2024 MSNCT Predictions

[diewalisischeinsel]

The 2023-2024 Quizbowl Season has just started, and its time for some early predictions.

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[doolittleraids]

1. River Trail Middle School - River Trail still retains its core. Sheehan Banka who is crazy at literature and Kaiden Lee who is one of the best sci players in the nation are still in middle school. They got 2nd in the nation last year.

2. Burleigh Manor Middle School - BMMS retains their full team and they already were in the Super Seven last year. Satvik covers most of history and his teammates Sahil and Henry also cover some history, literature, and fine arts.

3. Sycamore - Sycamore, like BMMS, retains their full team and got 8th place last year. Their main scorer, Evan Ting, is insanely good at every subject and they have a lot of potential for a top 3 finish.

4. Hopkins Middle School- Hopkins Middle School did lose 2 of its best players this year, but still retains its top scorer, Abhiram Girish. There is not much more I know about the school but I know that they can scale and do well against top teams like these.

5. CSP- CSP got 5th last year, but they have a new rising star: Karthika Jayakumar. She is absolutely insane and shows a lot of promise this year.

Prediction for All stars:
1. Evan Ting
2. Satvik Jain
3. Sheehan Banka
4. Kaiden Lee
5. Anika Bansal
6. Abhiraam Girish
7. Karthika Jayakumar
8. Arjun Vijaykumar
9. Arjun Singampalli

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[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

I.
River Trail
Having had the excellent experience of playing with Sheehan and Kaiden, I can say with confidence that River Trail will win this year.
II.
Burleigh Manor
Statistically dominant last year, but in a hypothetical championship match I think that the frequency of science and geography questions plus the fact that River Trail has Sheehan and Kaiden specializing in those categories means that they'd get edged out by River Trail.
III.
Challenger-Strawberry Park
According to the stats of the TQBA Online Jamboree, Karthika Jayakumar (my bad if I'm spelling this wrong) averaged 106.84 PP20TUH on an IS-A set. That is completely absurd. However, the time-honored adage of quiz bowl is that one player (sorry, Shiva Oswal) almost certainly can't bring the team all the way.
IV.
Sycamore
I know that they performed (technically) better than C.S.P, but I think the appreciably higher power total on a difficulty not unlike that of MSNCT playoffs for the latter means that I think that they'll do slightly better and beat out Sycamore for third place.
V.
All Other Schools
I think that besides these four schools, it is a wide-open race for the title of champion, and I'm excited to see who steps up as the season develops!

[Halinaxus]

IV.
Sycamore
I know that they performed (technically) better than C.S.P, but I think the appreciably higher power total on a difficulty not unlike that of MSNCT playoffs for the latter means that I think that they'll do slightly better and beat out Sycamore for third place.

For the record, Sycamore's second scorer only played 2/3 of the rounds and their third and fourth scorers were completely absent.

[CPiGuy]

It's about 6 months too early to make any reasonable predictions other than "teams that were good last year and didn't have players graduate will be good again".

Having said that, the teams that were good last year and didn't have all their players graduate will be good again.

[Vainglorious yet Victorious]

IV.
Sycamore
I know that they performed (technically) better than C.S.P, but I think the appreciably higher power total on a difficulty not unlike that of MSNCT playoffs for the latter means that I think that they'll do slightly better and beat out Sycamore for third place.

For the record, Sycamore's second scorer only played 2/3 of the rounds and their third and fourth scorers were completely absent.

I didn't know that-that definitely would be worth considering given that Evan pretty much carried Sycamore to 1st place.

[matthewspatrick]

Having said that, the teams that were good last year and didn't have all their players graduate will be good again.

Big if true

[Joshua Li]

I'll put in my predictions, yes it's way too early, but I want to see how this goes:

Like most people, my for number 1, let's go with River Trail Middle School. As a team that got 2nd place at MSNCT last year, and the best science player in middle school quiz bowl thus far, along with their leading scorer last year, Sheehan Banka and Kaiden Lee, with the addition of Kovid Cerejo (who is a very solid B team player) and Justin An (who is a decent history player), I expect River Trail to go very far and take 1st.

For 2nd place, I'll go with my friends at Sycamore Middle. Sycamore B team got 8th place last year when their whole team was 7th graders. Unlike River Trail, B team (once again, Sycamore B got 8th) retains ALL their starters from the year prior, including Evan Ting, who can quite possibly be the best middle school quiz bowl player this season.

3rd place belongs to Burleigh Manor Middle in my opinion, considering this team of 7th grader made it to T5 at MSNCT last year. Similar to Sycamore, this team retains their whole team, and I expect them to go very far.

4th place goes to Redwood, this is a VERY underrated team. Arjun Vijaykumar averaged 62.38 ppg in a *51%* power rate. Very underrated player and team, they take my number 4 spot.

Last, but not least, Churchill Middle is a team you can always rely on for a high MSNCT placement. This is a team that finds and trains good players regularly, and I expect them to take my #5 spot.

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS I MADE ABOVE TO BE ADRESSED:

I put Sycamore above Burleigh Manor, because I believe Evan Ting has the ability to lock down history, a category Burleigh Manor players are known for being good at. Burleigh Manor and Sycamore has very good teams, but when it comes to balance, its comes down to Evan vs Satvik in terms of scoring, as they both have almost 40 ppg higher than the second leading scorer on the team, and I believe Evan Ting will be the best middle school quiz bowler next year, that's my explanation for that placement.

Churchill at #5 instead of CSP is probably controversial, since Karthika Jayakumar is insane at quiz bowl, but Churchill is a team that will find good, balanced lineups, and considering they got 3 teams in T21 last year, I expect them to have huge amounts of depth to choose from. Also, looking at stats, Karthika will be scoring most, if not nearly all, of CSP's points next year, and I personally think it's hard to beat a well balanced team if one person were to do nearly all the scoring. Nonetheless, CSP does have good players, don't get me wrong, this is early season and I want to see how this plays out.

[quizbowlchamp1]

Okay, here's my prediction...

1) River Trail A. I know it's stereotypical, but Sheehan Barka and Kaiden Lee are two of the best players right now. They had a decent B Team last year, but that combo will win, IMO.

2) Burleigh Manor A. The A team underperformed last year, but the B Team was seventh graders. Definitely a final I want to see.

3) Sycamore A. Excluding Steve Hackwelder, their B Team was a 7th-grade team only. They also retain EVAN TING who is gonna be the top scorer.

4) Challenger-Strawberry Park B. I know this seems weird, but go look at their results. They are insane this year. I'm excited for semis this year

5) Tied: Churchill A and Middlesex A. Both of these teams are known for finals appearances, so I expect a good performance.

[AngleseytheIquitoan]

I.
River Trail
Having had the excellent experience of playing with Sheehan and Kaiden, I can say with confidence that River Trail will win this year.
II.
Burleigh Manor
Statistically dominant last year, but in a hypothetical championship match I think that the frequency of science and geography questions plus the fact that River Trail has Sheehan and Kaiden specializing in those categories means that they'd get edged out by River Trail.
III.
Challenger-Strawberry Park
According to the stats of the TQBA Online Jamboree, Karthika Jayakumar (my bad if I'm spelling this wrong) averaged 106.84 PP20TUH on an IS-A set. That is completely absurd. However, the time-honored adage of quiz bowl is that one player (sorry, Shiva Oswal) almost certainly can't bring the team all the way.
IV.
Sycamore
I know that they performed (technically) better than C.S.P, but I think the appreciably higher power total on a difficulty not unlike that of MSNCT playoffs for the latter means that I think that they'll do slightly better and beat out Sycamore for third place.
V.
All Other Schools
I think that besides these four schools, it is a wide-open race for the title of champion, and I'm excited to see who steps up as the season develops!

Satvik beat Sheehan in the IAC geobee and got 2nd this year. Sheehan is probably insane at geography, but I think that Satvik edges him out in this.

[quizbowlcaptain]

Quick reply: I think Anderson has a good chance of going far as they retain a good B team with guys that can put up 20-30 a game and Dennis Danlin was a role player for the A team last year, but if he has a breakout year, Anderson has a good chance of going deep in the playoffs, potentially Super Seven.

Also, full all star list predictions (in no particular order) My top 25 is.....

Evan Ting, Arman Makhani, Arjun Vijaykumar, Sheehan Banka, George Al Jarbo, Satvin Jain, Taylor Chen, Carson Tidwell, Roshni Senthil, Arjun Singampalli, Colin Williams, Russ McGlaughn (Not biased, but he's good), Hadrian Zheng, Adrish Bhattacharvya, Liam Davenport, John Watts, Aarush Vashi, Elise Hogg, Evan Boswell, Daniel Ortman, Elliot Lefebvre, Harini Ramakrishnan, Jaxon Hittle, Luka Mikaberidze, and Keegan Offut. Thank you.

[MMS Will Rise!!]

Here are my predictions (not that I know any of these people and this is all based on stats):

1. River Trail A: Last Year River Trail A had some eye-popping results at the MSNCT, they beat Longfellow A 820-90 and were the only team to beat Chenery (only by 5 points however). Kaidan Lee and Sheehan Banka dominated, powering 81 times throughout the tournament. Their B team placed 66th and the best prospects to replace Ray Claret and Anoop Valavou (8th Graders) seem to be Justin An, Kovid Cerejo and Reyansh Krovi.

2. Burleigh Manor: Burleigh Manor placed 5th at the MSNCT last year, and they were all 7th Graders then. However, they lost to River Trail A 530-250 in the playoffs. They finished 11-4. The only tournament they have done this year was a High School IS tournament, where they placed 5th. We can expect big things from Satvik Jain and Sahil Prasid.

3. Challenger-Strawberry Park B: Has got some very good players who have competed in some TQBA tournaments online. They have finished very well in both of these. They have already qualified for Nationals 2 times over. Combined they average about 350PPG in both tournaments. Karthika Jayakumar averaged 105PP20TUH. They also have 22PPB on October 7th.

4. Sycamore: Evan Ting is leading this team to some of the best results they have ever seen. They won every game except one against Middlesex and won the tournament. They also finished 2nd in the HS Indiana Kickoff Tournament losing in Overtime 370-355 to Carmel A. I fully expect Evan Ting to get the most points of any person in the MSNCT.

5. Anyone Else could finish here including Middlesex, Redwood, or Churchill Middle

[IndianaMan13]

I think that my top 4 is:

1: River Trail A (Your coach is scary no offence)
The vanquishers of the perfect record, the greatest comeback in MSNCT history, and the forgers of the worst moment of my life. Kaiden is the best MS science player and it's not even close, and Sheehan while I don't remember his performance during our game against them very well is VERY good. The only reason I wouldn't see them making it is that I just don't see the ability to really lock down any subject except science, and while they won our game against them, being down by 180 against our team before Jeffery and Shayen improved a lot in their categories this season is a poor sign, especially because they only won after I negged a trash question and Ray got it.

2: Middlesex A (I visited the school during the school day while on a trip just to take a selfie)
They have lost their best player and still beat me and Gavin at the TQBA Online Jamboree while having 8 fewer PPB. Just because of this I shouldn't put us higher than them. Their ability to develop random kids and turn them into monsters is crazy, like where are they spawning them, they could have every quiz bowl student graduate and finish T5.

3: Sycamore A (Choking Merchants, "Worst Bottlers Since PSG 2017")
Well, "Hope" is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all. But I think that regardless of my performance, Gavin can get 30 points even with shadowing, Jeffery locks down our sports and American geography, and Shayen will power literally every comp math problem (anti-comp math is the anti-vax of quiz bowl takes, just the worst). Our failure might be in being comfortably the worst bonus converters at MSNCT of my T4.

4: Burleigh Manor A (Playing them on Sunday!!!)
They managed 5th last year as 7th graders, and Satvik, Henry, and Sahil have each cooked me like Remy so many times at IAC competitions. They are good at so many things, and due to the difficulty level of national IAC competitions have very deep knowledge.

[AngleseytheIquitoan]

Here is my top 7 predictions for MSNCT

1. Unarguably, the clear winner of this year's MSNCT would be River Trail Middle School. They retain their 2 best players who literally carried their team to second place in MSNCT in 2023. They have Kaiden Lee is clearly the best science player in Middle School currently. They also have Sheehan Banka who was the top scorer on River Trail last year and is without doubt one of the best middle school players currently. This is why I believe that River Trail is going to clinch top spot at the 2024 MSNCT.

2. Buleigh Manor unsurprisingly comes as my second pick. Last year, their team consisting of all seventh graders got 5th place at MSNCT. Their top scorer, Satvik Jain, is extremely scary as I myself have played him. He averages more than 50 per game and gets good backup from Sahil Prasad, who is incredibly cracked at FA. I can see Burleigh Manor making yet another deep run into this years MSNCT and placing second.

3. The third spot goes to Sycamore. We had initially played Sycamore in one of the TQBA nats qualifiers. Unsurprisingly, we lost and they turned out to win the entire tournament. Evan Ting is unquestionably the best middle school quizbowl player as of now, and their run seems very promising considering that they clinched 8th place last year in MSNCT.

4. Redwood Middle School (our fellow Bay Areans), are an extremely scary team. Their two top scorers, Arjun Vijaykumar and Harini Ramakrishnan, are just something else. They have improved substantially from last year (when they made 8th in MSNCT), and both average above 50 ppg. I can definitely see them getting 4th and again making another deep run into playoffs. The main reason why I didn't put them higher is because they are extremely swingy and don't have that much neg control.

5. Challenger Strawberry Park's run in this year's MSNCT looks extremely promising as always. They have had numerous legendary players but now they have spawned another extremely cracked player, Karthika Jayakumar. Over the course of a year, she has substantially improved and shown promise by consistently getting 100 ppg. Their team is also well rounded and they show a lot of promise.

6. Middlesex Middle School- Middlesex never ceases to amaze me with how well and quickly their players are molded into extremely solid players. Even though they lost their top scorer, Aiden Younessian, they still have Anika Bansal who has improved extremely quickly and is one of the best middle school players as of now. We actually played Middlesex in a nats qualifying tourney (which we lost by 30 points) and they are not running out of extremely solid and cracked players.

7. Hopkins Middle School (hopefully) is probably one of the most underrated schools in this list. Manu has substantially improved in numerous subjects including History and Geography. His coverage is very wide and he is very, very good at scaling. Unlike me, Manu actually can control his negs and he has been the real reason we even got 8th last year in MSNCT. Other than Manu, we have 2 science mains (Anish and Rutvik) who just fully cover the subject to replace Theenash Sengupta who had graduated to high school. I can definitely see us in the top 7.

[Joshua Li]

I'll put in my predictions, yes it's way too early, but I want to see how this goes:

Like most people, my for number 1, let's go with River Trail Middle School. As a team that got 2nd place at MSNCT last year, and the best science player in middle school quiz bowl thus far, along with their leading scorer last year, Sheehan Banka and Kaiden Lee, with the addition of Kovid Cerejo (who is a very solid B team player) and Justin An (who is a decent history player), I expect River Trail to go very far and take 1st.

For 2nd place, I'll go with my friends at Sycamore Middle. Sycamore B team got 8th place last year when their whole team was 7th graders. Unlike River Trail, B team (once again, Sycamore B got 8th) retains ALL their starters from the year prior, including Evan Ting, who can quite possibly be the best middle school quiz bowl player this season.

3rd place belongs to Burleigh Manor Middle in my opinion, considering this team of 7th grader made it to T5 at MSNCT last year. Similar to Sycamore, this team retains their whole team, and I expect them to go very far.

4th place goes to Redwood, this is a VERY underrated team. Arjun Vijaykumar averaged 62.38 ppg in a *51%* power rate. Very underrated player and team, they take my number 4 spot.

Last, but not least, Churchill Middle is a team you can always rely on for a high MSNCT placement. This is a team that finds and trains good players regularly, and I expect them to take my #5 spot.

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS I MADE ABOVE TO BE ADRESSED:

I put Sycamore above Burleigh Manor, because I believe Evan Ting has the ability to lock down history, a category Burleigh Manor players are known for being good at. Burleigh Manor and Sycamore has very good teams, but when it comes to balance, its comes down to Evan vs Satvik in terms of scoring, as they both have almost 40 ppg higher than the second leading scorer on the team, and I believe Evan Ting will be the best middle school quiz bowler next year, that's my explanation for that placement.

Churchill at #5 may or may not be controversial, I don't really know

Building upon this, River Trail just won a few more tournaments, solidifying my first place prediction for them, but as always, we may never know.

Some good players off the top of my head:
Sheehan Banka
Kaiden Lee
Evan Ting
Kavin Anreddy
Abhiraam Girish
Karthika Jayakumar
Arjun Vijaykumar
Harini Ramakrishna
Anika Bansal
Ryca Finan
Satvik Jain
Sahil Prasad
Ray Zhao
Evan Boswell

If I missed you, I'm sorry, those were the people that I happened to remember at this current time.

[Isomorphism]

Throwing in my thoughts here real quick:

I agree with most of what's been said, with one major exception. Although controversial, I think Sycamore will outperform BMMS this year. Evan Ting is (quite possibly) the best middle school quizbowl player this year, and I've heard that their other players have improved significantly. While I haven't heard much of BMMS (other than they did well at an IS tourney), I find it hard to believe that Sycamore will lose to them, even though Satvik Jain is undoubtedly extremely good. Maybe this is just me though, because our game with Sycamore last year was much closer than our game with BMMS last year.

[Joshua Li]

I'll put in my predictions, yes it's way too early, but I want to see how this goes:

Like most people, my for number 1, let's go with River Trail Middle School. As a team that got 2nd place at MSNCT last year, and the best science player in middle school quiz bowl thus far, along with their leading scorer last year, Sheehan Banka and Kaiden Lee, with the addition of Kovid Cerejo (who is a very solid B team player) and Justin An (who is a decent history player), I expect River Trail to go very far and take 1st.

For 2nd place, I'll go with my friends at Sycamore Middle. Sycamore B team got 8th place last year when their whole team was 7th graders. Unlike River Trail, B team (once again, Sycamore B got 8th) retains ALL their starters from the year prior, including Evan Ting, who can quite possibly be the best middle school quiz bowl player this season.

3rd place belongs to Burleigh Manor Middle in my opinion, considering this team of 7th grader made it to T5 at MSNCT last year. Similar to Sycamore, this team retains their whole team, and I expect them to go very far.

4th place goes to Redwood, this is a VERY underrated team. Arjun Vijaykumar averaged 62.38 ppg in a *51%* power rate. Very underrated player and team, they take my number 4 spot.

Last, but not least, Churchill Middle is a team you can always rely on for a high MSNCT placement. This is a team that finds and trains good players regularly, and I expect them to take my #5 spot.

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS I MADE ABOVE TO BE ADRESSED:

I put Sycamore above Burleigh Manor, because I believe Evan Ting has the ability to lock down history, a category Burleigh Manor players are known for being good at. Burleigh Manor and Sycamore has very good teams, but when it comes to balance, its comes down to Evan vs Satvik in terms of scoring, as they both have almost 40 ppg higher than the second leading scorer on the team, and I believe Evan Ting will be the best middle school quiz bowler next year, that's my explanation for that placement.

Churchill at #5 instead of CSP is probably controversial, since Karthika Jayakumar is insane at quiz bowl, but Churchill is a team that will find good, balanced lineups, and considering they got 3 teams in T21 last year, I expect them to have huge amounts of depth to choose from. Also, looking at stats, Karthika will be scoring most, if not nearly all, of CSP's points next year, and I personally think it's hard to beat a well balanced team if one person were to do nearly all the scoring. Nonetheless, CSP does have good players, don't get me wrong, this is early season and I want to see how this plays out.

Ok so I’ll change this: Greenhill A goes number 4, Redwood shifts to number 5

[IndianaMan13]

I just want to clarify I haven't seen either of these teams play this season, but between Redwood and Greenhill, I still think Redwood takes it for a few reasons. Firstly, Arjun and Harini both have insane power percentages and while some may say "bUt So maNy NeG", they have greatly improved their neg control, for example, the aforementioned players' PBXP (Post Buzz Expected Points, points after a buzz including negs) at MSNCT were 7.21 and 7.01, and have improved to 11.36 and 8.33 respectively with 79 and 76 power percentages. While on the same set playing solo, I only managed 11.57 PBXP and 64.5 power percentage, so two players on the same team getting that is crazy. By the way, the only reason I'm using this not ordinary P% or PP20TUH is that I think that PBXP is a good metric for power/neg measurement. Now Greenhill is also a VERY good team, but on the same set, they finished with a worse 10.67 PBXP as a team, a worst PPB over 3.5 worse than Redwood's worst, and a best almost 1.5 worse than Redwood's best. Why did I spend half of math class on this? I don't know! But anyway I just think Redwood will do very well and now think my original predictions are bad, but its still much too early to tell.

[Joshua Li]

Well, we'll have fun seeing who's right, eh?

[quizbowlchamp1]

Well, we'll have fun seeing who's right, eh?

Yes, indeed! By the way, (for both players and teams) if you think we are chucking you under the bus, don't. I (and hopefully everyone on this forum post) hope that all of you will do extremely well. Try hard and don't give up because of what someone said on the internet.

[quizbowlchamp1]

Well, we'll have fun seeing who's right, eh?

Yes, indeed! By the way, (for both players and teams) if you think we are chucking you under the bus, don't. I (and hopefully everyone on this forum post) hope that all of you will do extremely well. Try hard and don't give up because of what someone said on the internet.

[Metacarpal]

These are my confusing predictions.

1. Unlike most people, I’ll go with Challenger-Strawberry Park A. Karthika Jayakumar alone is an incredible player and potentially MSNCT’s leading scorer, but if CSP plays full (with Thiyagesh Venkatesan, Dhanyaa Chakravarthy, and Samrat Vibhuti), that team will be one to fear even more.
2. River Trail A, of course, was second place in last year’s MSNCT and I am confident they will do well again. Sheehan Banka is likely the best geography player in the nation, Kaiden Lee is definitely the best science player in the nation, and their teammates will not go unnoticed - Kovid Cerejo and Justin An are also pretty dang insane.
3. Middlesex A. Need I provide an explanation for this team, which perpetually places among the top teams in the nation?
4. Redwood. Having made top 8 last year, Redwood has done exceptionally well this year, winning several tournaments against tough competition. Arjun Vijaykumar (he might be known for his INSANE statline of 49/47/42 at MSNCT) and Harini Ramakrishnan are both very capable players.
5. Churchill A - Kavin Anreddy is a very good player who is not only insane at history, he is also somewhat of a generalist, and Adrish Bhattacharyya put up some insane statlines last year at MSNCT.
5. Anderson A, I guess? I’ll include another fifth place here because I really don’t know how Ms. Kozol (our coach) will set up the teams. From what I know, Denis Danilin and Raghav Thakur have been doing exceptionally well on Anderson B, and Bhavya Thakur, David Wolff, Jesse Lee, and Levon Tzvetanov make a pretty balanced Anderson A team. Depending on how Ms. Kozol mixes up the teams, t-13 or t-5 is possible.

[quizbowlcaptain]

Alright, my turn to step into the ring.

1. River Trail- This team vanquished Chenery and handed them there only loss in the tournament, they also retain Sheehan Banka and Kaiden Lee, arguably the best duo in the country (unless you count my twin brother and I)

2. Sycamore- I feel like everyone has been sleeping on Sycamore with comments like "Well Evan Ting is there only good player" Not only is Evan Ting the best Sycamore player, I think Evan Ting is going to be the best MS player this year, giving Sycamore the ability to go deep.

3. Burleigh Manor- BMMS A actually made the good desicion of stacking there A team this year, congrats, but seriously, Satvik and Sahil are the second best duo in the country (behind Sheehan and Kaiden of course) and they will take this team close to victory. They even beat Evan Ting this year. 2 and 3 could be interchangeable

4. CSP B- Karthika will give Evan a run for his money, she could single-handedly take this team to a Super Seven finish.

[Jibreel]

My Predictions

1. No surprise here that its safe to say that the winner overall would be Rivertrail- safe to say they are comfortably winning this year's MSNCT. Sheehan and Kaiden are two of the best players in the nation and are going to win by a comfortable margin.

2. BMMS A- Satvik along with Henry and Sahil, are literally just overpowered. They got 5th last year as an all 7th team and are probably maxxed out on subjects like history and fine arts.

3. Sycamore- this team has arguably the best player in the field right now (Evan Ting), and he carried Sycamore B (again, all 7th grade team), last year in MSNCT, placing 8th at the end. Sycamore is making a deep run in playoffs and concludes my top 3.

4. Redwood- their all 7th team clinched 8th in MSNCT last year and their two stars, Arjun and Harini, are two of the best players in the nation and have insane power percentages. They are by far the best team in California.

5. Greenhill- Greenhill is lead by Arman Makhani in scoring who I believe after Evan, is the second best player in the current field. Under the captaincy of Arman, Greenhill got 13th place in the last MSNCT and considering that it is the exact team showing up again, I believe that they will get in Super Seven.

6. Hopkins - Hopkins got 8th last year but even though it lost two of it players, manages to trump over historically fantastic schools like Churchill. It is safe to say that they are the second best California team after Redwood.

[Metacarpal]

failed to delete this message, so just leaving this here

[AngleseytheIquitoan]

I'll put in my predictions, yes it's way too early, but I want to see how this goes:

Like most people, my for number 1, let's go with River Trail Middle School. As a team that got 2nd place at MSNCT last year, and the best science player in middle school quiz bowl thus far, along with their leading scorer last year, Sheehan Banka and Kaiden Lee, with the addition of Kovid Cerejo (who is a very solid B team player) and Justin An (who is a decent history player), I expect River Trail to go very far and take 1st.

For 2nd place, I'll go with my friends at Sycamore Middle. Sycamore B team got 8th place last year when their whole team was 7th graders. Unlike River Trail, B team (once again, Sycamore B got 8th) retains ALL their starters from the year prior, including Evan Ting, who can quite possibly be the best middle school quiz bowl player this season.

3rd place belongs to Burleigh Manor Middle in my opinion, considering this team of 7th grader made it to T5 at MSNCT last year. Similar to Sycamore, this team retains their whole team, and I expect them to go very far.

4th place goes to Redwood, this is a VERY underrated team. Arjun Vijaykumar averaged 62.38 ppg in a *51%* power rate. Very underrated player and team, they take my number 4 spot.

Last, but not least, Churchill Middle is a team you can always rely on for a high MSNCT placement. This is a team that finds and trains good players regularly, and I expect them to take my #5 spot.

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS I MADE ABOVE TO BE ADRESSED:

I put Sycamore above Burleigh Manor, because I believe Evan Ting has the ability to lock down history, a category Burleigh Manor players are known for being good at. Burleigh Manor and Sycamore has very good teams, but when it comes to balance, its comes down to Evan vs Satvik in terms of scoring, as they both have almost 40 ppg higher than the second leading scorer on the team, and I believe Evan Ting will be the best middle school quiz bowler next year, that's my explanation for that placement.

Churchill at #5 may or may not be controversial, I don't really know

Building upon this, River Trail just won a few more tournaments, solidifying my first place prediction for them, but as always, we may never know.

Some good players off the top of my head:
Sheehan Banka
Kaiden Lee
Evan Ting
Kavin Anreddy
Abhiraam Girish
Karthika Jayakumar
Arjun Vijaykumar
Harini Ramakrishna
Anika Bansal
Ryca Finan
Satvik Jain
Sahil Prasad
Ray Zhao
Evan Boswell

If I missed you, I'm sorry, those were the people that I happened to remember at this current time.

Joshua I completely agree with this (but only besides the fact that u put me over Manu(who I can comfortably say with experience is way better than me)...

[Joshua Li]

i did say that i forgot a few players and stop depreflexing, ur a good quiz bowler

[Kaizon43]

Here are my predictions for the 2024 MSNCT
1: River Trail. Duh.
2: Burleigh Manor. Top 5 last year, and they have the exact same team. Satvik, Henry and Sahil are ridiculously good. Also, they finished third two years ago with the same team plus one eighth grader. The gap between the top two and the next three is massive, in my opinion.
3. Sycamore. Despite being carried on the back of one player, that one player is the Tom Brady of quizbowl. Evan Ting is pretty unstoppable, so I see Sycamore placing very high.
4. Middlesex. From what I know, they finished high last year, and retain the same strength level as last year. (Their stats definitely indicate that.)
5. Redwood Middle/CSP. Maybe a little bit of wishful thinking here, but I do believe that we are good enough to break top five. Then again, CSP is carried on the back of one layer, but the one player happens to be the Peyton Manning of quizbowl (Sorry karthika, had to give Evan the edge here). We are two losses, no wins against CSP this year, but I am pretty confident we can beat them if we face them again (My excuse is that we played badly the last two times. Very believable.)

[quizbowlcaptain]

5. Redwood Middle/CSP. Maybe a little bit of wishful thinking here, but I do believe that we are good enough to break top five.

I think that you can definately do it! Just keep trying hard and don't give up!