2023 MSNCT Predictions

[powerneg]

Since the 2023 MSNCT will be taking place in less than ten days, I was wondering if anyone had any predictions on the final standings and top scorers.

Edit: I am running a prediction poll here: https://forms.gle/GUneJQfCm8JnYn9h6
The most accurate answers will be announced in a reply to this post, hopefully on the day after MSNCT

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

1. Chenery
2. Challenger Strawberry Park
3. Cooper
4. Middlesex
5 Burleigh Manor A
Burleigh Manor B
7 Sycamore A
Meyzeek
9 Noe A
Oak Valley A
Anderson A
Sycamore B
Greenhill A
Seoul Foreign A
Washington Connections
That's my top sixteen, albeit with the caveat that I am looking almost exclusively at NAQT stats and MSQBRank and haven't seen these teams play this season.

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

Top 20 Scorers (In no particular order):
Andrew Gao, Chenery
Padraig Finan, Washington Connections
Arman Makhani, Greenhill
Evan Ting, Sycamore
Grady Noble, North
Matthew Yang, Burleigh Manor
Sreekar Vajjha, Classen SAS
Andrew Li, Emerson
Aidan Younessan, Middlesex
Haughton Neppl, Cooper
Eshaan Sombhatta, Cooper
Sudhanva Belur, Challenger Strawberry Park
Gregory Zeldovich, Chenery
Alex Ewart, Annunciation Orthodox
Harini Ramakrishnan, Redwood
Samin Asif, Beckendorff
Jacob Wu, Oak Valley
Kieran Torpey, Hunter
Adrish Bhattacharyya, Churchill
Meghna Rao, Churchill
(And me, because I'm not biased towards myself in any way)
I apologize in advance if I made any errors, this took longer than I thought it would!

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

It goes without saying I am sure I missed/overlooked many fabulous players who deserve a spot on the list, as well.

[matthewspatrick]

Forget all that. The more important prediction: who will win my annual friendly against Richmond Middle School (Hanover, NH)?

[jriddle]

1. Chenery
2. Challenger-Strawberry Park
3. Middlesex A
4. Burleigh Manor A
5. Cooper
6. Burleigh Manor B
7. Hunter
8. Meyzeek
9. River Trail
10. Anderson
Other contenders: Clarke, Oak Valley, Washington Connections, Noe, Hopkins, Sycamore, Churchill, South Forsyth

Playing HS tournaments and/or being highly specialized will go a long way in the playoffs

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

Which two teams is the friendly between?

[BulldogBuzzers]

Patrick Matthews made the only prediction for MSNCT that matters two years ago...for the third year running...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSPNQ82Sq4E
(probably an extra helping for anyone who plays Chenery or Challenger Strawberry Park, who I'm proud to say our team put up three figures against, in a match that finished 14 questions at halftime...)

[CCMMSQB_2089]

Not exactly predictions, though some teams and players on them to definitely be on the lookout for. A lot of impressive new teams and old returning powerhouses! Here are some I believe will perform well at MSNCT:

Chenery is not to be ignored as #1 on MSQBrank and as last year's runner-up, and since then, they've gotten even better... and coming to tourneys with four players now, too. Andrew Gao is unbelievable- he made it to the semis at this year's IPNCT, which is no small feat considering that high schoolers were playing as well. Greg Zeldovich has significantly improved in the past year, and even overtook Andrew in PPG during the Longfellow Academic Tournament to Endallwars in the prelims, and both averaging over 100 PPG, 26.65 PPB, and 616.50 PP20TUH (if the H-M limit wasn't something, perhaps we need a Gao-Zeldovich limit). In every MS-specific tournament they have played full in this year, they have not dropped a game.

Challenger-Strawberry Park is phenomenal. Unfortunately there is not as large of a sample size of schools played compared to Chenery flying all over the country or other teams playing online tourneys, but they are #2 on MSQBrank and had 26.42 PPB on MS-44. Sudhanva Belur led a team to defeat Andrew Gao at Sacramento Pre-Nats with 115.71 PPG and Neha Pandya's excellent neg control is commendable (a notable stat line of 44/8/0 at Sacramento Fall). The two have a bit of a tendency to shadow each other (though this seems to have improved since last year), but playing together they are definitely a terrifying team to face. As well, Karthika Jayakumar put up over 50 PPG even with Neha on the team, and Thiyagesh Venkatesan and Dhanyaa Chakravarthy both perform incredibly well, which goes to show how deep CSP's program goes. I'm not sure how it'll be at MSNCT given they usually split, but each CSP team will be something worth to be on the lookout for.

I remember facing Cooper and Colvin Run a bit much in my memory during COVID... this is one scary team, as a) Eshaan Sombhatta plays for Cooper now, and b) Haughton Neppl is putting up insane amounts of PPG- the two broke the H-M limit at TJNAT and MAKEMAKE National Mirror (will teams stop doing this this year y'all are too good). I'm not quite sure what is "full" for Cooper, but they have notably beaten Middlesex, Hopkins, Sycamore, and other very impressive teams to go undefeated at MAKEMAKE National Mirror. Keep them in mind for contention.

Middlesex is amazing, and this is not because I played for Middlesex, but because they legitimately deserve the attention. In every MS-specific tourney they played in, about 3 teams from MMS place in the t5 consistently, showing the depth of their program. From the A team, Aiden Younessian leads a strong and well-balanced team. From the B team, Robert McCulloch has one of the highest PPGs of any MMS player all-time, with well-rehearsed supporting teammates as well. They did beat the A team at Bergen Winter, too. Don't count MMS out; they're an annually and consistently strong program that should perform well.

Burleigh Manor's A and B teams are both always very impressive. Many players from their 8th and 4th place-finishing teams at MSNCT did not yet graduate, including Satvik Jain, Sahil Prasad, and Henry Berger from BMMS B (all 7th graders!) and Shravan Yoegentharan and Matthew Yang from BMMS A. Their B team put up 26.16 PPB on MS-43 in the Burleigh Manor Middle School Invitational and won, and seems to have finished consistently t5 in every NAQT tourney this year so far regardless of MS-specific or not.

Churchill annually brings a good showing and this year has caused some trouble with Chenery's near-perfect game record, which could be interesting. Meghna Rao, Nicholas Munkhbataar, Amy Lu, and Jeremiah Choi make a great team together and have performed consistently well in the NorCal circuit. Also of note is Adrish Bhattacharyya, their B team's lead scorer.

Other teams that I don't know as well statistically, but should make it quite far into playoffs: Sycamore and their player Evan Ting (dominant in TQBA circuits), River Trail, Oak Valley (dominates the Southern California circuit; at their last tourney had 610 PP20TUH), Anderson and their player Vidyut Arvind (they've finished t3 at every TQBA they played this year), Hunter (won over MMS B and played a final that went down to the last tossup against Middlesex A at Darien Spring), South Forsyth (lost by only a cycle to River Trail), Noe, Meyzeek, Hopkins (very well balanced team), Clarke (put up quite a few upsets at MAKEMAKE National Mirror and SPRING)

A few shoutouts to solo teams/players you should pay attention to... there's a lot this year, keep an eye out on these players: Padraig Finan (Washington Connections), Sreekar Vajjha (Classen SAS), Grady Noble (North)

Most of the teams above I believe perform at extremely high levels not just regionally, but also against teams outside of their region. Of course, QB is a high variance game and anything could happen... there are many amazing teams out there that I have likely missed. Best of luck everyone!

[Metacarpal]

1. Chenery
An incredible team - they broke 100 PPG with two players on the team at the 2023 Longfellow LATTE.

2. Challenger - Strawberry Park A
Routinely breaks H-M (even broke it on an IS set)

3. Cooper A
Also routinely breaks H-M (MAKEMAKE National Mirror; Haughton, Ray, Eshaan are all capable of soloing)

4. Middlesex A
Aiden Younessian is very good, and so is Anika Bansal, who beat me and Padraig Finan of Washington Connections to win the Winter Scrim Tourney.

5. Anderson A
My teammates are pretty good at scaling from what I've seen in practice. I agree, it's still biased.

6. Burleigh Manor B
An incredibly balanced team with Satvik Jain, Sahil Prasad, Henry Berger, and Rohan Sengupta all making major contributions. Just not 100% about their scaling.

7. Burleigh Manor A
Matthew and Shravan are also amazing players and although this team does not do AS well as BMMS Bhu, they certainly deserve recognition.

8. Hunter
I am being realistic. If I were being an Anderson student I would force them to be 160th /j Kieran, Romir and Theo are very good players

9. Meyzeek A
Mahadev is really good and other players also contribute to the team.

10. River Trail A
Best science and geography team in the country, also very good history - literature player is good but may have holes in there.

[Ocean=Soup]

With MSNCT coming in less than 2 weeks I wanted to throw my hat into the ring and put my predicts for nats this year. Well predicts is a strong word, this is an excuse for me to shoutout a bunch of teams I think are very good and deserve recognition.

T3:

Obviously there are some elephants in the room, namely Chenery, CSP (Challenger-Strawberry Park) and Cooper

I think these teams are almost unanimously the top 3 with Chenery and CSP generally regarded as the T2.

Chenery:

Honestly what isn’t there to say about Chenery, they are a fantastic team. They placed T2 last year and have had insane levels of improvement this year, notably with Greg/Grisha Zeldovich he is easily one of the most improved players in the last year, he is a phenomenal player. His myth knowledge is unironically through the roof and has amazing knowledge in general effortlessly covering a lot of holes that Andrew doesn’t cover. Obviously you can’t mention Chenery without mentioning Andrew Gao though, he placed 22nd at the HS IPNCT this year, an incredible feat. He is an amazing generalist and easily unanimously regarded as the best msqb player at the moment. His knowledge is honestly insane and combined with Greg/Grisha they make an incredible team. I don’t know too much about the rest of their nats team which I believe is Jeffery and Fergus, we played them once this year at Mayflower Cup and while Andrew and Greg/Grisha are the stars of the show they do contribute to an already phenomenal team which is impressive. Another thing you can’t forget to mention about Chenery is their incredible scaling ability, they are able to effortlessly power and score on Regs and even Regs+ sets with their abilities almost entirely unmatched, they are ranked 68th on Grogerranks at the moment which is just incredible, while they’re obviously amazing at the MS level the gap between Chenery and other teams on harder sets is huge. Chenery is a team that makes me sweat everytime I see them on our schedule and I will be thoroughly shocked if they are not at the very least in the t5 this year.

Challenger-Strawberry Park:

The rest of the analysis are not gonna be as long as Chenery’s as I just don’t know enough about a lot of other teams. If a team you believe is t10 or t20 is not mentioned it’s likely because I don’t have enough information about them to make a fair analysis.

CSP is undeniably in the t3 this year. Neha and Sudhanva are absolutely insane, both averaging amazing ppgs while also having many other solid players. I have never played them personally but seeing their stats alone is enough to make me very, very scared of them they are also 73rd on Grogerranks putting them only a little bit behind Chenery. Obviously we need to talk about the elephant in the room, their victory over Chenery at the Sacramento Pre-Nationals Middle School tournament. Important things to note about these games is that Chenery was playing with just Andrew Gao and CSP was missing Neha as well as the fact that this tournament was being run on MS level questions whereas MSNCT playoffs run on more difficult questions. So if they did play in the MSNCT finals it would be an incredibly close and intense match. However what we do know is that a team of Sudhanva, Karthika, Anika and Anish beat a team of just Andrew Gao 565-245 and 495-235. Which is a feat not to be undersold. WIth those results I will be very scared to see CSP on our schedule in the future and will be very surprised if I don’t see them very high.

Cooper:

Cooper is probably the top team I have the least knowledge of but looking at their stats I almost spit out my water. Cooper almost has too many good players to count it seems, their stats are all amazing though I do have to shout of Haughton, Eshaan and Ray all have amazing stats and seem very formidable to play. Having seen Haughton’s history stats, Eshaan’s Science from MAKEMAKE I will say I am terrified. While I sadly don’t have much else to say as I haven’t played them I believe they are an incredible team which will have a good run at nats. Though I believe that Chenery and CSP edge them out slightly I still anticipate them doing extremely well.

“Solo” Teams:

There are many good solo players this year and I feel like in general solo players don’t get as much love as they should so here’s my shoutout to Padraig, Sreekar and Grady. (I realize Sreekar and Grady will have teammates at MSNCT I will acknowledge that).

Padraig (WACA):

Padraig and by extension WACA is a top team this year with strong potential to do well. Obviously he is held back to some extent because he is a solo player but Padraig is still incredibly formidable and flatout good. I am excited to see where he goes this year.

Sreekar (Classen SAS):

While Sreekar will be playing MSNCT with teammates I have only even seen him play solo and he is incredibly good. We have played him 3 teams and we are currently 2-1 but all games were absolutely close and could have swung either way. He is an incredibly good player and I am sure we’ll see good results from Classen this year.

Grady (North):

While Grady like Sreekar will be playing MSNCT with teammates I have also only ever seen him play solo. And to no one’s surprise he is phenomenal, he is an amazing player and will definitely go far. (Special shoutout to Idaho and Potato Power)

Other Top Teams:
Obviously this is not a comprehensive list of every top team, but these are teams I have personally played and or seen in play that I believe will do well at MSNCT. There are definitely other very good teams not mentioned!


Middlesex A:

Oh my god…Middlesex A is terrifying. When I saw Anika play for the first time in the winter scrim tournament I ran with Sreekar I was terrified to say the least when Anika narrowly beat Vidyut (From Anderson A) and Padraig (WACA). So imagine my surprise when I learn they Middlesex A has other insane players like Anika (Shoutout to Aiden for being very very good as well, Aiden absolutely terrifies me), lets just say watching Middlesex A make a comeback and then dust Clarke at the MAKEMAKE National Mirror haunts my nightmares. Middlesex A is a veryyyyyyy good team ranked #4 right now on MSQBRank and I expect to see a great MSNCT run from them.

P.S I just realized Anika is a 7th grader, very excited to see how she does next year.

Anderson A:

Anderson is a very formidable team, we’ve sadly only played them once this year with an unfull team (and got absolutely destroyed). They are very good, and despite this I hope to play them at nats. Not because they aren’t terrifying and amazing but because of our little rivalry. Vidyut is incredible and I am very scared of him and Anderson by extension. I am going to be filled with a mix of sheer panic and excitement if I see them on our schedule at MSNCT.



Sycamore A:

Sycamore is insane, all I have to say really is 2 words, Evan Ting. Evan Ting is an incredible player, the amount of times I have been stomped by him and or watch him stomp Clarke is terrifying. He is an amazing generalist and I am sure him and Sycamore will do amazing at nats.

River Trail A:

River Trail, what isn’t there to say about River Trail, watching my hopes and dreams of Clarke getting first at SPRING II go down the drain as they lost to River Trail haunts my nightmares. When you talk about balanced teams River Trail has to be on your radar, River Trail is disgustingly balanced and Kaiden’s science coverage is literally amazing, Kaiden is so good at sci it scares me. I really don’t want to play River Trail at nats and I am sure they will do very well.

Churchill A:

CHURCHILL!!!!!!! Churchill scares me deeply. Meghna, Nicki and Amy have some sort of Churchill psychic connection where they can all buzz on the same clues, all their coverage is soooooooooo good though. Having modded for them, probably the most out of any team I’ve modded for, they are incredibly good. They scare me, all their coverage is just insane. (Jeremiah is also very good but I haven’t seen him play very much). I hope I don’t have to play Churchill at nats but if I do I will be very excited to see our westcoast sister school.

“Us”

Clarke:

While I am hard on the team to some degree I do think we can do well at nats. I am also excited to go to Chicago with some of my favorite people to see some of my favorite people, but time to get into the analysis. Alvan, Alvan is insanely good at history, geo, myth and pss he is incredibly good for someone who started qb this year, he scales incredibly well to regs and I do hope his scaling abilities come into play at nats. Aadi, Aadi is incredibly good at sci, lit and fa, he is an ex-white station player and I am very excited that he moved to Clarke because, wow. He is a great dude and a very good player. Shishir, Shishir is incredibly good as a lit and fa player (he’s also very good at trash), Shishir is a close friend of mine and very good at qb especially for someone who started this year. I remember the times in 7th grade where he would call me a nerd, how the tables have turned, but legitimately he is very good. Amal, Amal my co-captain and one of my best friends, this year would’ve been hell without him. He is a great person and I am proud to play with him. While he doesn’t really have a “main” he is amazing at plugging the holes in our team and having great general knowledge, he could probably also fl any hindu myth. All in all I really hope our experience playing hs tournaments helps us at nats and I hope we can make at least t30.

Well that’s the end of my analysis, good luck to everyone going to MSNCT, I’ll be excited to meet you all!

So all in all, teams that you should look out for are.

Chenery
CSP
Cooper
Classen
WACA
North
Anderson
Middlesex
RTMS
Sycamore
Churchill
(And hopefully Clarke)

[Halinaxus]

Just wanted to drop by and note that Sycamore has yet to play their top three players (Evan Ting, Gavin Sigua, and Sameer Zaidi) on the same team this year; they've always been split up between A and B (usually by grade). This has manifested itself in Sycamore B probably being overranked in statistical methodologies like msqbranks while Sycamore A is probably underranked.

I don't know if they plan on stacking the A team for MSNCT or spreading out like they've been doing all year, but if they choose the former I think they might be a team to watch.

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

I honestly, genuinely forgot that Cooper has another player who went 60/30/32 this season. The top five teams are stacked!

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

Also forgot about Anderson, they could also very well obtain a top 10 finish.

[PadraigF]

1. Chenery If I had to bet a million dollars on the winner of the 2023 MSNCT, I would choose Chenery Middle School. The 2022 IPNCT second place finisher -- and a seventh grader, Andrew Gao, is probably arguably the best individual middle schooler this year. And if you think Andrew carries, your wrong: the team is also backed by Greg "Grisha" Zeldovich as well as a few other on and off players. Andrew and Greg compliment each other in every way and literally produce an unstoppable force. I mean...Andrew Gao and Greg Zeldovich literally both humiliated the H-M limit at LATTE, getting 100 ppg EACH. No such higher ppb by two individuals for one tournament on one team has ever been recorded.

2. Challenger-Strawberry Park A In this day and age in MSQB, two person carrier teams are common. Neha Pandya and Sudhanva Belur are literally another Andrew and Greg. Neha and Sudhanva are both renowned generalists, and they frequently play on hard sets against hard teams and place/preform well. When I played them at IAC, they were unstoppable in pretty much every category. Honestly CSP has a chance for number one-- but it will be close. Additionally, their Anika Ganu can also cover Science and who knows what their fourth player has in place for them.

3. Cooper A Cooper is, ill say, Interesting. Having a good program years back, they only recently started getting hot again. Eshaan Sombhatta, Haughton Neppl, and Ray Zhao are an unstoppable force. Haughton is extremely well rounded and can routinely power history and literature. Eshaan is also probably one of the best Science players this year and knows a LOOOOT. However, we cannot forget Ray Zhao: At LATTE, he had over 100 ppb without Haughton and Eshaan there to support him. Cooper is also the last team on this list that I think has a shot at winning the whole thing.

4. Middlesex A Middlesex middle school has always been a strong force in quizbowl. With their amazing coach Ken Romeo, Middlesex definitely has something to put on the table this. Led by their well rounded generalist Aiden Younessian, Middlesex A is definitely ready to do a lot of damage this year. I could go on and on stating all their stats but I gotta study myself :)

5. Burleigh Manor B Although consisting of mostly, if not all, Seventh graders, the Burleigh Manor However it will be interesting to find out if the seventh graders are capable of scaling on MSNCT playoffs.

6. Burleigh Manor A To be completely honest, I dont know much about the Burleigh Manor A team, but I do know that they have Matthew Yang, who is a great player who can scale.

7. River Trail Arguably the best team in Georgia this year, River Trail is one of the last fully four player balanced teams this year. I know for a fact they have strong Sci and Geohist coverage knowing my fellow members in the Middle School Quizbowl Discussion Server.

8. Meyzeek A Man...Kentucky teams I, and many other people, happen to know nothing about! This placement is already sounding kind of fake because I have no clue but im just gonna put them here!

9. Hunter Hunter is one of those teams that just gets stronger as the year goes on. I know for a fact due to NHBB that they have strong history coverage, but sadly, other then that, I do not know much about them. However, based on stats, my prediction stands firm.

10. Clarke Tenth spot was a tough one. Clarke Middle School has rapidly increased in strength later in the year and they have put up good numbers so I believe they could do a lot next week at Rosemont.

Alright, so there it is! Daily reminder to watch out for your solo terminators in no particular order, this year we have Grady Noble, Padraig Finan (me), and Sreekar Vajjha.

[matthewspatrick]

Which two teams is the friendly between?

Assuming this was in response to my post...

Every year starting in 2015, I have a standing match with the crew at Richmond MS from Hanover, NH. It started when one of their players challenged me to a match, solo, and I told him he'd better get some help. I ended up taking on their whole A & B teams. In subsequent years, I've taken on their two teams combined, or just one team at a time, for one or two games. I'm pretty sure we only missed one year. It's typically at MSNCT, but we've done a couple online.

Anyway, we'll be renewing the series this year at MSNCT, during the scrimmages. If you're around and want to watch, come on in

Patrick Matthews made the only prediction for MSNCT that matters two years ago...for the third year running...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSPNQ82Sq4E
(probably an extra helping for anyone who plays Chenery or Challenger Strawberry Park, who I'm proud to say our team put up three figures against, in a match that finished 14 questions at halftime...)

Always

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

Assuming I can, I will absolutely check this match out!

[Joshua Li]

It’s time for my predictions (pls don’t flame me)

1. Chenery
This is a very obvious first seed because Chenery has just so much manpower. Greg Zeldovich and Andrew Gao broke 100 ppg on the SAME TEAM and Andrew’s the best player in ms qb.

2. CSP
Neha has some EXCELLENT neg control along with some of the best geo in the nation. Sudhanva is widely known as the fastest buzzer racer in current qb, and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Neha and Sudhanva are both top 10 players in the world right now.

3. Cooper
To complete the 3 Cs, we have Cooper from Virginia. Haughton alone makes this team deadly, but now you have Eshaan. Haughton is a 100 ppg threat, and Eshaan can give you 50-60 pts. This team has potential to go FAR, and they are the 3rd and last team with a chance, in my opinion

4. Middlesex
Even though Middlesex’s chance of winning nats is slim, they are still obviously a t4 team and it’s hard to put them elsewhere. Aiden is just, great. 100+ ppg, great power%, what more can you ask for out of this team?

5. Burleigh Manor B
A lot of people say this team may not be able to scale, but your a team of 7th graders who everyone knows is good and went up the rankings to where people think they are, chances are they’re good at scaling.

6. Burleigh Manor A
Matthew Yang is, to say the least, a top 10 player in the world and a bonafide superstar. Burleigh Manor A is just a great team, and they could make a run to top 3.

7. River Trail A
This is the most balanced team in the world. Kaiden Lee is the best science player in the world, Sheehan Banka is the leading scorer with 50 ppg over slugfest, Ray Clarnet is a very solid lit player and Anoop Valavoju is a very solid literature player. 3 players averaged more than 40 ppg at slugfest, and all 5 players averaged over 16 ppg.

8. Hunter
Idk a lot about Hunter, besides that they are the best NY team (sorry Vidyut!) and that they have a pretty balanced roster.

9. Meyzeek
Idk a lot about Meyzeek, but they are a very good Kentucky team! They’ve been good for many years already, so it wouldn’t be a surprise that they place top 10 this year.

10. Churchill
Choosing these last 3 from 8-10 was extremely hard, but Churchill sneaks in. Despite not being as good as they were 2 years ago, this team is still amazing. Meghna is obviously amazing along with Nicholas and Jeremiah. This team, I believe, rounds out top 10

Honorable mentions to:
Classen SAS
Anderson
Washington Connections
Sycamore
Oak Valley

Player wise, Padraig Finan takes the top spot for me. He’s just so good and he’s literally an Arin Parsa reincarnation with the high ppb and the amazing power rate and toss ups. I seriously wish him great luck. Vidyut Arvind and Sreekar Vajjha follow him in 2nd and 3rd place (idk who’s going to avg more). Sreekar is just so good, and the fact that he can solo teams and win is just so impressive. Coming from a quiz bowl deprived state and bringing Classen SAS so high is something not anyone can do. Lastly, Vidyut Arvind. He’s gotta be up there, and even with teammates, he finds a way to always lead in ppg and such a high ppg. He’s just so consistent. He finds a way to impress me and a lot of people every time.

[Joshua Li]

Oh, players who I think will average over 100 ppg:
Padraig Finan
Sreekar Vajjha
Vidyut Arvind
Andrew Gao
Matthew Yang
Grady Noble
Haughton Neppl
Aiden Younessian
Evan Ting
Anish Raja
Aditya Pippala
Vishnu Rao

[komododragon655]

I will also be shouting out some teams who will certainly do very well this weekend! Also, I will include the MSQBRank pre-nats rankings below:

MSQBRank Pre-Nats Rankings

Linked here. These rankings include current t100 rankings, hard set rankings only (defined as any non-novice/IS-A/MS set), and MSNCT-only rankings.

Some analysis: The rankings have largely remained the same since our April rankings. With the exception of Cooper, the top four teams have been about the same for the past year. A score above 114 points was achieved ten (!!) times this season at ten distinct tournaments—7 times by my team, Chenery, twice by Challenger-Strawberry Park, and once by Cooper. For reference, the best scores last year (even after MSNCT) were around 113 points. As a whole, the middle school quizbowl circuit may be more competitive among the top 100 teams, with the cutoff for t100 this year being 62.47 points as opposed to about 56 last year. This year's MSNCT will certainly be very interesting, and I don't expect the MSQBRank rankings to perfectly model how every team finishes! As always, there will be teams who outperform their ranking!

Teams I'd like to shout out, in order roughly from best to worst:

- Challenger-Strawberry Park was good last year, and definitely has not gotten any worse. The already excellent duo of Neha Pandya and Sudhanva Belur gained more amazing history coverage in Karthika Jayakumar most notably. CSP beat Mira Loma A at Sacramento Spring on SHOW-ME twice. With over 23 PPB on the regs set, it's clear they can scale. Their team without Neha did also beat me twice two Saturdays ago. Sudhanva is dominant on MS questions; Neha is dominant on HS questions. This will help them at nationals no matter the difficulty of the questions and no matter the strength of their opponent.

- Cooper is the best team in the DMV this year. Led primarily by probably the best history player in the nation- Haughton Neppl, the team has very, very good support in Eshaan Sombhatta and Ray Zhao. I believe they first played full at the MAKEMAKE National Mirror which I ran in March. They showed their full power, getting 120 powers and breaking the H-M limit on their way to a resounding 10-0 victory.

- Middlesex will continue being Middlesex; in other words, their nationally elite program will continue doing well at MSNCT. Despite getting eliminated from playoffs by close losses in the past two years, I'm confident that this year's team can scale and will go far. Middlesex started off their season with a 12th place performance at PHSAT. They were also one win away from making playoffs at Darien Winter - these tournaments had some of the best teams in the Northeast in attendance.

- Burleigh Manor A/B. Similar to Middlesex, Burleigh Manor will keep being Burleigh Manor. It's amazing how they've kept teams mostly consistent by the year, and given that Burleigh Manor A and B finished in 8th and 4th places respectively last year, I expect them to do about the same or better this year. Their B team has suffered much fewer losses than their A team, which might contribute to why they're ranked higher right now. Burleigh Manor A's players Matthew Yang and Shravan Yoagentharan are definitely not to be overlooked, though. The school's neverending supply of good players (and specifically history players) will round out Burleigh Manor A and B to create insane teams at nationals!

- Hopkins really impressed me when they played at the MAKEMAKE National Mirror. They were the only team that could really come close to Cooper on MS. The team was led in scoring by Abhiraam Girish (a sixth grader!), and Theenash Sengupta is probably the best middle school science player I have seen this year. Their ability to scale will also help them in playoffs. They had the second best PPB (behind noted good team Challenger-Strawberry Park) at Cal Cup #3 and actually beat some of the best NorCal MS teams- CSP, Churchill, and Redwood in powers.

- Churchill is probably my favorite MS team this season. Their A team, Meghna Rao, Nicholas Munkhbaatar, Amy Lu, and Jeremiah Choi has great chemistry and will do great at nationals. Coach Hansen is one of the best coaches in the nation (along with Coach Romeo (Middlesex) and Coach Huang (Longfellow) most notably). From starting off our season with a narrow 5-point win against them and having two games that were essentially last tossup wins against them in-person, I'm acutely aware of their strengths in literature and history. Their depth will definitely take them far in playoffs!

- Padraig Finan (and by extension, WACA) is definitely one of the top 5 middle schoolers this year. Padraig has soloed every tournament he's played and he's done incredible- winning some tournaments and making finals in more. Despite being a solo player, Padraig's PPB is very, very good. Getting 17.48 PPB solo on SSNCT is a feat not many other (if any) middle school players this year could accomplish!

- Clarke, our fellow Massachusetts middle school quizbowl team will make a big run in playoffs and pull off multiple upsets. Alvan Hossain, who was only played for this season, has cemented himself as one of the best players this year (with incredible, unmatched strength in PSS). Their second place performance at SPRING II as only a duo of Alvan and Shishir Bharadwaj leaves no doubt in my mind that this. team. can. scale. As if their second-place finish at SPRING II, which had some of the best MS teams in the country (and some teams I mentioned here) wasn't enough, they have dominated high school events in Massachusetts. Due to the lack of MS quizbowl in our state, they have been forced to adapt to IS level questions, which worked very well for them at Mayflower Cup (t7) and BAIT (2nd).

- Classen SAS, mainly led by Sreekar Vajjha is similarly as good as scaling. Sreekar is mainly a literature/history based generalist and he is very good at those categories. From playing him twice at MSPAINT, I can also tell he is very good at current events- this will certainly help at MSNCT. Sreekar also gave me a very close game in the finals of MSPAINT (290-210).

Honorable mentions: Oak Valley A (they absolutely destroyed the set here), Hunter (they have been on an insane improvement arc, just look at their stats), and Sycamore A (Sycamore has no drought of talent in Evan Ting, Sameer Zaidi, Gavin Sigua, and many others).

Good luck to everyone at MSNCT! I look forward to seeing everyone there!

[1992 in spaceflight]

I read for Sreekar at the Washington Middle School Tournament. Sreekar was already adapting to playing on a clock (I think he was using WIMSEY, the Washington middle school tournament, as practice). So yeah, the kid's legit. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Classen makes a deep run at MSNCT.

[powerneg]

Thank you to the 19 people who responded to the poll, here are the results:
Please note that one ballot showing the highest and lowest results for teams and players has been dropped to remove outliers.

FOR TEAMS:

1. Chenery, Belmont, MA (16 first-place votes, lowest 2)
2. Challenger Strawberry Park A, San Jose, CA (2 first place votes, lowest 3)
3. Cooper A, McLean, VA (1 first place vote, lowest 5)
4. Middlesex A, Darien, CT (highest 3, lowest 7)
5. Burleigh Manor A, Ellicott City, MD (highest 2, ranked on 18 ballots)
6. Burleigh Manor B, Ellicott City, MD (highest 4, ranked on 18 ballots)
7. Anderson A, New York City, NY (highest 6, ranked on 9 ballots)
8. Sycamore A, Indianapolis, IN (highest 5, ranked on 9 ballots)
9. Meyzeek, Louisville, KY (highest 6, ranked on 11 ballots)
10. River Trail A, Johns Creek, GA (highest 7, ranked on 16 ballots)

Also receiving votes
Hunter, New York City, NY
Oak Valley A, San Diego, CA
Hopkins, Fremont, CA
Washington Connections, Tumwater, WA
Clarke, Lexington, MA
Churchill A, Carmichael, CA
Greenhill A, Addison, TX
St. Mark's A, Dallas, TX
Longfellow A, Falls Church, VA
BASIS Pflugerville, Pflugerville, TX

[powerneg]

Continuing the results from the poll,

FOR PLAYERS
1. Padraig Finan, Washington Connections (10 first place votes, low 3, ranked on 18 ballots)
2. Sreekar Vajjha, Classen School of Advanced Studies (1 first place vote, low 3, ranked on 14 ballots)
3. Andrew Gao, Chenery (7 first place votes, low 5, ranked on 14 ballots)
4. Grady Noble, North (high 2, low, 5, ranked on 9 ballots)
5. Vidyut Arvind, The Anderson School (high 2, low 5, ranked on 8 ballots)

Also receiving votes:
Haughton Neppl, Cooper (1 first place vote, low 5, ranked on 4 ballots)
Aiden Younessian, Middlesex (high 2, low 5, ranked on 5 ballots)
Evan Ting, Sycamore (high 3, low 4, ranked on 3 ballots)
Greg Zeldovich, Chenery (high 2, low 5, ranked on 3 ballots)
Neha Pandya, Challenger Strawberry Park (only 4, ranked on 3 ballots)
Sudhanva Belur, Challenger Strawberry Park (high 4, low 5, ranked on 3 ballots)
Sameer Zaidi, Sycamore (high 4, low 5, ranked on 3 ballots)
Matthew Yang, Burleigh Manor (only 5, ranked on 2 ballots)
Arman Makhan, Greenhill (only 3, ranked on 1 ballot)
Alex Ewart, Annunciation Orthodox (only 4, ranked on 1 ballot)
Harini Ramakrishnan, Redwood (only 4, ranked on 1 ballot)
Anish Raja, South Forsyth (only 5, ranked on 1 ballot)
Eshaan Sombhatta, Cooper (only 5, ranked on 1 ballot)

I would like to thank the 19 people who voted on this poll, which included Alvan Hossain, Spencer Manning, Grady Noble, Jackson Riddle, Bryce Cruise, Samin Asif, Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan, Sreekar Vajjha, Amory Kaufman, Orin Das, and Theodore Kronby.
Congratulations to all players and teams who were voted to appear on this list, and good luck to everyone playing at MSNCT this weekend!