NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '21-22

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

With the first in-person tournament in almost a year and a half coming up soon, I think it's a good time to start the annual preseason discussion of what exactly is going to happen next year. What teams will do well, what teams have promising futures, etc. etc. With the transition back from online to in-person, this discussion will be perhaps even more highly speculative and even less likely to match with what ends up happening than usual preseason discussions, but I've run out of last year's hot takes and analysis to read so. Anyway, I will post both more detailed takes and a poll in the future, but in the meantime, fire away.

[amundhe]

I'd like to start by shilling my HS Team, Ridgewood. While I'm unsure as to what exact team composition will be, I would be shocked if the vast majority (around 90%) of the scoring was Aiden Dartley. His level of improvement over his junior year has been tremendous, culminating in an impressive solo performance at ONCT. In his best category, history, he notched 25.48 PPB as well as 15 powers. Outside of history, he's also been good in literature, getting 18.33 PPB in that category in ONCT, and at lower difficulties, he can also get questions in the humanities, as well as outstanding biology buzzes. Also worth noting are Aiden's performances at many of the summer open tournaments. At SKUFFED Open playoffs, he had 10 powers by himself, a number higher than any other TEAM in the same three game span, and at Summer Duos, he had 60 powers while only negging once a game (Aiden is generally a low-neg player for the amount of powers he gets).

I share this information because it's easy to count out Ridgewood for being largely a solo team in terms of scoring, but in reality, Aiden's very high stats show a level of dominance that very few teams in this region have. I'll also note that Ridgewood was just as bad last year as it is this year at science, yet that weakness didn't seem to hurt us too much at regional tournaments last year. Regardless of how well his support plays (Paul Nasr and Leo Manwaring did get several key buzzes in helping us win last year's Prison Bowl), I think Aiden on his own can perform against the region's best. While I'm not saying Ridgewood would be better than teams like Great Valley or Hotchkiss who have dominant generalists AS WELL AS elite supporting players, I think that Ridgewood will contend for the "best team in New Jersey" title, place highly at tournaments, and should be in your top 10 if a poll happens.

[NotAiden]

I don't question that Hunter's going to be 1st in the region still. I'm not sure how they're going to compete on a national stage against teams that are more-rounded, considering the loss of strong science player Ben Chapman, though I don't doubt that Hunter has plenty of science players who can compete in the NE, as well as Andrew's ability to tackle pretty much any NAQT subject, though I'm not sure they're going to be able to reach the same heights as they did at PACE this year without some serious grinding. I'm not going to include Hunter B in this writeup, as I'm not sure one that team's going to look like.

Next up is High Tech. While on NAQT tournaments, they're almost certainly going to suffer with the loss of Deepak, on housewrites they're still going to dominate as Max Brodsky improves from his already frightening BHSAT and PACE stats, plus supports will certainly make High Tech one of the top contenders of the region.

Great Valley is a great team who largely flew under the radar at the start of the season, but thanks to Anish's and Nolan's crazy improvement and impressive performances at Prison Bowl, PACE, and HSNCT, has entered the scene as one of the top NE teams. No doubt as they continue to improve they'll be one of the top teams in the scene.

Ridgewood, I hope, will continue to do well, although losing half of the team is going to be a significant blowback. However, I hope that if I can find a science player, or at least learn science myself, then we can be one of the top teams in the state.

East Brunswick loses their best player, but Tanuj is one of the best history players, if not the best, in the state, and I have no doubt he'll be able to carry the team forward. Filling in other subjects I'm not so sure, but as a history team they no doubt remain solid.

Hotchkiss is largely seen as a single-subject team, though recently they've branched out. While Cooper is one of the best history players in the country, and extremely frightening up to higher levels, with Jack himself also a very good hist player, they hold potential to be one of the best teams in CT and the region.

While JP Stevens loses much of their A-team, especially prominent scorers Allen and Joey, I believe they still can be a significant force in the state, especially with Nishanth and Kushal covering hist and sci respectively. I'm not sure how well they'll cover lit, but I've been told Lauren has been grinding it, though I have yet to see her play.

Millburn is seen as a single-subject team as well, and while Ben is easily the best science player in the state and one of the top in the country, his supports still are very good and pose a threat to most teams.

Manheim I don't know much about, but I do know that AZ is one of the best lit players in the region. If their PACE performance is any indicator, which it is, then they have a promising future as a quizbowl team.

Darien is a very good team, and while they lose their lead scorer Alex, they still hold onto their extremely good science player Darryl, who also scales in his categories extremely well. How they will do in other categories I have yet to see, as I do not know CT teams that well.

Ithaca's a good team, and Rohit's a very strong science player, however they seem not to do well in other categories at higher difficulties, though they still do quite well on NAQT content, just see EAST.

I'm really tired when writing this so I'm sorry if I missed any good teams, but those are my thoughts about next year's teams in the NE.

[lava_lock]

I'll post about some Connecticut teams and how I think they'll rank throughout the season.

Hotchkiss will be the best team coming from Connecticut this season. They retain 3/4 of last year's A team, with only science player Sachin graduating. They'll be one of the best history teams in the region, with Cooper Roh and Jack McGlinn being able to scale up to high levels. Both of them also have general knowledge in other subjects, although they are supplemented by strong fine arts player Yihan Ding. I'm not sure how well they will cover the hole in science, nor do I know who their fourth player will be, but I suspect their dominance in other subjects will make up for that. Hotchkiss will still be an extremely strong team that will contend for high spots at regional tournaments.

Choate will still be a strong team to contend with throughout the season. Although they lose Lucas and Andrew, their large program should make up for this throughout the season. I'm not entirely sure what their best team composition will be, but I suspect it will include strong fine arts and RM player Joy An as well as strong history player Nathan Nicholas. I suspect the main concern will be to fill the hole in science left by Andrew's graduation, but they will still be a strong team to contend with at regional tournaments.

Wilton will be somewhat of a wildcard this season. Generalist Lukas Koutsoukos will stay as always, but he will also have support this year from freshman Kieran and junior Vihan. If Vihan is able to plug the science hole Lukas used to face, Wilton could become a serious contender for the #2 spot in Connecticut.

Darien is the only team in this post that does not have problems in science. Darryl Wang is an excellent science player, as his category statistics from a wide variety of summer tournaments show. Michael Dong is also good at humanities, although I'm not sure how well the team will do outside of literature and history. Darien can be a threat to other teams in the region if they can excel in another category out of the big 3.

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

Preseason Poll (Closes September 12th): https://forms.gle/xvdQceHvoR4jcVYdA

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

1. Hunter A
The title of best team in the region stays with Hunter A. The best team of last year keeps Andrew Zeng, unanimously voted best player in the region as well as 11th in the country overall and 6th in history. Continuing in the years-long tradition, he is a top-flight generalist, particularly in lit, as well as being one of the best history players in the country, as demonstrated by his 2nd national history bee win in a row this year. He was the top scorer on the very successful Hunter A team at both nationals this year as well. Supporting him will be Daniel Schneider, a very skilled science and RM player who, in addition to being the second scorer on PACE's Hunter B with 16 powers, was the first scorer on Hunter B at WORKSHOP with 6 powers, showing the insane depth of his specialization. The team will most likely include some 2 of me, Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt, Ian Lu, and Nick Wu. Ian and I are both history-based generalists as well, and we each led one iteration of the Hunter B nationals team, and were both voted top 10 sophomores in the country. This would seem to imply that we might heavily shadow one another, but both times we played together last year on Hunter B we performed well for a solid 3rd place at LONESTAR and Maroon Bowl. Nick Wu is a generalist who seems to be quite good at trash and other random NAQT things, as well as random things in general. Really not sure what his "specialty" is, if he has one, but as a member of Hunter B for the last year he's been a pretty consistently solid scorer. This team covers almost everything quite well, but especially history, and will most likely hold their spot, as well as potentially contending for nationals.
2. Hotchkiss
Considering that they sent only one incomplete team to nationals last year, this may be something of a hot take. However, Cooper Roh is one of the best seniors in the northeast, having put up impressive performances on a collection of hard sets including Prison Bowl, STASH, PACE, and NASAT. He is one of the few people in the region who can and has challenged Hunter on history. But even more importantly to their placement, in my opinion, is the potential upside of their other players. Jack McGlinn has improved a ton since joining the team, and in addition to providing double coverage on history can also assist with literature. While he does not seem to have as much experience on hard sets, 2 powers a game on Prison Bowl and one power a game on STASH are quite significant assistance that likely indicate potential to scale to nationals difficulty. Additionally, he managed 8 30s on the very hard history tournament POGCHAMP while on a team with Cooper and has been a part of Hotchkiss's impressive NHBB performances in the past. Yihan Ding appears to be a reasonable-caliber fine arts player based off of QuBIT category stats, and have been consistently able to pull a few powers every tournament. They will most likely also bring up Huck Whittemore from the B team, who seems likely to provide a bit more additional support in history and a few buzzes in other categories. Depending on how much they improve, this team could keep this spot and put up a very good performance at nationals, but they will be held back by their large science weakness combined with only moderate levels of scaling on non-history categories.
3. Great Valley
One of the best northeastern teams at PACE also has the distinction of being the only northeastern A team from last year to retain both its top scorers. At the core of this team, like many others, is the rising senior and top generalist Anish Kodali, a strong science and literature player. Seeing as those two categories are both in relatively shorter supply in the northeast, his strong (top-15 in both at IPNCT) performance in both may be a significant asset. Supporting him is Nolan Greenways, a fellow senior and history player who served as Great Valley's second scorer at both HSNCT and PACE, as well as some former B team members such as perhaps fellow seniors Prithvi Parthasarathy and Rahul Narayanan. His strength and that of other potential support players will be critical in seeing whether Great Valley can rise to the top of the pack of teams led by senior generalists with uncertain support, especially considering many of the other top teams' strengths in history.
4. High Tech
The second place northeastern team from last year retains its top player, the fine arts and literature specialist Max Brodsky, who was the top scorer on the high-performing High Tech A teams at both PACE and HSNCT, as well as on the New Jersey A team at NASAT. His deep specialization is quite apparent from those amazing nationals performances, but he can also scale down quite well, as evidenced by his strong performances at LONE STAR and Ithaca Fall. Joining him will likely be fellow seniors Sidharth Srivastava and Shashwat Tewari from the nationals team, as well as a younger player such as Kevin Liu or Ranvith Adulla from HSNCT. Due to Deepak Gopalakrishnan's prowess, it hasn't yet really been seen how strong the other High Tech players are at history and science, and that question will quite likely make or break this team's position.
5. Ridgewood
While being among a large group of northeastern rising senior generalists, history-based generalist Aiden Dartley has perhaps the distinction of being the fastest-rising, going from 15 ppg to 100 ppg in a span of just a year. Since then, he has repeatedly demonstrated significant individual prowess even at high levels, as the top scorer at the AQBL ONCT and the 5th scorer on the high school mirror of the college-level set WORKSHOP. He also was the top scorer on Ridgewood's t-19 HSNCT team, averaging just over 2 powers a game. However, who his teammates will be is again quite uncertain, though I am going to predict that they will be fellow senior Leo Manwaring as well as younger players Joonho Oh and Paul Nasr, based on a cursory review of past results. It remains to be seen whether Aiden can continue his rise as well as how he and his teammates may or may not complement each other.

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

Poll Results:
1. Hunter A (75, unanimous first place)
2. Great Valley (68)
3. High Tech (60)
4. Ridgewood (58)
5. Hotchkiss (52)
6. Hunter B (47)
7. East Brunswick A (43)
8. JP Stevens A (36)
9. Manheim Township (31)
10. Choate (26)
11. Ithaca (25)
12. Darien (15)
13. Wilton (14)
14. Edison (12)
15. Millburn (4)
T-16. Livingston (2)
T-16. JP Stevens B (2)
T-18. Staples (1)
T-18. East Brunswick B (1)
Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[lava_lock]

I'll be posting a review of the circuit after PHSAT. Not many teams played full, but there are still some key insights.

Hunter played without their main scorer, Andrew Zeng, and still had the highest PPG, PPB, and the most powers in the field. Despite graduating 3/4 of their 2nd place at PACE 2021 team, they still look extremely strong and deep. Hunter A is still the best team in the circuit when full.

J.P. Stevens won the tournament despite not playing full. They put up strong stats (while not field killing), but they still managed to win close games against High Tech A, DCDS, and Hunter A (two times). These were all pretty close games (less than 70 point margins) but they were able to do it repeatedly. It'll be interesting to see if they can continue to do this throughout the season on both NAQT and mACF sets, but it seems full J.P. will be stronger than predicted this year.

High Tech still looks strong this year, but they did take some pretty crucial losses in playoffs. It should be interesting to see their placements throughout the season (particularly on mACF sets, where Max can get the full value out of his dominance in FA) and to see whether or not they are able to win big games like those that they lost at PHSAT.

East Brunswick played short-handed with both teams and still managed to place highly. When they're full, they'll probably vie for that second place spot in the circuit.

Wilton finally played with a full team, but they're still heavily reliant on Lukas. He did put up over 4 powers per game though, so if his support can have more of an impact this season, Wilton may be able to win some unexpected matches against teams like High Tech and J.P. Stevens.

Ridgewood had a disappointing final placement. Aiden put up extremely good stats, but the team took two close losses to High Tech A and J.P. Stevens. In a similar narrative to Wilton, Ridgewood is very capable of finishing highly at tournaments if the supporting scorers are able to have more of an impact on games.

All in all, this set did seem hard on the bonuses, with no team finishing with 23+ PPB. However, top teams at other sites of 204 (DCC, Solon, Beavercreek) were able to break that barrier, so as teams play full, we should see significant improvement in that. As more fall tournaments happen and teams play with full rosters, we'll see more accurate gauges of circuit rankings.

[lava_lock]

This is a bit late, but seeing as there aren't any more analyses of LIFT, I'll post one myself.

Choate was probably under-ranked in the preseason poll. Although many teams at LIFT weren't full (Hunter being the most notable), Choate still managed to have a dominant performance against a mostly full J.P. Stevens and pull out the win in the final against Darien. As with last season, Choate did not put up insane numbers, but they have what I call a "winning factor," where they can just win games. It also helps that they have a team that doesn't have any wide wholes in any particular subject. Overall, it'll be interesting to see how they play on mACF sets (which I suspect they will do better on).

Darien is a team to consider for the top 10 of the region. They managed to pull winning results out of really close games against Hunter A (albeit with the caveat of a debatable protest resolution), Wilton, and Staples. They put up very solid power and bonus stats, and the fact that Darien basically is guaranteed to take at least 2 science tossups per game is absurd (in the absence of Ben Hu playing tournaments, Darryl is the best science player in the region in my opinion). Michael has also become very solid on all things humanities, although I'm still not really sure whether literature or history is his main category.

I could heap praise onto Hunter again but that'd be boring and repetitive. Hunter put up insane bonus conversion without Andrew, they're 9th on Groger Ranks right now, those all speak for themselves.

J.P. Stevens showed that their PHSAT win was not a fluke, putting up another impressive performance. J.P. is one of the few top teams at LIFT that I am yet to play in some format, so I can't really comment on their gameplay, but their power numbers and bonus stats are very impressive. It'll be interesting to see how J.P. plays on mACF when full (I suspect it will be better but I'm not very confident about that).

I don't know what they're feeding the people at Wilton but it looks like it works because Wilton absolutely smashed their PHSAT stats. They increased their powers per game by 2, which is really significant. In addition, there was a significant amount of scoring done by people who weren't Lukas on the Wilton team, which bodes good signs. All in all, if they can keep this improvement and performance up, Wilton is going to be dominant on NAQT.

It bodes well for the region in general that 7 out of the 20 teams at LIFT were able to break 20 PPB. It looks like the region will get increasingly competitive as the season progresses and teams play full, and maybe some insane stats will be broken.

[anish.kodali]

I figured I might post a writeup of the Northeast and New England circuits so far to spur some discussion.

For the most part, I referenced stats from:
PHSAT: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... standings/
CORGII: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... all_games/
LIFT: https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/s ... t_id=12469
Quaker Fall Open: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... standings/
Yale Winter: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... standings/
MIT Fall: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... unds_1-11/
HARI: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... /combined/
ARCADIA: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... relims_rr/

Interested to hear what other people think and see if they have their own rankings.

Hunter A
In my opinion they have the best chance of the Northeast teams to win HSNCT and PACE. I’m assuming their team will include Andrew, Jacob, Ian, and either Daniel/Nick/Matthew. Considering that they’ve placed top 3 at all their tournaments this year without Andrew (and with the best stats at all of them), I think they deserve their spot up here.
Phillips Academy A
I’m ranking based off their dominant performance at Yale Winter, where they handily swept the field. Karsten is a top-5 individual player this year with a 78/44/23 statline on an IS set. I think they’ll be even better on mACF and IMO they are the only ones that can beat Hunter consistently.
Great Valley A
I think there’s a tight contest between the next seven teams for number 3. I put us 3rd because of our head to head wins against High Tech and Belmont without a full team (missing Nolan for the High Tech game and Nolan/Lucca for the Belmont game). We also have wins over Chattahoochee, DCDS, DCC, and more teams without our full A team, so I’ll rank us solely off potential. I’m a good lit and sci player although far from where I want to be, Nolan is an underrated history/social science/geography specialist who puts up numbers close to mine at higher difficulties (see playoffs of HARI), Lucca excels at NAQT categories, and Rahul is getting better at FA.
High Tech A
They got a dominant win at CORGII with what looks like their full team. I think they suffer on NAQT questions after the loss of Deepak, but Max is a top fine arts specialist who excels on the mACF distribution. Ranvith, Sidharth, and Kevin are all excellent support who put up between 15-30 ppg consistently. With wins over Belmont, Darien, and Hunter, they are definitely going to be a top Northeast team at PACE.
Ridgewood A
In all honesty I think Aiden has a chance to beat anyone in the country outside of the top 4 teams nationally. I’m only ranking them lower because it’s a one-man team, and one-man teams have trouble when playing several good opponents in a row. Aiden’s stats on RAFT and CALISTO were absurd (definitely worthy of a top-5 individual player), and they’ve recorded wins over Belmont, Wilton, Manheim, and other good teams.
Belmont A
Similar team structure to High Tech A, with one dominant scorer in Cindy and three strong supporting scorers in Ella, Pablo, and Sam. Cindy is a top lit player in the country and will likely take 3 or 4 of the lit tossups in a game against most teams, as well as having underrated generalism. They had the most powers in the CORGII field and recorded an upset win over Kinkaid at ACF Fall, finishing second in that mirror.
J.P. Stevens A
I was very impressed with how JP beat preseason expectations with top finishes at every tournament they’ve played this year. Nishanth and Kushal are another strong duo who cover history and science respectively. From what I’ve seen they seem to be better at NAQT (1st place at PHSAT and 4th at LIFT) but I don’t know if their stats are quite on par with the teams above.
Choate A
They went undefeated to win LIFT, with wins over Darien and JP Stevens. Their power numbers and PPB didn’t seem as good as other teams but they have a key ability to win games. I suspect that may be due to the ability to take a lot of tossups right outside power, but I’m not entirely sure.
Darien A
Without a doubt, Darryl is the best science player in the country after his ARCADIA performance, to the point where he will certainly lock down 3-4 of the science tossups in a game (if he doesn’t neg). On top of that, Michael is also a good generalist who fills in the gaps in the team’s knowledge (I think he does lit and hist). Felix and Rajiv were also solid support, although I’m not entirely sure what they cover.
East Brunswick A
I’m probably underrating EB A but since they haven’t played full I don’t think I can justify them higher. Getting two teams into the top bracket at PHSAT after splitting teams is a strong accomplishment – Tanuj and Lillian also put up strong stats there. I also think they’ll be better at NAQT than mACF but I’m interested to see how their teams play full.
Hunter B
I made a mistake of underranking Hunter B last year so I won’t do it again this year. I’m operating under the assumption that the roster will be Nick, Matthew, Amanda, Aruna, and Evan. If so, this team will have complete category coverage and can probably take games off anyone above them. From the stats I’ve seen so far - Evan put up 34 PPG while playing on Hunter A at CORGII, Matthew was a great sci player from what I saw last year, Amanda and Aruna put up good stats from what I saw last year, and Nick was a key player on NAQT for Hunter B last year.
Hotchkiss A*
I put an asterisk next to them because I don’t think they will be able to play at all this year – I hope we can see them at a tournament or two this year though. Regardless, even if they don’t play, Cooper and Jack are a strong duo that had plenty of results from last year backing them up – I doubt they would have gotten much worse after nats last year.
Manheim Township A
Manheim A performed extremely well at nationals last year and have had a lot of good results this year too. Losing Baybars was a huge blow to the coverage of the team, and they still need to recover from that. AZ is a top lit specialist who is very capable of generalizing into other categories, and Deeya, Kevin, and Ellie all provide capable support in the range of 15-20 PPG.
Wilton A
Lukas has found strong teammates this year, and I think their level of play has increased by a lot since last year. I would definitely put them higher if this was an NAQT only ranking, their results at LIFT and PHSAT were really strong with great stats at both. However, their CORGII stats weren’t as good as I expected, probably because Lukas covers history and geography better than he does lit and science.
Cedar Crest A
Cedar Crest is a rising team from PA who have put up great stats this year – their win at Manheim’s tournament over teams like Tower Hill and Centennial have made them one to watch. Danny is a fantastic generalist who is routinely the top scorer at nationals, and they even got a win over Manheim (albeit on an A set). Definitely a team to watch out for next year (they’ll definitely be the best team in PA in the 22-23 season).
Staples A
Aalok puts up a ton of good stats and he finally has capable support this year. Aalok put up 4 p/g at CALISTO with a strong field and posted two wins over Livingston as well as a win over Ithaca at Quaker Fall Open. Also another team to watch out for next year, as I think they’ll be contending for top 2 in Connecticut (with Wilton).
Ithaca A
I’m honestly confused by Ithaca’s performances - their stats at Quaker Fall Open were solid but not great yet they put up a ton of powers on HARI. I think Owen scales to any difficulty and seems particularly strong at fine arts. I’m not entirely sure what Louisa and Julian do but they also seem good. Since Rohit hasn’t played a tournament at all this year, I didn’t consider him as a part of the team, but if he plays they can definitely move up further.
Edison A
Edison is a really solid team that has coverage of every category. I believe the full team is Yash, Ali, Vinay, and Avinash, all of whom put up decent stats (as well as posting a win over DCDS at HARI). I don’t think they have the ability to take games off some of the teams higher but they have good coverage of all categories.
Livingston A
Livingston has put up impressive performances after losing Carolyn and Rosa last year. Robert has started to scale to high school difficulties, with good performances at CORGII and PHSAT. I think Jeffrey played a tournament this year (not sure which one) and from what I remember last year he was a good player too.
Millburn A
I only have their data point from PHSAT but they scored an impressive upset win over JP Stevens and a win over Livingston. Although they lost Ben Hu, Zachary put up decent stats at PHSAT suggesting that they could do some damage in the circuit.

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

The first regs+ difficulty tournament and arguably the tournament with the strongest field so far, QuBIT, has just concluded and as such it seems like a good time for a midseason poll. Same procedure as before: you may rank at least five and a maximum of fifteen teams, and you must provide some justification for your rankings. I'll be providing more analysis for my own ballot in the future, but for now here's the first edition of Northeast-specific HBRanks, a new elo-based ranking system for quiz bowl teams.

1. Hunter, 1669.43
2. Ridgewood, 1656.34
3. Great Valley, 1642.99
4. High Tech, 1618.76
5. Choate, 1612.81
6. Manheim Township, 1598.39
7. Wilton, 1589.9
8. JP Stevens, 1589.52
9. Darien, 1577.51
10. East Brunswick, 1564.79
11. Staples, 1545.71
12. Ithaca, 1539.7
13. Edison, 1525.25
14. Livingston, 1517.45
15. King Stamford School, 1495.84

(Note that this list only encompasses the top 15 teams by rating who have played at least 2 tournaments on questions NAQT IS-level or above in the states of NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE this season, and as such may not include all teams worthy of receiving votes)

Additionally, here are the top 15 teams by GrogerRanks in the region to inform your voting as well. (Note: poll will close at 11:59 PM Friday the 18th)

1. Hunter, 94.42
2. Ridgewood, 91.79
3. Great Valley, 90.66
4. High Tech, 89.21
5. East Brunswick, 84.73
6. JP Stevens, 83.12
7. Manheim Township, 82.42
8. Ithaca, 79.62
9. Darien, 77.13
10. Choate, 76.02
11. Wilton, 75.42
12. Staples, 72.72
13. Wilmington Charter, 69.63
14. Tower Hill, 67.10
15. Edison, 67.05

https://forms.gle/btb6WTagsdJx5Vch8

[Large Hadron Collider Jacob de la Gardie]

Poll Results (11 ballots submitted, highest and lowest vote for each team dropped)
1. Hunter A, 11 First Place Votes, 135 Points, Average Ranking of 1, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 1, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 1
2. Great Valley, 122 Points, Average Ranking of 2.55, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 2, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 4
3. Ridgewood, 117 Points, Average Ranking of 3, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 2, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 4
4. High Tech, 112 Points, Average Ranking of 3.55, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 2, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 5
5. J. P. Stevens, 93 Points, Average Ranking of 5.91, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 4, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 10
6. Manheim Township, 91 Points, Average Ranking of 5.91, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 5, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 7
7. Choate, 72 Points, Average Ranking of 8.09, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 5, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 12
8. Wilton, 65 Points, Average Ranking of 8.82, Ranked in 100% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 6, Lowest Vote (Dropped): 12
9. East Brunswick, 54 Points, Average Ranking of 9.8, Ranked in 90.91% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 8, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
10. Ithaca, 45 Points, Average Ranking of 9.13, Ranked in 72.73% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 6, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
11. Darien, 40 Points, Average Ranking of 10.56, Ranked in 81.82% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 7, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
12. Edison, 29 Points, Average Ranking of 12, Ranked in 81.82% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 8, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
13. Livingston, 26 Points, Average Ranking of 11.75, Ranked in 72.73% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 8, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
14. Hunter B, 23 Points, Average Ranking of 9.4, Ranked in 45.45% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 8, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
15. Staples, 22 Points, Average Ranking of 13, Ranked in 45.45% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 11, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked
16. Cedar Crest, 3 Points, Average Ranking of 12., Ranked in 18.18% of ballots, Highest Vote (Dropped): 12, Lowest Vote (Dropped): Unranked

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[AKKOLADE]

Hey New York schools - if you would be interested in competing in this year's NASAT, please let me know as soon as you can. You haven't played since 2018 and we'd love to have you.

[anish.kodali]

This is going to be an extremely long post, so I put a preliminary ranking of next year’s teams at the bottom if that's what interests you. Since no one has written a nationals recap post yet, I figured I would contribute some of my thoughts on this year’s performances and a look into the future. The Northeast had a ton of good finishes this year, and it’s been awesome getting to know you all and play against your teams. FYI, I put the write ups for each team in order of their midseason ranking, so this doesn’t reflect how I think the teams should be ranked.

Hunter A (2nd, 5th)
No surprise that Hunter had another pair of excellent finishes, made more impressive by their unfortunate travel experiences to HSNCT. Andrew put up insane individual performances at both nationals and is easily the best player in the Northeast (and top 5 in the country). Andrew’s support at both nationals was also impressive, with Jacob, Ian, Matthew, and Aruna putting up very strong supporting numbers. Looking to next year, I think Hunter enters as the preseason #1 given how successful the team was early in the season without Andrew, and they’ll be a top 10 team in the country.

Great Valley (t-15, 7th)
I’ll try to remain as unbiased as possible, but I think we retained our #2 spot in the Northeast this year, especially with the surprise run into the top 8 at PACE. I was our lead scorer at both nationals and put up good numbers, but my support was very strong in Nolan, Lucca, and Rahul. Nolan was a dependable secondary scorer with an eclectic base of knowledge that was extremely useful at PACE. Lucca was the best specialist on our team, with 21 powers on HSNCT only buzzing on the “NAQT” categories. Rahul was a solid fourth at HSNCT and third at PACE who helped improve our FA conversion. Next year, only Lucca from A remains, so I think we’ll definitely take a fall in the rankings, but we should remain reasonably competitive (especially on NAQT).

Ridgewood (t-39, 18th)
For the support that Aiden received this year, Ridgewood still put up great results this year. Though the HSNCT result was a bit lower than expected, making the top 24 at PACE solo is a testament to Aiden’s skill. Ridgewood’s stats at both nationals were on par with a lot of the teams above them, and this skill showed in victories over TJ, Hoover, JP Stevens, and Mira Loma, among others. I don’t think Ridgewood will recover from Aiden’s graduation next year and will drop out of the top 10 in the Northeast, though I could be proven wrong.

High Tech (t-60, 14th)
Their HSNCT run was a bit of a shocker with a first round exit to Bellarmine, but all of their prelim losses were close and all against teams that finished well in the playoffs. Their PACE performance seems much more indicative of their skill, with impressive victories over Beavercreek, IMSA, Chattahoochee, and DCDS. Max put up two great performances as their lead scorer, but the support in Kevin, Sidharth, Ranvith, and Shashwat came clutch in many close matches. High Tech seems to keep Ranvith and Kevin so I expect them to be a solid team next year, though not as highly ranked as they are this year.

JP Stevens (n/a, 24th)
JP Stevens put up a great performance at PACE finishing 24th behind their lead scorers Kushal and Nishanth. They pulled two strong upsets over High Tech and Great Valley and narrowly lost to Beavercreek in the tiebreaker for the 9-16 bracket. Kushal is a top science player in the Northeast who put up a ton of good buzzes against us, and Nishanth was strong at history as well. Looking at next year, I think JP and Hunter will enter as the clear #1 and 2, though I think Hunter is still slightly better. I also expect JP to be a top 15 team nationally next year and likely put up better results at nationals.

Manheim Township (t-24, 29th)
Manheim quietly put up another pair of strong results, adding to their long list of finishes at nats. AZ was a fantastic player as always, putting up 59 and 65 PPG at nats and recording wins over Stevenson and SCP. Their support was also decent, putting up around 20 PPG to support AZ, though they were definitely neg heavy this year. I don’t think Manheim will be a top 10 team in the Northeast next year with many players on A and B graduating, but they’ll still be a tough team to play against.

Choate (n/a, 41st)
Choate didn’t have the best performance at PACE, but they did have plenty of close games against teams like IMSA, White Station, and Stevenson that may have knocked them lower than expected. Joy was a strong top scorer with great stats at 63 PPG, and Nathan provided strong support in the form of 51 PPG. Since Choate doesn’t graduate anyone from A or B next year, they will likely enter as a top 5 team in the Northeast with potential to beat Hunter and JP Stevens next year.

Wilton (t-60, n/a)
Wilton put up a good performance at HSNCT led by their lead scorer Lukas, who had 87.50 PPG. Wilton remained closely linked with Staples as they played 2 times in the prelims (Staples won both matches) and tied for the same place. With more improvement from Lukas and their supporting cast (none of whom graduate), I think they’ll enter next season as a top 10 team with high potential to move up further.

East Brunswick (t-60, n/a)
East Brunswick had a quietly strong performance at HSNCT with a win over Santa Monica to make it to the playoffs. Tanuj put up a ton of powers with 22 in 12 games and led the team with 49 PPG. Simon, Saketh, and Amitav also provided solid support in the form of 12-23 PPG, and they were one of the strongest t-60 teams there. Since only Saketh graduates from their HSNCT team, I expect them to be in top-5 contention in the Northeast with potential for strong finishes at nats next year.

Ithaca (t-39, n/a)
Impressive performance from Ithaca with wins over Montgomery Blair, Stanford Online, and IMSA to finish t-39. Their scoring was remarkably balanced, with Julian, Rohit, Louisa, and Owen all finishing within 8 PPG of each other. They keep Julian and Owen for next season and will likely have solid support from their B team, so they should still remain a decent team next year.

Darien (t-24, n/a)
Darien’s HSNCT run was extremely impressive for where they were ranked in the midseason, especially with wins over High Tech, Freeman, and TJ A (!!). They unluckily drew Hunter and Homestead in their last two games to end their playoff runs, but it was impressive nonetheless. Darryl is the best science player in the country this year and a solid generalist, and Michael, Evan, and Rajiv all provided good support. Since Darryl and Rajiv remain next year, I expect them to be a top 5 team in the Northeast, especially if Darryl branches out beyond science.

Edison (t-60, n/a)
As I predicted in my previous post, Edison would be a solid team at nats, and they proved it with a t-60 performance. They also seemed to get an unlucky prelim draw, playing TJ A, Carmel, Freeman, and Chattahoochee in their four losses. Yash was their top scorer with 44 PPG and Ali, Avinash, and Vinay provided solid support in the form of 10-20 PPG. Yash and Ali, their two top scorers, graduate next year, but the team could have a solid rebuild centering around Avinash and Vinay. They’ll remain competitive in the Northeast.

Livingston (t-10, n/a)
Livingston was the surprise of HSNCT along with TJ B, finishing t-10 and upsetting Bellarmine and Carmel. They were in the weird situation of being a single elimination team with a double bye to start playoffs, but they took full advantage of it to race to a 10th place finish. Robert Wang was their top scorer with 36 powers and 78 PPG, putting him in contention for best freshman this year. Since no one graduates, they’ll enter very high in next year’s preseason poll and contend for the #1 spot.

Hunter B (t-82, 32nd)
Hunter B didn’t have an insane performance like last year’s team, but they put up great stats en route to their finishes. Evan’s 75 PPG at HSNCT as a freshman is extremely impressive and he could be a strong contender for their A team next year. Ian put up another powerful performance at PACE with 32 powers and 86 PPG. I can’t really predict where Hunter B will end up next year, but given their previous success I expect good things for them.

Staples (t-60, n/a)
Staples and Wilton are very similar teams as I expressed earlier, and they’ll remain close to each other next year. Aalok is a great player who put up 64 PPG with 14 powers at HSNCT and had some decent support with Oliver and Thomas. I’ll expect them to be a top 10 team in the Northeast since Aalok remains, although they’ll suffer with the loss of their current supporting cast.

Cedar Crest (t-39, n/a)
Although Cedar Crest somewhat lucked their way into the t-39 with the weird double bye situation at HSNCT, they still had a good run on the way with wins over Northfield, Copley, and Langley before exiting to TJ A. Danny had another great performance with 70 PPG and 17 powers, though his supporting cast wasn’t really there. However, since they all remain next year, they’ll be the #1 preseason favorite in Pennsylvania and likely top 10 in the Northeast.


My Preseason Rankings for the 2022-2023 Season:
1. Hunter A
2. JP Stevens A
3. Darien A
4. Livingston A
5. Choate A
6. East Brunswick A
7. Cedar Crest A
8. Wilton A
9. Staples A
10. Hunter B

[robby_redford]

8. Wilton A

I would say Wilton is pretty underranked - Lukas is an extremely strong generalist who's also put up 3-figure PPG's in almost every regular season tournament his team has been to. In addition, Wilton loses no one on their team next year, so they'll have nowhere to go but up. Definitely a top-tier team we'll need to look out for.

[maxryanb]

Next year:
Ranvith is very good, beyond the extent to which his stats suggest (I take most of his lit and vfa, he has decent generalism, could be around where I was beginning of Junior year by the time the season starts). Otherwise, I basically agree with what Anish said.

1. JP Stevens A (could be either 1 or 2)
2. Hunter A (between 1-3)
3. Choate A (3-5)
4. Darien A (2-6)
5. Livingston A (3-7)
6. East Brunswick A (3-6)
7. Wilton A (5-9)
8. High Tech A (5-9)
9. Cedar Crest A (unsure)
10. Staples A (7-not top 10)