy, though, so you won't hear it from me. If anything, there's good reason for this policy in IHSA Scholastic Bowl; four of the eight Class A sectional winners are private this year, 3 of 8 the previous two years, and 5 of 8 the year before that. The Northern Illinois Class A sectional -- home of Winnebago, Byron, and Stillman Valley, who have combined for 4 state titles in the past, not to mention programs like Morrison and Galena -- hasn't been won by a public school this decade. So I'm OK with something, but the absurdities listed above (Latin's A while Newman's AA as just one of many examples) and below (wait for it) make this an untenable situation.



So, the reason for my post. This is my fourth year of coaching Keith. This year, we've got a core of 2 seniors, 2 juniors, and a big crop of underclassmen, so things are looking good for next year. But, my first year, we got a trophy at IHSA State. The last 2 years, we won Regionals but lost to Newman. This year, we're at State on Friday. If we win a trophy on Friday, that's 2 in four years, so the "really successful" rule kicks in and Keith's bumped up to AA for 2017.

My juniors can't be at State on Friday, so it's my 2 seniors leading the way. They have two outcomes:
*Place top-2 in the pool on Friday, with a best-case finish of 2nd place behind Latin, and guarantee that their friends (at best) have to face Auburn at Sectionals next year.
*Place bottom-2 in the pool on Friday, leaving their friends a chance to go to State next year, where they won't have Latin, St. Teresa's Connor Reardon, Riverdale's Colin Vaughan, Cumberland's Tachel Brown, Latham's Joe Green, or any of the other top Class A seniors to worry about. It wouldn't be a cakewalk next year -- heck, Byron nearly took us out at Sectionals, and they're ALL sophomores -- but it's nothing compared to facing Auburn at Sectionals.

So no matter how much I say "we're obviously going to play to win, anything else is shameful," I'm worried that my players might not study as hard as they could this week. That they might not play as hard as they could on Friday. That my juniors might not want their friends to win. My players aside -- I, as coach, have a real incentive to lose 2 games on Friday in the hopes that the team could win 10 next year. This perverse situation should have been anticipated by the IHSA when they developed this system.

That's enough of this, though. I think, on Friday, in lieu of similar gnashing of teeth, I'll just bring a pocket full of vegetables to the Peoria Civic Center and watch my kids do their best.
Brad Fischer
Head Editor, IHSA State Series
IHSSBCA Chair

Winnebago HS ('06)
Northern Illinois University ('10)
Assistant Coach, IMSA (2010-12)
Coach, Keith Country Day School (2012-16)
Coach G
Lulu
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Coach G »

Brad, no need to bring the veggies. The pasta bar lunch includes "seasoned vegetables" this year. :smile:
Linda J. Greene
Rockford Auburn Coach
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Dominator
Tidus
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Re: IHSA 2016

Post by Dominator »

Yellow-throated Honeyeater wrote:You can get a lot from the pairings column here. If you go back a few years, you have to make adjustments for the round lengths and the value of bonuses changing.
Fun fact: Those data do not include 2014 Class AA Sectional scores, which I really want to include in my analysis. Any ideas how to get that information?
Dr. Noah Prince

Normal Community High School (2002)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2004, 2007, 2008)

Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy - Scholastic Bowl coach (2009-2014), assistant coach (2014-2015), well wisher (2015-2016)
guy in San Diego (2016-present)
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