What will NAQT do for their nationals in 2008?

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Post by jrbarry »

DukeTogo...

1. Charter schools are not, by definition, elitist. Any public high school can become one as several in GA have done. They are not necessarily private or selective and Brookwood, when it achieves charter status, will not be selective in any way. We will still have the same geographic district from which our students will come. So, study up before you point out my "errors" or "inconsistencies."

2. Buzzers limit how many kids can practice at one time. I want all my team members to practice all the time at every practice. That is why I limit my varsity team to 20 players. ANYONE in my school can tryout for that team. I have no qualifications even though my program is supposed to be, by school district definition, for Gifted Program kids only. My team is an elite only in that they are the best quiz bowl players Brookwood has from among the kids who tried out. The best 20 from among 50-60.

3. I am a populist.
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Post by swwFCqb »

Hopper wrote:Why are you not giving DC a ranking? Given that no teams from DC finished in 21st or higher, I think that DC has been shown to be an area of tremendous quizbowl strength that certainly deserves more opportunities to attend a national championship than say, New Mexico (did they even send any teams this year?) I'd love to see where DC fits into your numerical ranking?

Also, will teams from new states forfeit their opportunity to attend nationals under this system? It almost seems to be a catch-22. "You can't attend nationals until your state demonstrates success at nationals, but you can't attend nationals to demonstrate success because you haven't attended nationals yet." That doesn't seem very welcoming to new quizbowl regions.
Look closer Hopper. Under this proposed system, he clearly says that all states new to NAQT would receive 3 spots to the HSNCT. Therefore, no prerequisites would be applicable except that you qualify at a tournament during the year.
quizbowllee wrote:My A and B teams are virtually equal in strength. In fact, the B team beat the A team at NAQT and ranked higher at PACE. I'm going to have a BIG problem if NAQT limits us to one team at the HSNCT. In fact, that might be a deal breaker for us. I have too many seniors on the team this year to have to tell half of them that they can't play. There are several other teams that have such competitive B teams that deserve to play at nationals. I sincerely hope NAQT doesn't consider limiting B teams in any way. If they can qualify along the same criteria as other schools' A teams, then they deserve to be there.

Imagine a situation like the following:

An NAQT tournament is held with the following results:

1st Place - Fake High School A (10-0; 505 ppg)
2nd Place - Fake High School B (9-1; 435 ppg)
3rd Place - Misc. High School A (7-3; 285 ppg)


Some of you would advocate that Misc. High School A attend over Fake High School B simply because you are against B teams in general. Think about that... Who really deserves to be at Nationals more?
Now, although this system would be under suspect if used, I don't think that it would end up hurting those "B" teams which deserve to go. As is stated, 3 spots go to every state in the bottom 29 of the rankings, 14 of which have either never participated or are very under-representated. This would leave 30-40 open spots for wildcard bids which could be used to reward the "deserving" B teams. Of course, there are only a handful of B teams that would actually deserve to go anyways, so unless they were banned altogether no matter what, then it's most likely that they would find a way in under any system.
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Post by Stained Diviner »

In addition to the fixable, but real, problems with DC and B Teams already mentioned, the system is just way too simplistic.

Imagine one state--let's hypothetically call it Pennyvania--that has a small number of very good teams. Those few teams go to HSNCT and do very well, giving their state a lot of spots. The other teams in that state may not be worthy of filling those spots.

Imagine another state--let's hypothetically call it Minnysota--that has a pretty strong contingent but has several teams attend that are not considered elite within that state. Those weaker teams bring down the average even though the stronger teams prove that they are elite.

There also should be ways of accounting for variation from year to year. If a state has a history of not being strong but has several teams put up big numbers at several tournaments over the course of the year, then it should get more than three spaces. Another state might put a few senior-heavy teams in the Top 20 and not have six or seven elite teams the next year.

One aspect that saves the system is that there will be a lot of wildcard spaces, so there will be enough room for fudging to fix these problems. One issue it does not address is timing: Will teams be able to qualify before April? Will NAQT know how many wildcard spaces to give away a few months before the tournament so that teams can figure out whether or not they are in and plan accordingly?
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Post by MahoningQuizBowler »

DC is at 12.5, which would put them 26th. I am not against having more DC teams, they would just have to apply for any wildcard spots that open.

Bear in mind that the max field size under what I put forth--192--is 32 more than the entire field of this year's tournament. I doubt anyone is going to get locked out in the near future, but there has to be some kind of upper limit on tournament size for all the factors mentioned previously, not least of which is the moderator pool.

No one forfeits opportunities to go to nationals, but states that don't have state championships would have to have its teams apply for wildcards. I am in agreement with some people earlier in the thread that the State Championships have virtually no additional value right now, other than the title. This would make them worth more.

About B teams, I think it is more fair for a national championship to be contested by 160-192 different schools, each with one chance to win than the same field where some schools have 2 or 3 chances--including the possibility for A v B matches where the results can be decided before a buzzer is pushed. I'm in the minority on this, but so be it.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

MahoningQuizBowler wrote:including the possibility for A v B matches where the results can be decided before a buzzer is pushed. I'm in the minority on this, but so be it.
Except for, you know TJ, and Brindlee Mountain . . .
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Post by MahoningQuizBowler »

If a state has six spots, and the bottom 3-4 teams so underperform that it drops the average, then they will lose spots over time...but the elite teams will still be there and still win games.

If a state only has 3 spots, the elite teams of the state will still perform well and raise the average, gaining spots over time...and the elite teams will still be there and still win games.

If a state has one big year and then goes to pot, then they will lose spots after that year goes by the boards. Example: Ohio is riding Solon's 2004 performance, but unless they get a similar one in 2008, then they could fall to 20th or lower.
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Post by Stained Diviner »

In Quizbowl, however, one year can be a long time and four years can be an eternity. In 2004, only 20 states sent teams to HSNCT, and it doesn't make sense that they would be the only states that have a chance to send lots of teams in 2008.

I don't mean to pick on one state in particular, but please explain to me why the 6th best team from Delaware should automatically qualify but not the 5th best team from Illinois or Michigan. (I'll give props out--the only time my team ever faced a team from Delaware, they were very good and beat us.)

Perhaps a fair system could be worked out, and that system could have some significant similarities to your proposal, but you're not there yet.

A fair system would, after giving a baseline two or three spots to each state and DC, find some way to predict whether the eighth best team from some strong state would be better than the fourth best team from some not-as-strong state and give the spot to the better team.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

ReinsteinD wrote:I don't mean to pick on one state in particular, but please explain to me why the 6th best team from Delaware should automatically qualify but not the 5th best team from Illinois or Michigan. (I'll give props out--the only time my team ever faced a team from Delaware, they were very good and beat us.)
Yeah, I look forward to facing Wilmington Charter F at HSNCT.
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Post by MahoningQuizBowler »

There isn't a sixth best team, nor a third or fourth or fifth, from Delaware at this point who chooses to take on the NCT, and those spots would go back to the wildcard pool...so until more teams from Delaware decide to go to Nationals, or Charter F qualifies somehow, you won't get to play them. But say they did...if they won enough games to keep the average up (which, given the current numbers, would require them to go 6-4 and win a playoff game), you couldn't deny them the fact they earned it.

I agree that the lack of participation in 2004 hurts the calculations a bit, but I had to start somewhere, and 2004 was the first year I could find with full results for prelims and playoffs (both small school and normal). Next year, Illinois will drop a 0 (as will Maryland) and should move up accordingly.

The whole prediction aspect is why I did this. UEFA uses it to stratify teams that enter its club competitions, e.g. England's 4th best team is automatically better than most every team from the 10th ranked country on down, and so they automatically get to the 3rd qualifying round. Thing is, there are no qualifying rounds to the NCT, just the "domestic" competitions themselves. Everyone gets lumped into the same competition...the coefficient seedings (by school and state) could be used to seed the first round games so that you don't get the possibility of a randomly drawn Maggie Walker v TJ opening rounder.
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Post by ieppler »

metsfan001 wrote:Yeah, I look forward to facing Wilmington Charter F at HSNCT.
It may happen, Guy. I've seen Wilmington Charter F at several DC area tournaments.
swwFCqb wrote:Look closer Hopper. Under this proposed system, he clearly says that all states new to NAQT would receive 3 spots to the HSNCT.
I'm still stunned that he would propose giving more spots in the HSNCT to new states than to DC, which is not only a not a new area but one of the most successful areas in NAQT format. Based on how quickly the field filled this year, there would be a good chance under this system that some random Colorado school that tied for 3rd in a hypothetical 8-team state championship would be able to attend instead of Gonzaga (t.8) or Georgetown Day (t. 21) based only on which DC school got to the online registration more quickly. How, exactly, does this serve the purpose of a higher-quality field? For similar reasons, excluding B-teams would reduce the quality of the field. What if Dorman B (t.8), or TJ B (t.13) were excluded in favor of a random school from Pennsylvania that earned its spot due to the success of State College, Shady Side, and Moravian? The idea of state rankings is a good one, but this way of doing state rankings is not. If NAQT were to use this system, it would lessen the legitimacy of the "national championship" title because teams would be excluded due to a flawed formula.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

Hopper wrote:
metsfan001 wrote:Yeah, I look forward to facing Wilmington Charter F at HSNCT.
It may happen, Guy. I've seen Wilmington Charter F at several DC area tournaments.
I have too, but I'll eat my hat if they have SIX teams at all approaching national caliber.
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Post by MahoningQuizBowler »

Alright, so since DC was included in Maryland's NAQT state championship, the bids can come from there. One guaranteed DC bid, and any other bids would come from Maryland's allocation.

Also, this year's field was 160. This proposal maxes out at 192. For a DC school to be excluded then every single one of the states that currently have no championship would need to A) have one, B) commit three teams to NCT, C) every other state that didn't fill it's allocation would have to fill theirs, and D) if they didn't fill, then NAQT would have to select teams to go ahead of DC teams, which would then be down to whatever criteria they would, hypothetically, deem necessary.
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Post by theMoMA »

Seems like you're punishing new teams for old results based on a completely different system. I really doubt they used the UEFA coefficients the first year based on whatever system they had previously used.
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Post by bsmith »

MahoningQuizBowler wrote: One spot for DC, one for International.
Correct my math if I'm wrong, but "International" has 18.5. That would be 17th on the list and four spots in your system.

While four spots probably wouldn't be filled, the ones that do come tend to be good.
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Post by MahoningQuizBowler »

International has more points than that, but this is a national championship. One is enough. I suppose I could have taken the other bid from DC and given it to the International allocation... :wink:

UEFA's old system was pretty simple. National champions went to the European Cup. Runners-up and others (based on co-efficients) went to the UEFA Cup. Domestic cup winners went to the Cup Winners' Cup. Actually, in the earliest days of the UEFA Cup and its predecessor, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, teams were invited. It's only recently, since the formation of the Champions' League, that countries have been able to enter more than 1 team to the top-level tournament. But I digress...

I'm not trying to punish anybody, but again, I had to start from somewhere. I'm trying to suggest an improvment to a system that currently allows one state to provide 1 out of every 8 teams to the championship field, and also ensure that when the states that currently are not playing top-level quiz bowl eventually do, they will be guaranteed the chance to go to NCT. No one can guarantee whether a team actually takes it upon themselves to get to Chicago (or wherever), but the chance has to be given. Someone out there probably has a better suggestion, and hopefully this discussion will spark that idea to being publicly offered.
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Post by kactigger »

How many teams wanted to go to the HSNCT that were left out of the 160 team field? Were there, for instance, enough to get to 192?
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Post by e_steinhauser »

kactigger wrote:How many teams wanted to go to the HSNCT that were left out of the 160 team field? Were there, for instance, enough to get to 192?
My impression from several discussions was that there were maybe 10 or so teams who didn't get off the waitlist. How much that translates into additional demand (interested teams didn't always go on the waitlist) remains to be seen.

If I had to guess, I'd say that a tournament with 200 team slots wouldn't have completely filled this year.
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Post by jhn31 »

I hate to put down my own state, but I doubt Mississippi has 4 schools with the resources and interest to attend the NAQT national tournament.
I do really like the idea though.
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Post by rchschem »

Then there's that adding up the four years thing. NC didn't send anyone before 2007, AFAIK, and even if there had been a team in that time, they didn't belong at any national championship event. Perhaps find the average score per year?

Just playing Devil's Advocate. I don't think this is a good idea regardless.

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Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

What about states without NAQT state championships that still field competitive teams? 2 examples being Pennsylvania (had the 2nd place team, + t. 13th and t. 21) and Missouri (well, unfortunately NKC was the only really competitive team from there that has gone). So we'd have to wait until everything else settles down and hope we get a wildcard.

No, I think there's a much better system hiding somewhere.
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Post by Stained Diviner »

How many teams wanted to go to the HSNCT that were left out of the 160 team field? Were there, for instance, enough to get to 192?
Every team that qualified and wanted to play was able to play. There was a waitlist for qualified teams, but the teams on that waitlist got in. There were a very small number of B or C Teams that had not qualified and could not play because slots were not available. Additionally, there was no space for wildcards.

The biggest problem this year was that everybody had four byes, which is not that big a problem in the grand scheme of the universe (though the tournament would have been more enjoyable with fewer byes).

The real problem is that the tournament has grown in the past five years from about 50 teams to 160 teams, and they are reaching the upper limit of what they can handle in terms of number of rooms available at a single location, number of available good moderators, and number of byes/rounds you can have in a single day. If you add another 30-40 teams next year, they have to do one of the things Mr. Barry mentioned at the beginning of this thread or give everybody even more byes. If the growth stops, then they probably won't change anything, but that's unlikely.
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Post by theMoMA »

I really think this is an issue for when a logistical ceiling is reached. The HSNCT could honestly be twice as big or bigger if they implement two preliminary pools and run one on Saturday, one on Sunday, and the playoffs on Monday as I believe Matt has suggested.

The reality is that high school quizbowl has never been better or more popular, and it's really in no one's interest to make qualifying for HSNCT difficult until serious logistical snags would occur.
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Post by STPickrell »

DC statehood now!!! Why not treat DC as a state, eligible for the same number of slots as any other state with comparable results? It's not as if Marion Barry High School would be showing up. ;-)

Otherwise your proposal is a good idea. It may not be implementable until after next year, when we have 2-3 years of massive participation to base results on.

Perhaps you can allow B teams if the school brings a floating staffer (did each room have a moderator and scorekeeper?) and the B team qualifies otherwise. Then a bid can be extended to school number N+1 as well.
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Post by BobGHHS »

Perhaps you can allow B teams if the school brings a floating staffer
I think this is an excellent idea... I think if schools are going to bring more than 1 team, they should have to bring a staff member, who would stay at the hotel with them, and not on NAQT's dime.

It wouldn't solve the question at hand here, but it would definitely aim at building the staff pool more.
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Post by Zip Zap Rap Pants »

StPickrell wrote:DC statehood now!!! Why not treat DC as a state, eligible for the same number of slots as any other state with comparable results? It's not as if Marion Barry High School would be showing up. ;-)

Otherwise your proposal is a good idea. It may not be implementable until after next year, when we have 2-3 years of massive participation to base results on.

Perhaps you can allow B teams if the school brings a floating staffer (did each room have a moderator and scorekeeper?) and the B team qualifies otherwise. Then a bid can be extended to school number N+1 as well.
Nah DC should be annexed as part of Maryland (in real life and quizbowl), after all they already share the same NAQT state championship...
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

I don't think you should necessarily rely on the past years to decide how many teams from each state are allowed for the next HSNCT. In just one year teams can improve vastly or quickly become...really bad. Another thing in the DC argument is DC, as of yet, has not been very represented at the HSNCT. This year was the first year Gonzaga attended, for example, who racked up 15 points according to the scale this year and plan to attend next year. There are also, I'm sure, other teams in the DC area that haven't been able to attend HSNCT's in the past for whatever reason and would like to attend.
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Post by btressler »

metsfan001 wrote:I have too, but I'll eat my hat if they have SIX teams at all approaching national caliber.
Oh I like challenges.

I think your hat is pretty safe. I was kinda hoping to send Charter C next year, but we'll see. The rising sophomores and juniors are good, but need to prove to me they can score more points on nationals questions than this year's B team did.
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Post by STPickrell »

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:I don't think you should necessarily rely on the past years to decide how many teams from each state are allowed for the next HSNCT. In just one year teams can improve vastly or quickly become...really bad. Another thing in the DC argument is DC, as of yet, has not been very represented at the HSNCT. This year was the first year Gonzaga attended, for example, who racked up 15 points according to the scale this year and plan to attend next year. There are also, I'm sure, other teams in the DC area that haven't been able to attend HSNCT's in the past for whatever reason and would like to attend.
Hmm, good point. Maybe you can include things like overall PP20TU, power percentage and bonus conversion that teams from that state rack up on that year's NAQT sets as a factor in computing each state's score. You probably only want to include each state's top 10 teams to ensure that a state with a few giants among lots of dwarves isn't penalized as compared to a state with only a few giants competing among themselves.
Also you can provide double weight for stats racked up in the state NAQT championship. You also want to include a negative multiplier as 25 points per bonus on A sets isn't the same as 25 points per bonus on regular IS sets.

I'd have this year's results be 40% of each state's score and previous results be 60% of each state's score.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

StPickrell wrote:Hmm, good point. Maybe you can include things like overall PP20TU, power percentage and bonus conversion that teams from that state rack up on that year's NAQT sets as a factor in computing each state's score.
This sounds remarkably similar to S-value...
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Post by brownboy79 »

No guys, this problem is simple. All you have to do is get someone completely unbiased and nonjudgemental who can watch every single match everywhere in the country and make a decision about the best 64 teams in the country. They then enter a double elim playoff. Cake.
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Post by Captain Sinico »

I have a still simpler solution:
1. Do little or nothing (maybe try to find a bigger venue.)
2. Continue to run the biggest and probably the most competitive national there is with all the best teams in attendance.
3. Profit.

MaS

Edit: Fixed grammar by inserting lost words...
Last edited by Captain Sinico on Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by BuzzerZen »

ImmaculateDeception wrote:I still simpler solution:
1. Do little or nothing (maybe try to find a bigger venue.)
2. Continue to run the biggest and probably the most competitive national there is with all the best teams in attendance.
3. Profit.

MaS
I pretty much agree with this plan. If NAQT finds a bigger, better facility than the Crown Plaza that doesn't require games to happen in little hotel rooms, the current system is just fine.
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Post by Mike Bentley »

I think a hypothetical other option would be if some software was developed that allowed a moderator to very easily keep score so there wouldn't be a need for a scorekeeper. Like that one I promised to make a while ago (and still intend on doing).

You'd obviously need to get people to bring their Laptops, and NAQT might be uncomfortable with not having a dedicated person scorekeeping. But if they were able to do this then they could reduce moderator costs a lot, giving them a lot more options.
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Post by Tegan »

MahoningQuizBowler wrote:Warning: long post with lots of numbers.

First the rankings...
NAQT Coefficients, 2004-2007 aggregate


6. Delaware, 31.5

11. Texas, 23.4286

15. Illinois, 20.3333

States in positions 1-3 have 7 spots for the next NCT.
Positions 4-8 have 6 spots.
Positions 9-21 have 4 spots.
Positions 22-50 have 3 spots.
One spot for DC, one for International.
192 spots total.
I picked these three states just to bring up some points:
1. Delaware sent a monster this past year for sure ..... but aside from that I'm not sure that one team swings the whole state up for "7 slots".

2. Texas, a monster in the past, advanced not one team to the playoffs this year.

3. Illinois sent 5 of 6 teams to the playoffs, and the sixth team, down their leading scorer who was on the Subcontinent, went 5-5, and would have been 6-4 (at least).

This system seems to penalize the states more recently jumping into NAQT (No matter how much better they are now), and rewards sates that were good in the past (but may not be as good now), and also rewards states that send fewer really great teams, instead of more pretty good teams.

I'm not sure this is a direction you want to go in ......
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Post by First Chairman »

On behalf of Decathlon expertise and experience, I am not entirely sure the proposed "football/futbol" system is one I would favor. Granted, USAD Nationals has one team per state, but a few years ago, we had given some states a second team (for a "small school"). I was never really crazy about it but I don't run that show. The second slots however were given based on participation in AD events, so the ten largest states got second bids. I can see or expect NAQT to give more spots to regions that run more invitational series questions.

Of course, the market drives that right now, and we have that system already ... just not with the bureaucracy or politics.

All I can say is... have we beaten this horse enough? Let NAQT run the tournament the way they want to, and realize nothing that we suggest will necessarily bring about a "fairer result" unless there are severe limits and hoops that get constructed... and no one really seem to favor that.
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etchdulac
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texas

Post by etchdulac »

I tend to think Texas will be back, though I'm obviously biased. Home to the last HSNCT champion from outside the nation's best region, Texas had a top-10 team as recently as last year. This year was always forecast as a down year, and while everyone missing the playoffs was disappointing, it wasn't exactly surprising.

If LBJ and St. John's keep their all-underclassman teams from this year and stay involved (LBJ is a very new program to us), I expect both to be capable of playoff appearances next year.

Awarding berths by performance is a sound idea, but there's always the question of how far back you go. Such formulae are somewhat prominent in international soccer: UEFA seeds nations for the World Cup and Eurocopa qualifying draws based on results that are up to 7 years old. While that obviously would make no sense in our case, I'd say you'd certainly have to use more than one school year for any such formula.

Personally, I'd rather just leave it open and see who comes... as long as NAQT doesn't push beyond 160.
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Re: texas

Post by Tegan »

etchdulac wrote:If LBJ and St. John's keep their all-underclassman teams from this year and stay involved (LBJ is a very new program to us), I expect both to be capable of playoff appearances next year.
I have no doubt ..... this is why you need to be careful about using past performance to judge how this year's group should be allowed in ......

If you are going to set up some kind of a merit based system (which I am in no way opposed to), it has to be based on the hear and now.
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Post by jrbarry »

I do not know who is coaching LBJ now, but their teams in the 1990s were quite good at ASCN.

Good to see them back in national competition. They have an excellent Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy which draws, I am sure, excellent academic-oriented students from the Austin area.
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Post by Kechara »

Hopper wrote:Teams are actually qualifying on Speed Checks? I didn't even realize that those are used in tournaments. That would be like qualifying for NAQT through It's Ac or another local TV show.
They're not used in tournaments. If I'm recalling what Dave told me correctly, at least one of the teams that qualifies (New Mexico?) does so as a result of a local tv show simply because NAQT provides the questions for it.
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Post by geekjohnson »

I'm not sure who, or where, it was, but I know a couple of teams qualified for HSNCT on speed checks.
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Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Was TOMCAT speed? That was my impression.
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Post by First Chairman »

jrbarry wrote:I do not know who is coaching LBJ now, but their teams in the 1990s were quite good at ASCN.

Good to see them back in national competition. They have an excellent Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy which draws, I am sure, excellent academic-oriented students from the Austin area.
LBJ had been considering attending PACE Nationals but could not due to funding and scheduling conflicts.
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Post by ktour84 »

If HSNCT expands its field, NAQT is either going to have to find one site that will allow for enough playing room and lodging or expand to another site in the area. They are going to have to raise HSNCT fees to cover the extra reservation fees and bringing more staff to help. Raising the price might discourage teams with more modest budgets from going and programs which have qualified multiple teams from taking all of them without any additional fundraising. I don't think the national circuit or NAQT wants that to happen.

The allotting of bids based upon each state's 2007 HSNCT performance seems arbitrary IMO. Next year is a new year and every program performs differently each year.

I do think that NAQT should take into consideration the expanding use of their questions in HS tournaments. Some states have been using NAQT questions longer and as a result, their teams have more experience. Perhaps, only the top 10 percent of the teams that go to a tournament using NAQT questions should get automatic bids for HSNCT in these states and states with more recent exposure to NAQT should still go with the 15% rule.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

ktour84 wrote:
I do think that NAQT should take into consideration the expanding use of their questions in HS tournaments. Some states have been using NAQT questions longer and as a result, their teams have more experience. Perhaps, only the top 10 percent of the teams that go to a tournament using NAQT questions should get automatic bids for HSNCT in these states and states with more recent exposure to NAQT should still go with the 15% rule.
I believe it should be the other way around if the object is to get the best teams to HSNCT. For example, at many tournaments in the MD/DC/VA region, many highly competitive teams would often miss a 10% cutoff. Even with the 15% cutoff it is difficult due to the large number of strong teams in the area. On the other hand, in a region that is not yet all that competitive on NAQT questions, the top 15% could yield some relatively weak teams.

But I am all for encouraging the spread of quality quizbowl across the country. NAQT seems to be doing an excellent job in improving the high school quizbowl nation. (ditto for PACE).
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Post by Dan Greenstein »

jbarnes112358 wrote:I believe it should be the other way around if the object is to get the best teams to HSNCT. For example, at many tournaments in the MD/DC/VA region, many highly competitive teams would often miss a 10% cutoff. Even with the 15% cutoff it is difficult due to the large number of strong teams in the area. On the other hand, in a region that is not yet all that competitive on NAQT questions, the top 15% could yield some relatively weak teams.

But I am all for encouraging the spread of quality quizbowl across the country. NAQT seems to be doing an excellent job in improving the high school quizbowl nation. (ditto for PACE).
Although it would involve more work for NAQT, I would put forth a 10% cutoff that does not include teams that have already made a cutoff at an NAQT-affiliated tournament. This way, teams that are good but not good enough to reach the top 15% at tournaments with strong fields are not excluded.
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Post by Kechara »

Dan Greenstein wrote:
jbarnes112358 wrote:I believe it should be the other way around if the object is to get the best teams to HSNCT...On the other hand, in a region that is not yet all that competitive on NAQT questions, the top 15% could yield some relatively weak teams.
Although it would involve more work for NAQT, I would put forth a 10% cutoff that does not include teams that have already made a cutoff at an NAQT-affiliated tournament. This way, teams that are good but not good enough to reach the top 15% at tournaments with strong fields are not excluded.
This line of discussion brings two main thoughts to mind. For one, the difference between John's idea and ktour's seems to be a question of philosophy and whether one prefers giving teams that "should" be there a chance to get in or making sure teams that "should not" be at a national tournament aren't there.

John's idea leads to fewer marginal teams slipping in there. On the other hand, the main strength of ktour's idea is that it allows more room for a team that "should" be there having an off day and not going as far into the playoffs as they usually would. After all, the the areas with few NAQT tournaments, they might not have another chance to qualify.

The other idea that occurs to be is widening the use of the kind of tournament format that was done with Patriot Games, of separate brackets for teams that have already qualified and those that have not. I was talking with one of the Centennial adult-types at the NSC, and he was saying that a lot of area teams did not go to their tournaments because they hated getting their butts mowed down by TJ and RM and such, whereas the TJs and RMs aren't gaining or improving as much by beating Paint Branch B 500-5 (if they could put up a B-team...yes, I'll use my alma mater to poke at). More local teams might be willing to come to tournaments and play and improve if they know they'll be spending their time playing games they might have a chance of winning.

The main question becomes how to combine the brackets for the playoffs, preferably in such a way that every team from the non-qualified bracket isn't necessarily killed in the first round. Maybe something like (for a 16-team single elim playoff), the top 8 in the pre-qualified bracket are seeded as 1-8, the top 8 in the trying-to-qualify bracket are seeded 9-16, and then do 1 vs. 16 and so on?

Hopefully something like that (or whatever better ways to do this that y'all come up with) could help with Dave's main complaint about taking the top X% who haven't qualified...some team that didn't even make playoffs (or come close) qualifying because everyone above them already has.

Thoughts? Want to tell me I'm crazy? (I might be, I'm still half-asleep!)
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Post by Gautam »

charlieDfromNKC wrote:Was TOMCAT speed? That was my impression.
Yes, it was, and a bunch of teams qualified that way... However, the problem there was the "Top 15% of the field" qualifying. There were 64 teams in attendance and 10 (rounded up from 9.6) should have qualified. However, since there were 8 9th place ties, 16 teams (which is 25% of the field) qualified.

I strongly feel like that 15% limit should be enforced.. Either use some statistic (like PPG) or just have a loser's bracket going and the top two teams qualify.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

In response to Jessie, I believe the two-tiered approach to running tournaments is becoming increasingly popular. The Patriot Games and PACE NSC, as well as our own GSAC have used variations on this theme with increasing success. When a tournament accepts teams of different abilities, it it good for most, if not all teams to have some realistically positive goal. For example, at GSAC we often attract several national caliber teams that fight it out for the championship, while the best of the rest fight it out for the consolation trophy. The NSC consolation trophy has become more popular (Nobody left early!) and more hotly contested every year. To win a consolation bracket you must win several games down the stretch to finish on a very positive note. It is quite literally winning a tournament within a tournament.

NAQT has a variant of this with their small school championship. UVA has been also doing the "small school" thing. Some tournaments use the JV variant for younger teams.

So, yes, teams in regions with several dominant national powers like MD/DC/VA often can get frustrated when they have little chance of winning the tournament or even finishing in the top X%. Perhaps structuring the event where the winner of a suitably designed consolation bracket can qualify for nationals might be the way to go. Even without the consolation sub-tournament, letting in the top finisher (or finishers) not to have already qualified would be a possible solution to the dilemma.

One might hope that any national championship tournament of N teams would have the top N teams in the nation in attendance. Though that would almost surely never happen, qualification procedures should aspire to it.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

metsfan001 wrote:
Hopper wrote:
metsfan001 wrote:Yeah, I look forward to facing Wilmington Charter F at HSNCT.
It may happen, Guy. I've seen Wilmington Charter F at several DC area tournaments.
I have too, but I'll eat my hat if they have SIX teams at all approaching national caliber.
Last year, we qualified 5 teams for nationals at our state tournament. I doubt that more than perhaps 3 of them could do somewhat well, but I think that even Charter F could possibly scrape up a win against Sand Rock or Kent City. ("National Caliber" doesn't necessarily mean that much.) However, there is no way that we will bring 5 teams to Nationals, considering the expense involved. I beleive that there is about one other team in Delaware currently that could possibly make playoffs at the HSNCT, but they are currently unable to scrape up enough money to go.

As to the actual topic of this thread, I think that as long as NAQT is able to continue to host its National Tournament, it can continue expanding as is. If they cannot, the state-ranking system seems like it could be an adequate solution, though I beleive that it would make sense to actually rank DC and International as areas as opposed to simply giving them one spot, which underrepresents them in proportion to their strength. Also, I would suggest that state tournaments not be the only method to accrue state spots. I would suggest that any team that goes to an NAQT tournament and qualifies under the old rules would get one of their state's spots. The spots should go to the schools from a state that place the highest at the toughest tournaments (calculated by some sort of rating of the teams there), with one garunteed to the state champion.
Last edited by The Atom Strikes! on Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Nav »

jbarnes112358 wrote:In response to Jessie, I believe the two-tiered approach to running tournaments is becoming increasingly popular. The Patriot Games and PACE NSC, as well as our own GSAC have used variations on this theme with increasing success.
The Copley Invitational (largest tournament in the state) runs a system similar to this. Although this past one was the first one I've been to it seems to be a great tournament with some minor kinks

In last year's Copley Invitational, teams were split into 7 groups of 8. In OAC play, a tournament must have at least 8 competitors in order to send 1 champion to Regional competition (bad: even if a tournament had 50 teams, only 1 gets the bid). Copley's was set up to have 7 mini-tournaments running at once. Blue and Gold brackets were for teams already qualified to Regionals, and the other 5 were for non-qualifiers. The only bad side is in OAC play, no B teams are allowed, and in Copley they were mixed in with the non-qualifiers.

What I think NAQT should do is consider moving this back to a college campus. IF you can find one that can commit alot of its rooms and a few buildings for an entire weekend. That way you can have team members staying in dorms (provided school is already out and there aren't alot of summer schoolers) and there would be plenty of classrooms to use. Yes, you might have to use multiple buildings but the rooms will be bigger and students can get somewhat a glimpse of "college life"... okay maybe not.
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