NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.

What team do you think will be most dominant on the circuit this year?

Hunter (NY)
41
59%
Wilmington Charter (DE)
7
10%
High Tech (NJ)
10
14%
Ithaca (NY)
4
6%
Allderdice (PA)
1
1%
Darien (CT)
0
No votes
Troy (NY)
0
No votes
GNS (NY)
0
No votes
Manheim Township (PA)
6
9%
Penn Manor (PA)
1
1%
Millburn (NJ)
0
No votes
East Brunswick (NJ)
0
No votes
Greens Farms (CT)
0
No votes
Hotchkiss (CT)
0
No votes
Henderson (PA)
0
No votes
FSS (PA)
0
No votes
State College (PA)
0
No votes
Wilton A (CT)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 70

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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Ithaca Cricket Ump »

In fact, they have not played a single NY team all year. I'm confused by your reasoning here. They're much more a part of the MA circuit then they are a part of ours. They should not be ranked on this poll.
They played against both Troy and Ithaca at MIT Fall. You're right that they are more part of the New England circuit, but they have played New York teams this year, and the #2 and #3 Groger ranked teams in the state at that, beating the #3 (Troy).
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by karstenontheshore »

Ithaca Cricket Ump wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 11:04 am
In fact, they have not played a single NY team all year. I'm confused by your reasoning here. They're much more a part of the MA circuit then they are a part of ours. They should not be ranked on this poll.
They played against both Troy and Ithaca at MIT Fall. You're right that they are more part of the New England circuit, but they have played New York teams this year, and the #2 and #3 Groger ranked teams in the state at that, beating the #3 (Troy).
Oops! Forgive me for that oversight! However, I would argue that Ithaca and Troy playing MIT Fall was more of those teams playing a New England circuit tournament and not Barrington playing a Northeast tournament.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by troyharris »

No matter where you place them, they are really, really good!
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Zohar »

Thanks Troy! We in Barrington definitely consider ourselves a New England school, just to be clear.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Snoopy wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:55 pm Raw data will indeed be posted for public perusal in short order (READ: two days.)
Is this still happening?
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by a Joe »

I sent a link to the NYQBA with all the raw data 2 days after the poll closed, including anonymity for those who requested it.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

Any predictions for nationals, whether NHBB, HSNCT, or PACE? I'll post my thoughts a bit later, but I just wanted to start the conversation
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by karstenontheshore »

GFA is not going to HSNCT or PACE :( . We are, however, headed to SSNCT soon. In terms of personal news, I will be heading for Phillips Academy in Andover, MA next year, where I will be playing.
Last edited by karstenontheshore on Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:14 am Any predictions for nationals, whether NHBB, HSNCT, or PACE? I'll post my thoughts a bit later, but I just wanted to start the conversation
I had started to write a compilation of predictions about HSNCT, but stopped because of time constraints. I'll try to start working on it again.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by 34 + P.J. Dozier »

Based on my casual interest and general knowledge of the circuit, I would posit that Hunter will see the most success at HSNCT, followed by Ithaca and High Tech. The reason I would give Ithaca the edge here would be because they seem to be much stronger on the NAQT distribution (especially with Isaiah Gutman being so good at trash), and I'm not confident that High Tech has completely filled the hole that Doug Simons left. At NSC, though, assuming both High Tech and Ithaca attend, I would definitely place my bets on High Tech, since they do seem to scale better than Ithaca and the distribution will allow Michael Li's fine arts prowess to shine. Wilmington Charter could also prove to be a threatening presence at both tournaments (particularly at HSNCT), provided that they iron out their inconsistency issues.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Ithaca Cricket Ump »

I generally agree with what Wonyoung says, but you ignore Alex Pyle and Troy at your peril. Two triple digit margin wins against Ithaca, a 3rd place IPNCT finish and a solo Livingston tournament win for Alex, and an Alex-less Troy put up a PPB at BrainBusters Spring that shows that his backup is of at least SSNCT playoff quality, which might be all a player of his skill needs to make a serious run. He probably wouldn't agree, but I think that run might actually have more chance of occurring at PACE NSC, where the distribution completely removes his only weakness (trash). Troy has to be right in there with all the other teams Wonyoung mentioned.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by troyharris »

I second what Scott said. I think Troy is going to be a really tough out for anybody at HSNCT.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) »

I may not be the most qualified person to do this, but here are my thoughts and rankings anyways.

Please note that this is my subjective opinion of the teams from the circuit, mostly based on how they seemed when I played against them and not so much on stats. As a result there will be a lot of hot takes. Anyways, from my point of view the gap between most of the top teams is not that big, and just because one team is higher doesn't mean they won't lose to “lower” teams.

1. Hunter
Probably the best team in the region and this is definitely not a hot take. DMA of course is way too good, and his teammates, regardless of whatever team making shenanigans he decides to do, will still be good and support him well. They may not be as good as they were last year, but on NAQT tournaments they are still a formidable champion contender as always.

2. Troy
Troy is that one team that you always forget about since it is so far away from all of the NYC craziness. Alex Pyle is so good it just really feels unfair playing against him, like he has the infinity gauntlet while you are fighting him with a $5 Walmart glove. In my opinion they are probably the second best team in the region after Hunter, although Alex's teammates do score a fair amount of points, it still feels like if he has a bad game they could still lose, and the sheer amount of games at HSNCT might we quite wearing. Despite this the Pyle-driver is just that good and will be quite the team to beat.

3. High Tech
High Tech probably isn't the most well suited team for HSNCT. Although incredibly balanced, Michael will probably have some expletives to say about NAQT's lack of Fine Arts distribution, which is one of their greatest strengths on housewrites. Steven and Deepak are both very good at history still, and Darren always contributes a lot of points too, meaning that barring some extreme salt, High Tech A will be able to defeat most teams consistently over the day at HSNCT. They scale up incredibly well and thrive on the difficult content that most teams will struggle with.

4. Ithaca
Like High Tech, Ithaca is fairely balanced. On IS at least, they get an absurd amount of powers every game. While HSNCT does cater to them more than High Tech, at the end of the day I still feel that High Tech is just too good at higher difficulties. Ithaca is definitely one of the best teams in the region right now.

5. Millburn
However you spell his name, Dean Ah Now is one of the best history players around, and don't let any depreflexing make you think otherwise. Notably, Millburn has other strong players not named Dean, and together they can definitely challenge champion contenders. They have beaten both High Tech A and Hunter A before, albeit other favorable circumstances for them, so don't be surprised for them to take some games from other strong teams.

6. Wilmington Charter
I think part of the reason Wilmington Charter will do so well at HSNCT is because they will make sure to convert the hard parts that are hard, but still convertible. Part of the reason why this happens is because Wilmington Charter is an exceptional strong team compared to other teams that don't do such a good job. That being said, the amount of information I've learned about how good this top high school team is from their performance on regular level sets is pretty low anyway, but high enough for me to say that they will do very well at nats.

7. Livingston
Probably among the most inconsistent teams to exist in the NYC metro area. Sometimes they beat Hunter A, and sometimes they lose to 1-3 Stuyvesant. Either they neg a lot and become their own downfall, or they all pop off and pull off an upset. Jonathan Ackerman is definitely an extremely underrated player, probably the second best in NJ, but still given how inconsistent they've been overall, who knows what will happen at HSNCT.

8. West Egg
Again, a strong team, but they do seem to have had some difficulties beating top teams, namely Hunter. The good news is that at HSNCT they'll play teams not named Hunter, most of which they are simply better than, just because Anderson and Noah are good at quizbowl.

This is when ranking teams becomes a lot more challenging, mostly because I haven't played much against them in a while, so comparing them amongst each other is difficult. So the following is in no particular order.

-Darien
It's been a while since Middlesex Middle School has won nats, but it's clear from their past performance that Darien could easily be among the top teams in the country if they still had the same drive. Still, they are a solid team, and John Phipps will destroy anyone on South American geography.

-Tenafly
A well balanced team, but I feel that they are probably more suited towards housewrites than HSNCT. We did steal Raymond from them and I have no regrets, yet their juniors are all good and still have time to improve.

-Middlesex County Academies
An interesting team to say the least. They're decent, and sometimes marked by inconsistencies, but I would still place them a tier below most of the other teams on this list.

-East Brunswick
East Brunswick is a very entertaining team to play against. Win or lose, playing against them will be a blast. I have no idea how they will fare at HSNCT though.

-Ranney
Jacob Egol tends to be prone to tilting, and so the stress of playing at HSNCT may or may not get to him. They are probably on a similar level to Middlesex County Academies.

-Clarke
Clarke has steadily been improving more and more throughout the year. I predict them to surprise most people with their performance at HSNCT (provided Arjun doesn't sub himself out to the detriment of his team). They are probably a bit higher than most other teams in this section.

-Kellenberg
I really don't have much experience against them, so I can't really say with much certainty how I feel that they'll do at nats. Nonetheless like literally every other team here who have qualified for HSNCT, they are a solid squad.

-Island Trees
I feel the same way about Island Trees that I do about Kellenberg. David Wendt is really good at science, as well as fine arts, but as for his strengths on other categories, I am not so sure. Yet again they are still a solid team.

Teterboro
Finally we arrive at my team. I will leave other people to judge how good they think we are, since in all honesty I have no idea.

Overall I am super hyped for nats, and especially in seeing how teams fare against others from across the country. Hopefully together our circuit will exceed everyone's expectations at HSNCT, and show that we are the best QB region in the country. Good luck to everyone competing!

Edit: Just for additional clarification, I only ranked teams that are going to HSNCT, and left out Pennsylvanian teams since I do not have enough experience with them. My thoughts on the two Pennsylvanian teams I do have experience with though:

-Hempfield
Probably the best team in Pennsylvania along with Allderdice, and similar to the cluster of top 8 above in skill. Will negs a lot and it's truly a spectacle, but he also defeated West Egg once (and lost the other time by just 15 pts since his teammates couldn't clinch) and almost beat Miami Valley at Prison Bowl on E A (yet again because his teammates couldn't clinch), where he didn't even have his full team for support. His extremely aggressive play style seems very effective (also look at his IPNCT results!). It should also be noted that Will is indisputably the best gorilla player in the country.

-Friends Select
Friends Select seems pretty underrated, considering that most teams haven't played them. They nearly beat Hunter at Bardbowl (albeit DMA has an excuse for this) and are around the same level as most of the better teams of the unranked section. Their performance at SSNCT was quite good too, yet most people don't talk too much about them.

If someone from Pennsylvania or who has more insight on Pennsylvania teams can do a more accurate write up please do so, since they get ignored a lot when discussing NEQB teams.

PS: Play CROOKEDILE
Last edited by ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) on Fri May 10, 2019 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by thederpyaxolotl »

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 8:34 pm
7. Livingston
Probably among the most inconsistent teams to exist in the NYC metro area.
can't disagree :(
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

8. West Egg
Again, a strong team, but they do seem to have had some difficulties beating top teams, namely Hunter. The good news is that at HSNCT they'll play teams not named Hunter
I haven't made my own rankings yet, but I just want to say that, perhaps due to the high prominence of Hunter and Hunter players in this region, we under-rank West Egg since they're a team that simply matches up badly against Hunter teams for whatever reason. Of course, I am also guilty of doing this, and I'll try to counteract it a bit in my ranking.

When they had their full team, West Egg finished ahead of Ithaca and a depleted High Tech at March Madness, got 2nd at QuBIT, finished ahead of High Tech at Columbia Fall, and tied second at PHSAT with Charter, ahead of High Tech and Livingston. This is a team that has beat every team ranked ahead of them by Nick at least once and played many other close games with them (outside of Hunter). They were Troy's only playoff loss at Livingston and have pulled off impressive wins. Sure, they play unnecessarily close games with worse teams at times, but their record against strong teams seems generally very good except with Hunter.

I'll say that they're at least top 6 in the region, and probably higher, although the exact positioning is to be determined (I'll write up my full rankings over the weekend).
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Pedro/HCHS »

As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:16 pm As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
1. Hunter A (and Andover, if they count as this region)

[large gap]

[more large gap]

2. everyone else
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Pedro/HCHS »

A_Failure wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:24 pm
Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:16 pm As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
1. Hunter A (and Andover, if they count as this region)

[large gap]

[more large gap]

2. everyone else
I heard this Dean Ah Now fellow was pretty good— looks like he was top individual scorer at HFT, has beaten Hunter A twice, and got 2nd place at NHBB nats bowl, all while being a junior. Wonder where he'll be next year.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:31 pm
A_Failure wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:24 pm
Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:16 pm As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
1. Hunter A (and Andover, if they count as this region)

[large gap]

[more large gap]

2. everyone else
I heard this Dean Ah Now fellow was pretty good— looks like he was top individual scorer at HFT, has beaten Hunter A twice, and got 2nd place at NHBB nats bowl, all while being a junior. Wonder where he'll be next year.
Really? I was told he negged himself into oblivion.

Regardless, I heard about this Pedro kid on Hunter who is good at history and stuff. I hope he doesn't destroy us next year.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by thederpyaxolotl »

Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:16 pm As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
Hunter, HT and Millburn
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Alright, here are my long-awaited HSNCT predictions. Two disclaimers about this before I proceed:
1) I have no clue how the playoff finishes work this year, so I'm using the tiering from last year
2) You have no right to hold me accountable for any of the predictions I make in this forum post.

Now that that's out of the way, here we go. Enjoy making fun of me when these turn out to be horribly wrong.

Clarke – Groger Rank 149

Clarke has done really well for a first-year team, being competitive in many tournaments and beating a bunch of teams ranked higher than them (including Island Trees, Darien and Wilton). I’ve only played them one (and they gave us a hell of a scare), so I don’t really have much to say about them, other than that they seem to scale up well. They’ll probably make playoffs and hang around for a round or two.

Darien A - Morlan 52, Groger 147

The bad news is, Darien has been unable to stay at the incredibly high level they were at a couple of years ago. However, they really haven’t fallen that far, and remain a quietly solid team with the ability to beat teams above their level. They’ve notched solid wins against many of the top teams in the region, notably playing spoiler both at LIFT and Bardbowl. It’s hard to predict what their nationals finish will be, given that they can be wildly inconsistent at times. I’m going to be conservative and say they go 6-4 in prelims and finishing t-77, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them at t-32 or even t-20.

Darien B - Morlan 122

They look like a solid team. I don’t know much about them, so I have little to say, other than that they don’t look much weaker than their A team. They’ll probably be on the better side of the 5-5 teams.

East Brunswick – Morlan 48, Groger 110

They’re not the most consistent, but still very solid. Rishi definitely knows his history and is a solid generalist, and he has a very deep supporting cast to back him up. They’ve excelled on lower difficulties, with excellent SCOP Novice and A-set stats, but have been much less consistent on higher difficulties (they did well on RMBAT, but seemed to struggle on Prison Bowl). They look like a 6-4 team to me, but I’m not sure they’re in as good a position to recreate their t-20 run from last year.

Great Neck South – Morlan 34, Groger 49

Another team that is really good, but inconsistent. They’ve done really well in some tournaments, but have taken some bad losses in others. I will say that they really know their categories – Noah really knows lit and fine arts and Anderson’s an excellent history player. They’re a pretty streaky team, so it’s hard to tell how they’ll finish, but I feel comfortable saying they’ll probably be t-51 or t-32.

High Tech A – Morlan 8, Groger 15

They’re good. An incredibly balanced team who can scale well, they know their stuff. The only weaknesses they have are a habit of negging more than they should sometimes (although they can often get away with it) and the fact that the distribution can sometimes be their enemy (especially to Michael, who’s a crazy good fine arts player but rarely gets the chance to show it on NAQT). They can finish t-8 or t-12 this year. Again, they’re good.

High Tech B – Morlan 65, Groger 60

As it happens, being good appears to be a trait of High Tech teams. They’ve beaten or come close to taking down a lot of top teams (including their own A team). All of their players know their subjects well – Ivy and Adrian are both very good at lit, Eric is an excellent science player, and Cole is a massive history brain. Their main problem is inconsistency, as they have beaten many top teams, but also lost games they shouldn’t have. They’ll definitely make playoffs, but how far they go is anyone’s guess – I’ll say t-51.

High Tech C – Morlan 154, Groger 186

High Tech is very deep, and they’ll be able to field a solid C team with no problem. Frank is a solid generalist/cool guy, Karen knows history, and Max appears to be developing into an excellent fine arts player. They haven’t consistently made playoffs in regional tournaments, so I don’t see them making playoffs here, but they should have a solid 4-6 or 5-5 run.

Hunter A – Morlan 16, Groger 5

They’re also good. As their Groger rank indicates, they are a top team (at least on regular difficulty), and have a legitimate shot at the title. Daniel Ma is incredible at history and fine arts and a very good generalist overall. While he hasn’t revealed what his lineup will be at HSNCT, the club has plenty of depth, and the team should do well regardless of who’s playing for them. A fourth straight final for them isn’t out of the question, but since the late playoff rounds can be unpredictable, I’ll say that their floor is t-12 and leave it there.

Hunter B – Morlan 162, Groger 250

Given that I have no clue who will be playing for Hunter B, I have no way of assessing how they’ll do, and there’s not much to say about them. Like I said, they’re a really deep club, and they might be able to squeeze out a playoff run.

Island Trees – Morlan 33, Groger 121

David Wendt is a very good generalist, and he’s lead them to some nice wins against very good teams. They should do fine. The biggest question marks for them (in my mind) is how much support David will get and if they will be able to scale up. They made playoffs last year, so they’ll probably do it again. I predict t-77 or t-51.

Ithaca – Morlan 11, Groger 18

A really good team who has put up some incredibly scary stats. They’ve played and done well on a variety of hard sets (including SCT, FST, and EFT), so they should have no trouble whatsoever scaling. However, they can have their less than stellar games, which could be fatal in a double-elimination playoff. In my opinion, they’re a lock to get at least t-20, and could reach as high as t-8.

Kellenberg – Morlan 146, Groger 150

Kellenberg is a quietly solid team that is usually under the radar, possibly because they didn’t go to many IS+ tournaments this year. They’ve done well against tough opponents (beating GNS, playing us and Livingston to 1 tossup games), and have a solid core in Aidan and Tyler. However, their stats on harder sets have been less than stellar, which is a problem considering the difficulty of nationals. To me, the look like a team on the bubble for playoffs.

Livingston – Morlan 37, Groger 68

This team confuses me. They have the ability to beat anyone they play, but also have shot themselves in the foot multiple times with crippling negs (see 6/1/7 against Darien B at Bardbowl and 5/4/7 against Stuyvesant at Prison Bowl). Regardless, they are capable of doing very well. Jon is an excellent generalist (and should really be talked about more on the national level), and Carolyn and Rosa provide him with excellent support. As Nick said, they’re hard to predict, so I’ll just say I wouldn’t be surprised to see them anywhere from t-20 to t-77.

MCA –

A very solid team. Jatin and Shaochen form a nice core, and they appear to have decent support players who can chip in from time to time. They were very good when I played them on an A-set, but their lack of experience on higher difficulty might come back to haunt them. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more than 5-5 from them, but I could easily see them making playoffs if the schedule breaks right for them.

Millburn A – Morlan 38, Groger 31

We're probably overranked, given we can't power anything above like IS-level difficulty. How far we go depends on whether we can scale up and how well Ben and John cover things. Don't be surprised to see anything from t-77 to t-32.

Millburn B – Groger 197

This team is all Ethan Zhang (he got 120 PPG at Bardbowl, so be scared!), although Frankie will chip in from time to time. As Prison Bowl stats indicate, scaling up might be a problem for them. The rest of the team is extremely specialized, so we'll see how well they can do things. Probably a 4-6 team.

Ranney – Morlan 169

They’re a solid team. Jacob is a pretty good generalist, but seems to be quite tiltable, which could cost them a game or two. They weren’t a great 5-5 team last year and lost one of their better players, but they seem to have improved over the year, so I think it’s reasonable to expect 4-6 or 5-5 again.

Tenafly – Morlan 112, Groger 187

Tenafly has had something of a breakout season, going from not showing up to tournaments to being a solidly consistent team. They’re been excellent on lower difficulties, but don’t seem to scale up as well as other teams do. I think they’ll either go 5-5 or 6-4 and finish t-105.

Teterboro – Morlan 181

Another team that has started showing up to things. They’ve shown rapid improvement throughout the year, going from bottom bracket at Scarlet Knight fall to 9th at Livingston. Nick’s a very good generalist (probably top 5 in the state), and when they show up, his teammates provide him with solid support. However, their stats on IS and above are very inconsistent. As with Tenafly, I’ll predict either 5-5 or 6-4.

Troy – Morlan 45, Groger 27

Alex Pyle is scary, and if you don’t believe me, I advise you to look here. He has almost no weaknesses and can beat almost anyone to anything. The fact that he has a non-zero amount of support makes Troy even scarier. They will do well, probably in the t-20 range.

Wilmington Charter – Morlan 16, Groger 19

Sohum and Waley form a formidable two-man core, and they now apparently have a couple of players to fill their gaps. They’re a threat to anybody they play, and as long as they don’t neg themselves out of games like they did last year, they’ll get at least t-32, with the chance to get up to t-8.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by thederpyaxolotl »

A_Failure wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 12:31 pm Alright, here are my long-awaited HSNCT predictions. Two disclaimers about this before I proceed:

Clarke – Groger Rank 149

Clarke has done really well for a first-year team, being competitive in many tournaments and beating a bunch of teams ranked higher than them (including Island Trees, Darien and Wilton). I’ve only played them one (and they gave us a hell of a scare), so I don’t really have much to say about them, other than that they seem to scale up well. They’ll probably make playoffs and hang around for a round or two.

I'll second this one. They kept it really close against us at Prison Bowl, and that required us putting together an insane comeback in the last like five questions. Plus at Bardbowl (their second tournament ever? Something like that) they made the top bracket, so they're a real sleeper team.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by zeebli123 »

Pedro/HCHS wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 7:16 pm As an interesting subject of discussion, who do you guys think will be the best teams next year?
1. Millburn
2. Hunter
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.
.
.
everyone else

Going by HSNCT teams, High Tech graduates their entire B team and 3/4 of their A team. Hunter graduates Daniel, but they obviously will still be strong. Meanwhile, Dean is gonna pop off as a senior.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by Vembanad »

I made the mistake of deciding to give a writeup to every NY/NJ team going to HSNCT. This took a while, hence me posting this very late. But hey, it's fun to get carried away. "Championship Calibre" denotes teams that have a decent shot at winning it all and will probably make the top 10.

Bergen Tech-Teterboro
Prediction: T-77 to T-105
Teterboro has made great strides to improve this year, and have pretty consistently made playoffs throughout the year. As Northeast teams go, they’re fairly consistent, with neither any big wins nor upset losses. Their stats are strong enough to indicate that a playoff run is likely, and they’ll only improve over the next two years.

Clarke
Prediction: 5-5
Clarke has perhaps been the biggest and most welcome surprise of the circuit this year. Bursting onto the Quiz Bowl scene at LIFT, they managed a respectable 2-3 prelim performance, then made playoffs at Bardbowl, beating Island Trees to finish T-9th. They’ve had some great performances, beating a 2nd place Darien A at Columbia Spring and losing to Millburn by only 10 points at Prison Bowl. However, their performances have been inconsistent -- at Columbia Spring, they only finished 15th out of 18th in the National Division, suffering a loss to Mountain Lakes and another to Teterboro by nearly 500 points. Their stats -- only 17-18 ppb on IS, and unimpressive power numbers -- aren’t quite good to make playoffs likely, but watch out for them to become a top regional contender next year.

East Brunswick
Prediction: T-19 to T-77
Last year, East Brunswick managed to finish T-20 at HSNCT despite only being a weak 6-4 in the morning and not even making playoffs at most local tournaments. That was surprising. East Brunswick’s performances this year have been similarly enigmatic. Sometimes they make playoffs and do rather well -- they finished second at Rutgers’s A-set tournament with a defeat of Millburn (though of course A-sets don’t mean too much) -- and sometimes they do less well, like at PHSAT, where they only went 2-3 in prelims (though without a full team). I really am not sure what to make of them, especially because they don’t seem to have a consistent lineup. However, in playing against them I definitely feel that they have some of the deepest knowledge of any of the region’s teams and should do well at HSNCT. Rishi Banerjee, last year’s top scorer, nearly beat High Tech A on SCT-DII playing solo, and his knowledge should help the team succeed.

Great Neck South
Prediction: T-31 to T-49
I’ve never been very impressed with West Egg personally. That’s because they always seem to do inexplicably badly against Hunter teams, usually finishing in the 100s against Hunter A and losing to a Hunter B team at Livingston that only went 3-2 in prelims (the same happened the previous year with a Hunter C team). However, as their other stats show, they are a very good team. With high bonus conversion and wins over top regional teams like High Tech (at least twice) and Troy, they seem likely to put in an excellent performance at HSNCT. They only finished T-77th last year, so they probably won’t place beyond T-20 or so (though they notably did manage top 10 at NHBB Nationals), but they’ll definitely be a threat.

High Tech A
Prediction: T-8 to T-19
High Tech is good. Full stop. They may have lost leading scorer Douglas Simons from last year’s run, but Deepak Gopalakrishnan is a strong replacement and their other players have improved enough to the point that this High Tech team is probably better than last year’s. They have finished a regular second or third at local tournaments, where, with a full team, they haven’t suffered many upsets (other than to West Egg, a very good team in their own right, and their own B team). More importantly, they’ve gone out to play several tournaments on college sets, demonstrating their scaling abilities and giving them valuable experience. At such tournaments, they’ve done quite well, including a few defeats of non-full TJ teams. However, their record against teams like Hunter and their performance at SSNCT (which was very strong, but perhaps not enough) indicate they’re not ready to win nationals this year. They’ll go far though, no doubt about that.

High Tech B
Prediction: T-19 to 5-5
The full High Tech B is an inconsistent team. When in full form, Cole, Adrian, Ivy, and Eric can beat good teams like their own A-team. When not, they can lose to Stuyvesant to go only 2-3 in an (admittedly extremely stacked) prelim bracket. Despite this result, they’re definitely a solid team with some strong upset potential. In addition to beating High Tech A and Greens Farms, they’ve had one-tossup losses against Hunter (twice), Charter, and Millburn. They also managed to get 12/20 tossups against Beavercreek last year at PACE. They’ll definitely be a team to reckon with at nats -- but some of their inconsistencies might lead to a cut-short performance. (Hopefully not, though, they’re very good and lots of fun.)

High Tech C
Prediction: T-77 to 5-5
High Tech C has some good players, but they probably won’t be that strong at Nats difficulty. They have a reasonable chance at playoffs (though 5-5 seems more likely), but I’d be surprised if they managed more than 1 playoff win.

Hunter A
Prediction: Championship Calibre
Ah, my own team. It’s honestly quite hard for me to predict how we’ll do. We’re almost certainly the best team in the region (at least on NAQT sets), given that we’ve won 4 of the 5 NAQT tournaments this year with our Captain Daniel Ma (certainly a top 10 and probably top 5 player nationally), our only tournament loss being to out-of-region team Montgomery Blair at EB Pre-Nats. A lot will depend on how good the set is for us, as well as how we combat the trend of increasingly high negs, but Hunter is certainly still a top 10 national team and has the best chance of any team in the region to win nationals.

Hunter B
Prediction: T-49 to T-77
Now that I finally know the team composition… Hunter B will be good. How good? Who knows? They have some upset potential (think of various incarnations of Hunter B beating West Egg and Island Trees) and decent coverage in all of the big 3; we’ll see how far it gets them. I don’t think they’ll manage to create the Daniel Ma-led Hunter B team’s T-25 run at 2017 HSNCT, but they’ll surely make playoffs and could go quite far.

Island Trees
Prediction: T-49
Island Trees is a solid, if unspectacular, local team who should be able to improve on their T-77 finish from last year, given their impressive rise in stats. The team really hit their stride at LIFT, where they finished 4th, nearly making the finals after beating a (Steven-less) High Tech A team and losing to a strong incarnation of Hunter B by just 5 points. Their other performances have been somewhat less impressive, though never bad, winning 1st consolation at Columbia Spring and Prison Bowl after hard prelim brackets. They did perform unusually badly at Bardbowl (impressive ppb notwithstanding -- this seems to have been a stat error, as it seems unlikely they would have missed no bonus parts during a 27 question streak), but seemed very tired in our game against them (I think they may have been coming from an event of some sort), so this performance should not be considered representative of a quite strong team.

Ithaca
Prediction: T-5 to T-31
Ithaca’s stats are in some ways disappointing. 3rd at MIT Fall, they only managed 7th at Livingston, going 2-3 in their playoff bracket with losses to Troy, Millburn, and West Egg. Yet they had the third most powers of any team there (only two fewer than Troy) and the highest ppb in the field. They seem to do well on hard sets, including good SCT stats (better than Charter and Millburn, for instance), but they haven’t managed many wins against top teams of the region on NAQT sets. They did beat Hunter to win Columbia Fall on WHAQ. A loss to Henderson notwithstanding, they seem more consistent than many other teams, rarely losing games they should win, and can put up amazing power numbers in some games. I have a feeling this team will do well at nats, possibly as high as T-5 or T-8, though they can’t be considered title contenders.

Kellenberg
Prediction: T-49 to T-77
Kellenberg is a good regional team that will probably make it into playoffs and continue a few rounds. Rather bizarrely, they’ve mostly played Pennsylvania tournaments so far this year, so it’s rather hard to compare them to other NY/NJ teams, but they’ve done well in all their tournaments, making playoffs at both PHSAT and Prison Bowl, with some solid wins though no remarkable upsets, as well as several A-set tournaments.

Livingston
Prediction: T-31
Livingston is probably the most unpredictable team in the region; I only listed one placement in my prediction above, but anywhere from T-19 to missing playoffs is possible for this team. After a reasonably strong performance at PHSAT, where they beat Millburn to make playoffs, they did very well at Bardbowl, beating Hunter in a tight match but losing to Darien “B” with a 6/1/7 statline to miss out on top two. This propensity to neg means that sometimes they lose to much worse teams -- for instance, when they lost to Stuy (a 1-4 team which lost to our house team of complete novices) at Prison Bowl. There, they missed playoffs with a fairly unimpressive PPB and 6+ negs in a majority of prelim games, but their strength on NAQT questions (despite a rather lackluster performance at EB) means that they’ll do well. Jonathan Ackerman is one of the most underrated players in the country, and is supported nicely by Carolyn, though Rosa’s lit coverage may make (or break) their nats performance.

Middlesex County Academy
Prediction: T-105 to 5-5
MCA is a decent team, though not one I know much about despite having played them. They could make playoffs, but I think they’ll just miss it. (They’ve improved a bit from last year, where they were a low 5-5 team.) Making finals at EB Funfest was very impressive, and they beat good teams like Millburn there, but that performance was on an A set and I don’t think it will hold up to HSNCT.

Millburn A
Prediction: T-12 to T-31
Millburn is the third best team in the Tri-State region, possibly second (ahead of High Tech; I’m not including Troy/Ithaca, which are a bit far (though Millburn has beaten both of them)). After bad bracketing and bad luck kept them from making PHSAT playoffs, they’ve been top 3 at every regional tournament so far this year. Dean Ah Now is one of the region’s best players (note him finishing 5th at HFT, solo, amidst a number of other accomplishments), and his teammates can get a lot of points (John is very good at lit and Ethan can get a lot of history, though he’s normally on B team). Notably, when they beat Hunter at LIFT, Dean had less than half of his team’s scoring. This powerful attack means that they can beat any team in the region; they’ve won games against High Tech, Hunter, and Troy, to name just a few (though they’ve also suffered losses to all of those teams). They underperformed somewhat at last year’s HSNCT, but have since improved a great deal. Coming off of 2nd place at the National History Bowl, they are certainly a team to be feared.

Millburn B
Prediction: T-77 to T-105
If Ethan is on Millburn B, which he tends to be due to his overlap with Dean, the team will do quite well. If not, they’ll be worse, probably around 3-7 or 4-6. With Ethan, the biggest upset they’ve managed this year was a defeat of Island Trees at Prison Bowl, so they probably won’t make waves, but assuming Ethan’s on B, they’ll likely manage playoffs, though not much further.

Ranney
Prediction: T-77 to T-105
Ranney is a decent team. They can beat bad teams pretty thoroughly, but against good teams they don’t stand much of a chance. (Exception: Beating Steven Liu and friends on an A-set). Their power numbers are pretty low, but their PPBs are good, generally above 20 on IS level; that alone is enough to demonstrate that they’ll probably make playoffs.

Tenafly A
Prediction: T-49 to T-77
Tenafly is a fairly good team. They made top bracket at Columbia Spring and won the Millburn Invitational (though it being an A set many teams were only partial). They also did quite well at BEST last week. Without Andrew Hau, one of their lead scorers, they’ve done less well, missing playoffs at Livingston (he was only there for playoffs) and finishing in bottom consolation at EB Pre-Nats despite a win over Livingston. They also had some tight losses at Bardbowl (including to Hunter’s MS team) to miss playoffs. Still, they’ll be quite good and could go a few rounds into playoffs.

Saratoga Springs
Prediction: 4-6
I don’t know much about this team, since they’re not in the area. Their stats don’t indicate a playoff run, but it’s nice to see an Albany-region MasterMinds team trying out good quizbowl and heading to nationals for the second year in a row!

Troy
Prediction: T-5 to T-12
Alex Pyle is good. Like, really good. He has a legitimate shot at being the top scorer at HSNCT and is, I’d argue, a top-5 player nationally, with strength in every one of the “big three” categories. Troy’s PPBs and power numbers, though very good, are not amazing (for instance, a 23ish PPB), but their record of winning games speaks for itself. Troy was second at MIT Fall, losing to Lexington in finals, and won a very competitive Livingston March Madness (though they did only go 9-2 and were close to placing lower), beating strong teams like Millburn, Ithaca, and Charter. Alex Pyle did this playing solo; when you add in the 30 PPG his teammates get playing alongside him, you have a very dangerous team indeed.

I didn't rank teams from other states because frankly it would have taken too long, but Charter will do very well; Darien has won us two tournaments this year and has that upset factor, though frankly I think they're far too inconsistent to go far in playoffs; Lexington has an outside shot of winning it all; Boston Latin can beat any team in the country (though they can also lose to any team capable of going 5-5 or more at HSNCT) and will probably have at least one shocking upset; I doubt any Pennsylvania team will make the top 20 but Allderdice and Hempfield are the best teams in the state, and I thought Friends Select was very impressive when I played against them.
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by AKKOLADE »

I've been informed that two players from Connecticut are planning on coming to NASAT this year. If you're also from Connecticut and would be interested in attending, feel free to contact me via email at [email protected].
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by a Joe »

Who's in charge of the calendar for next year?
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Re: NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '18-19

Post by A_Failure »

Snoopy wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:19 pm Who's in charge of the calendar for next year?
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=22756

It will presumably be similar or the same for New York.
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