High School Player Poll

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High School Player Poll

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

I think high school quizbowl needs a similar player poll to college quizbowl. As useful as Fred Morlan's All World rankings are, they do not represent the opinion of the community or incorporate nats results. Thus, I have created this poll. It is intended for high school quizbowlers only, and the identification questions are solely to insure that; responses will be anonymous. Please send this link to your teammates or any other players who you think have knowledge of high school quizbowl at the national level, even if they do not regularly browse the forums.

There is also significant discussion going on about these rankings at the HSQuizbowl discord (https://discord.gg/XXVJHK8). If you would like to talk about your picks, there are many people there willing to do so.

I am also going to tentatively say that the deadline for form submission is June 13, so as to give me a little bit of time to synthesize the results and still be able to discuss them before NASAT.
Last edited by Abdon Ubidia on Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by swimmerstar »

TJ has played under "Sally Hemings" and "Sally Hemmings" this season.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

Since the college version of this thread often has people "campaign" or say why they deserve to be ranked, I think it's appropriate to say that both me and my teammate Ben Miller have led our team to a T12 finish at HSNCT and a 10th place finish at NSC and are worth putting in your rankings. Ben is incredible at History and Current Events, and looking at his HSNCT power stats confirms that. I think my performance at PACE NSC is also noteworthy.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Charm Bison »

I played ACRONYM solo and came third. I think that deserves at least one vote for something.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Amiable Vitriol »

These threads don't always turn out well, but I feel obligated to point out how awesome Govind Prabhakar is. He led Stevenson to a t-8 HSNCT and 6th place PACE finish with a dank power count/ratio. You should fill out that Google form and include Govind's name.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Berniecrat »

Govind is not only a scarily good history player (see JV NHBB triple crown), but a scary generalist. His power count at PACE and HSNCT was amazing, especially considering the high ppgs of both Olivia and Deepak, who are also great players.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by 34 + P.J. Dozier »

Forums drama aside, I would like to give a quick plug for Nick Rommel of Lexington. Despite being solely a humanities specialist, his PP20TUH at HSNCT was greater than those of his three other teammates combined. He led his team, one that was not projected to be a nationally competitive team at all, to a T-20 finish, pulling an upset against Crystal Springs on the way. He also outpowered incredibly talented players such as Doug Simons and Govind Prabhakar, and he also matched Daniel Ma in powers after playing four less games than him (speaking of which: he also got 8 powers in his match against Hunter). Yes, he may have a bit of a negging habit, but I think that all of these other reasons should merit Nick at least some consideration for your ballot.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

To proselytize for someone I've never personally met, I keep hearing the stat quoted that Clark Smith (of Dublin Scioto) had 20 ppg at ACF Nats--on a team with Chris Ray. That's some astounding deep knowledge.

Oh, and vote for Fred Zhang, as well as most of the TJ A team.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

UlyssesInvictus wrote:To proselytize for someone I've never personally met, I keep hearing the stat quoted that Clark Smith (of Dublin Scioto) had 20 ppg at ACF Nats--on a team with Chris Ray. That's some astounding deep knowledge.
I didn't intend on posting in this thread because HS individual player polls don't make for the greatest threads, but I would just like to dispel the myth that clark got 20 ppg at nats, because that would be misrepresenting clark, who in fact got ~33 ppg and maintained it in the playoffs as well
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

For the purposes of a high school poll, I don't know how important it is to consider whether someone can scale to ACF Nationals difficulty, as opposed to beat people at the high school nationals level, much as college polls consider primarily how well you can beat someone at the college nationals level. But if people do want to factor that in, then yeah Clark does that very well. Not just at ACF Nationals, but at CMST, where his average opponents were arguably stronger than at Nationals.

Also, Fred Zhang not making it onto Morlan's all-world team is an utter disgrace. Please rectify this.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams »

Since we're talking about CMST, I'd like to say (brag) that I did quite well at CMST as well

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... tail/#p4_6
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:For the purposes of a high school poll, I don't know how important it is to consider whether someone can scale to ACF Nationals difficulty, as opposed to beat people at the high school nationals level, much as college polls consider primarily how well you can beat someone at the college nationals level.
The focus on nationals difficulty (and the actual national tournaments that took place) was my intention, and I think ACF Nationals and other tournaments of an HS nationals+ difficulty should not be weighted very heavily.

I'd also suggest that people recognize how good Jakob Boeye from Centennial is, how impressive his performance at HSNCT was, and take that into account when making their ranking.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Couch's Kingbird »

Some other players people should absolutely consider (from the Northeast, since I've had the chance to play them over this season):
Vishwa Shanmugam from Downingtown STEM is scarily good at both science and literature, and has very deep knowledge in both of those areas. He's also more than capable of buzzing early on subjects outside of that too.
Max Shatan from Bard absolutely shouldn't have been left out of All-World teams- I don't think I need to say more besides placing high/top scorer at all of the national tournaments he's attended (and second at IPNCT) and also being really good literature and generalizing.
Alex Schmidt from Lehigh Valley is a solid generalist who lead his team to top finishes at both Nationals essentially solo.
Chloe Levine from Hunter has done a fantastic job leading Hunter this year- she has very deep knowledge of lit but can also cross buzz on history and other categories.

Other players who are definitely of note (just off the top of my head and certainly not exhaustive): Doug Simons from High Tech (who is actually a great history player), Nick Rommel from Lexington (another great history player), Sohum Shenoy from Wilmington Charter. I'm definitely missing people (and being very vague) as I'm typing this up pretty quickly, but I'll definitely follow up if I remember anyone else.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by notchole »

I second everything Julia said and would add that she has done a great job leading Darien, including to a T-20 finish at HSNCT. Shoutouts also to Tora Husar and Olivia Lamberti who both inspire me lots. (And I'll quickly add that I know Hunter didn't finish that highly at NSC but I was 51% of scoring and also captained us to 2nd at HSNCT despite Abishrant quitting about three weeks earlier. I also played as "Not Spuyten Duyvil" solo twice this season, beating both Centennial and Lehigh Valley.)
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by kammajos000 »

I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I think I should be at least top 6. Not only am I a member of the winning team of the 2017 NAC (Washington D.C. phase), but I have also won at least 6 speedcheck games playing solo. I have a 100% power percentage on questions about the song "All Star" by the band Smash Mouth. I have also heard more NAQT questions than any active player, so that alone should probably guarantee me a spot on this list. My grandma has also said that she is "amazed" at my ability to "do trivia." I don't want this thread to get competitive, but I think, given the accomplishments I have detailed here, not putting me in the top 4 would be fairly ridiculous.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Apocolocyntora »

kammajos000 wrote:I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I think I should be at least top 6. Not only am I a member of the winning team of the 2017 NAC (Washington D.C. phase), but I have also won at least 6 speedcheck games playing solo. I have a 100% power percentage on questions about the song "All Star" by the band Smash Mouth. I have also heard more NAQT questions than any active player, so that alone should probably guarantee me a spot on this list. My grandma has also said that she is "amazed" at my ability to "do trivia." I don't want this thread to get competitive, but I think, given the accomplishments I have detailed here, not putting me in the top 4 would be fairly ridiculous.
Y'all are sleeping on Joe. Quite frankly, he deserves more than one spot in everyone's top 3.

In all seriousness, while I am not in favor of player polls and I don't think they're super beneficial to quiz bowl discussion, there is a huge amount of talent among the players listed in this thread.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Doga (Dog Yoga) »

Akshay Govindan is the second best hs science player and will soon be the first
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by merv1618 »

I think there's yet another Andrew Wang, that has to count for something
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by nycaqb1999 »

Ok so I am really a self-deprecating person but I guess I should be encouraging you to vote for me or something idk so here it goes:

-It shouldn't count for a whole bunch, but I did get 2nd at IPNCT, but I feel like more importantly, I had the most powers out of anyone in prelims.
-I've pretty consistently been a top scorer in regional tournaments with very good power rates against very difficult fields
-Even though I was only 19th scorer at HSNCT, I was 7th in powers, and I feel proud of the fact I was able to, as a generalist, beat very respected specialists in their categories
-I was 4th scorer at PACE, and I put up generally very good stats against very good teams (e.g. getting 10 tossups on Taylor alone but losing on bonuses)
-Also this is all stuff I've done since starting last February, which took a lot of effort and time, and I really wouldn't be trying to hype myself up if I didn't think that was worth something

I'm glad people have been remarking on my absence from the hsqbrank All-World Team, but I'm sure there were good reasons I was not included. I just hope that you all give me a vote, because it would really mean the world to me.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

I suppose I missed ALL of the All-world teams entirely due to not playing enough after getting injured? Not really sure what else could have happened there...
Anyhow, might as well start talking now.
1. I was out for around 2/3 of the season with a concussion that I got at the start of the year, which also got me quite rusty and slowed down my learning. In addition, the concussion messed up my stamina for the entire season due to post-concussion syndrome. This impacted my performance badly at times (see HSNCT, where every time I returned from a break, my stats spiked up and then decreased)
3. I played 3 tournaments this year and was top scorer on Hunter for all 3: Columbia Spring (for which the stats are a bit corrupt, but anyway), March Madness, and HSNCT. I scored a majority of points at Columbia while winning the tournament with a 3 person team (one member of which missed around half the tournament), 45% of points at March Madness while getting the 7th highest team PPG on an IS set of all time, and 40% at HSNCT en route to 2nd place at nationals.
4. I did this all while playing on a very good team that was ranked at least top 10 by Morlan without me, which definitely lowered my stats
5. In NHBB, which I guess isn't super crucial, I got 5th in USH Bee and 6th in Geo Bee while captaining my team to 8th. Not great, but good enough for the sake of conversation.

I also want to advocate for my teammates, Chloe Levine and Sam Brochin (who have eloquently laid out their cases above), both of whom have been great players through the duration of the year.

Being a history player, I will also support Alex Schmidt, Fred Zhang, and Jaskaran Singh, possibly the best history players in the country (from NHBB results and personal experience) and all great quizbowl players outside of history as well.
Last edited by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War on Tue Jul 24, 2018 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Carlos Be »

I'm the best one in the game! If you try me with a sorry team like [some team we beat], that's the result you're gonna get! Don't you ever talk about me! Don't you open your mouth about the best or you know I'm gonna shut it for you real quick!
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Borrowing 100,000 Arrows »

Ever since Itamar informed me that Alex Schmidt kinda looks like me, i.e., this past Saturday, Alex Schmidt has been my favorite HS player. He should be in everyone's top 5.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island »

I hope people don't forget Geoffrey Chen in this poll, because "best player" really shouldn't just mean "flashy 100 point generalist" but should also encompass extremely deadly specialists like Geoffrey. Geoff was:

-Probably one of the highest power% players on regular season questions ever, frequently breaking 90% on is sets with ease
-The lead scorer on a t-8 HSNCT team en route to putting the *best ever* power percent of any player with over 50 tus answered in HSNCT history, while literally shutting top teams out of the entire science distro in rounds
-A player who powered more than 50% of the questions he heard in his topic at PACE (putting up close to equivalent or more powers than top players who were buzzing on twice his distro! (While in top bracket!!))
-Able to put up excellent power numbers and buzzpoints even on college sets like CMST (I think this is definitely a fair point bc discussion around Clark references the same)

Geoff puts up generalist like numbers while buzzing on half or less of their distros and is one of the most consistent and dominant role players of any HSer this year.

As you can see from Joe's and Tora's excellent cases upthread, Wayzata has multiple excellent players and is definitely a good enough and balanced enough team to warrant having multiple rankings on your list (and Geoff should certainly be one!)
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Muriel Axon »

kammajos000 wrote:I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I think I should be at least top 6.
Thank you for coming to vote for Joe Kammann... one of the top 30 players of our time. At least!
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by AKKOLADE »

Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War wrote:I suppose I missed ALL of the All-world teams entirely due to not playing enough after getting injured? Not really sure what else could have happened there...
Yes. You otherwise would have been on one of the teams.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by AGoodMan »

People should not forget Ethan Strombeck, who is arguably the best music player in HS quiz bowl.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

Doga (Dog Yoga) wrote:Akshay Govindan is the second best hs science player and will soon be the first
Can confirm Akshay is incredibly good at science
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by elyne road »

Doug Simons should be in everybody's top 25 in my opinion. His captaincy led High Tech to some solid finishes across the season, including 1st place at Prison Bowl and March Madness. Though High Tech has mainly played NAQT sets this year, their strengths shone through with solid power numbers at both nationals tournaments. He's also inspired a new generation of mini-Dougs, so beware of High Tech for the coming years.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by CPiGuy »

Karansebes Schnapps Vendor wrote:I hope people don't forget Geoffrey Chen in this poll, because "best player" really shouldn't just mean "flashy 100 point generalist" but should also encompass extremely deadly specialists like Geoffrey. Geoff was:

-Probably one of the highest power% players on regular season questions ever, frequently breaking 90% on is sets with ease
-The lead scorer on a t-8 HSNCT team en route to putting the *best ever* power percent of any player with over 50 tus answered in HSNCT history, while literally shutting top teams out of the entire science distro in rounds
-A player who powered more than 50% of the questions he heard in his topic at PACE (putting up close to equivalent or more powers than top players who were buzzing on twice his distro! (While in top bracket!!))
-Able to put up excellent power numbers and buzzpoints even on college sets like CMST (I think this is definitely a fair point bc discussion around Clark references the same)

Geoff puts up generalist like numbers while buzzing on half or less of their distros and is one of the most consistent and dominant role players of any HSer this year.

As you can see from Joe's and Tora's excellent cases upthread, Wayzata has multiple excellent players and is definitely a good enough and balanced enough team to warrant having multiple rankings on your list (and Geoff should certainly be one!)
yeah, uh, something needs to be said when someone's getting 45 pp20tuh while almost exclusively buzzing on 4 of every 20 tossups. Assuming that at least 90% of his buzzes were on science, Geoffrey literally averaged more than 10 points per science tossup he heard at HSNCT.

That's completely absurd. I think it's fair to say he's the best specialist in hsqb.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by kitakule »

CPiGuy wrote: That's completely absurd. I think it's fair to say he's the best specialist in hsqb.

Seriously. I think Geoffrey's complete absence from any of the teams was arguably the biggest mistake with the All-World selections this year.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

I think the Illinois people have gotten shoutouts so far (I'm also not quite in tune with the non-Stevenson, non-Ethan-Strombeck people in the Illinois circuit, so Illinois people should give shoutouts to anyone else that deserves it!), so I'll appease to my norcal alliance and advocate for Justin French and Jeffrey Qiu, both top scorers on teams that finished top 8 this year at NSC and who demonstrate deep knowledge, in my experience of seeing them play. They both had great power counts at NSC, and, I think, deserve spots in your top 10. I would also advocate for Daniel Wang and Boopala Arun, the CCA support players, being in your top lists somewhere, considering their impressive performances supporting Jeffrey at NSC – both had great power ratios on a very difficult set!

Also, Olivia should be considered for kicking ass on Stevenson A – just noticed no one mentioned her up-thread, though Govind was rightfully mentioned.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Amiable Vitriol »

I put together a spreadsheet for this. The first sheet shows some players' powers per twenty tossups heard at both nationals (for players who didn't attend both nationals, HSNCT had an adjustment of about -.04 power points if I did my math right). The second sheet shows players who had at least one power per game at either national in order, with a designation of first scorer by a large margin, first scorer, second scorer, or third scorer, and their team's average placement at both nationals. If anyone has any use for this information, feel free to use it!
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by dablasian »

Amiable Vitriol wrote:I put together a spreadsheet for this. The first sheet shows some players' powers per twenty tossups heard at both nationals (for players who didn't attend both nationals, HSNCT had an adjustment of about -.04 power points if I did my math right). The second sheet shows players who had at least one power per game at either national in order, with a designation of first scorer by a large margin, first scorer, second scorer, or third scorer, and their team's average placement at both nationals. If anyone has any use for this information, feel free to use it!
The second sheet isn't supposed to be a complete list of players who averaged at least a power per game at either nationals, right? If so, what were the criteria for highlighting these said players? I'm not trying to criticize; I'm just curious.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Amiable Vitriol »

dablasian wrote:The second sheet isn't supposed to be a complete list of players who averaged at least a power per game at either nationals, right? If so, what were the criteria for highlighting these said players? I'm not trying to criticize; I'm just curious.
It is not a complete list. The cutoffs for the second sheet were somewhat holistic, but I took team strength, team placement at nationals, PPG, and teammate scoring into account. A disclaimer: It's more likely than not that players who didn't play either nationals were neglected and that all players who did play at least one national weren't addressed.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

Reminder that the poll closes on Wednesday. The results so far are looking very good.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by hokie168 »

kitakule wrote:
CPiGuy wrote: That's completely absurd. I think it's fair to say he's the best specialist in hsqb.

Seriously. I think Geoffrey's complete absence from any of the teams was arguably the biggest mistake with the All-World selections this year.
I'd put it slightly ahead of leaving Grant Li off any of the teams. I think neither Grant nor Rohan making any team last year was a motivating factor.

Without taking more than 10 seconds to consider it, one could put together a team of the following people who were left off of any All-World selections:

Grant Li
Geoffrey Chen
Daniel Ma
Olivia Lamberti

That is a terrifying team. It's got to be top-3 at a minimum- in fact, I don't think they'd be underdogs against anyone but TJ A, and even then only slightly. If we say that Daniel Ma doesn't count because the only reason why he was left off was injury, we could instead toss in Govind Prabhakar with only a slight loss of efficiency.
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

hokie168 wrote:
kitakule wrote:
CPiGuy wrote: That's completely absurd. I think it's fair to say he's the best specialist in hsqb.

Seriously. I think Geoffrey's complete absence from any of the teams was arguably the biggest mistake with the All-World selections this year.
I'd put it slightly ahead of leaving Grant Li off any of the teams. I think neither Grant nor Rohan making any team last year was a motivating factor.

Without taking more than 10 seconds to consider it, one could put together a team of the following people who were left off of any All-World selections:

Grant Li
Geoffrey Chen
Daniel Ma
Olivia Lamberti

That is a terrifying team. It's got to be top-3 at a minimum- in fact, I don't think they'd be underdogs against anyone but TJ A, and even then only slightly. If we say that Daniel Ma doesn't count because the only reason why he was left off was injury, we could instead toss in Govind Prabhakar with only a slight loss of efficiency.
A B team with Max Shatan and Govind on it would also be pretty scary. I can confirm, though, that getting an Honorable Mention my junior year gave me just the amount of spite I needed to start studying the summer before my senior year.
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Michigan State '21, Indiana '2?
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by swimmerstar »

People should take into account the shadow effect more when ranking TJ A players. Rohan, Alex, and me are all elite history specialists, while Grant is also very solid. Rohan and Grant also had to compete with each other on literature questions to a degree not present on any other team I can think of. It is worth looking at negging as a stat since many players put up a large number of powers at the expense of a large number of negs. When considering negging, the performances of William Golden, Justin French, and Clark Smith are even more impressive. I also think that superplayoff stats are more accurate than overall stats for player comparison at the NSC, though this is more valid when comparing players in the same bracket. Overall, I am not sure why I was excluded from the first team, but I think that was hardly the biggest mistake in the All-World Teams.

Edit: typo
Fred Zhang
Longfellow Middle School 2015
TJHSST 2019
Yale 2023
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YungBrownie
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by YungBrownie »

Here's why my teammate Vishwa Shanmugam should be top 5 on your poll:
- Specialist-tier player in science and literature
- Second-most powers at both HSNCT and NSC (despite playing one less game than some players below him)
- Scores a very large majority of the points on a highly-placing team (T-8 at HSNCT and 18th at NSC with multiple wins over top teams at both)
- Put up stronger stats in playoffs, showing the ability to score a lot on top teams (tied with Clark Smith in powers on PACE Saturday playoffs in the highest-powering bracket)
Rohan Vora
Downingtown STEM '18
NYU '22
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Euouae »

A lot of the discussion I've seen so far has been excessively focused on both specialists and ppg/power rates. About the latter, I would echo others in saying that nats placement is by far the most effective means of comparing players. This is most evident at PACE, where powers are relatively few in general, negs are not counted, and the strength of teams is extraordinarily varied between playoff and superplayoff brackets. More or less in order, here are some players I haven't heard much discussion about, but that I think definitely deserve placement in everyone’s 31-40 (or even higher).

Tejas Santanam: Has very impressive individual stats and team wins throughout the regular season, as well as leading Guilford to a t-12 finish at HSNCT, and should probably be ranked higher than the 30s.

Sharath Narayan: Led Clemens to a t-32 finish at HSNCT with extremely limited support, in addition to being among the tournament’s highest scorers.

Jacob Augelli: Not to excessively self-plug, but I think my role as the primary scorer en route to Robinson’s t-20 (HSNCT) and 23rd place (NSC) finishes merits recognition.

Shomik Ghose: We played St. John's multiple times at NSC and they finished only a few spots below us. This was enough to show me that Shomik is a very strong player, which is corroborated by his regular season sats.

John John Groger: Miami Valley’s t-20 finish at HSNCT coupled with a high ppb is very impressive, especially for a team of two.

Swapnil Garg: While not at nats, he was the highest scorer on a Harker team that posted some of the highest ppbs on many sets this season.

Gram Brinson and Alistair Gray also fall into a similar category as Sharath above.
Jacob Augelli
Robinson Secondary School '18
Vanderbilt '22
High Dependency Unit
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by High Dependency Unit »

To throw in a couple cents late in the game:

Hunter, Plano West, TJ, and Wayzata should have close to half the spots in your top 20. Playing with other great players tanks your ppg, and to get to the finals of a national championship you need to either have an absolutely legendary player (like Clark Smith) or multiple great players. Most teams that finished in the top 10 of either championship should have 1-2 players ranked, and teams that finish outside the top 20-25 should only have one of their players ranked because their finish does not reflect the excellence of the team (like Rockford Auburn) or the individual is just that good (like Sharath Narayan or Gram Brinson). I'm not submitting a ballot, but I'd rank someone like Sam Brochin or Graham Stockton over a player like Jacob, Shomik, or Alistair, who are all excellent players in their own right but are not the same as being a critical piece of one of the best teams in the country).
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Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
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AGoodMan
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by AGoodMan »

People also shouldn't forget Robert Crawford from DCC.
Jon Suh
Wheaton Warrenville South High School '16
Harvard '20
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Abdon Ubidia
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Re: High School Player Poll

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

The results are here.
Anson Berns
Montgomery Blair '19
Brown '23
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