The Quizbowl Resource Center

High School Academic Pyramid Questions announces that it will be holding the fifth HSAPQ National All-Star Academic Tournament on June 14-15, 2014 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The tournament will convene at 8:30 AM on Saturday, June 14 and run until about 6 PM, then conclude from 8:30 AM to about 3:00 PM on Sunday. We will announce details as soon as possible regarding the specific buildings on the OSU campus that will be used, though we expect to once again use the Dreese lecture hall and the Central Classroom Building.

As the past four NASATs have been widely praised for their logistic smoothness and high-quality questions, and OSU proved to be an excellent site in 2013, our goal this year is to continue that tradition and break the 20-participant mark.

This tournament will once again be open to all-star teams representing all states, the District of Columbia, all US territories, and all Canadian provinces and equivalents (as well as state or province-equivalent divisions of any other countries). Each state or equivalent may enter up to one team, with up to six players on its roster, up to four of whom may be playing at any one time. Any player who was enrolled in the 9th through 12th grade in a school physically located in that state during the 2013-2014 academic year is eligible to play on his or her state's team. Generally speaking, home school students are also eligible; any questions about eligibility will be answered by HSAPQ as needed. This tournament is intended for states seeking an all-star event. We encourage single-school teams looking for national championships to investigate two such championships run by groups that are unaffiliated with HSAPQ: the National Scholastics Championship run by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence and the High School National Championship Tournament run by National Academic Quiz Tournaments.

We will continue to keep cost under control; in line with that, the tournament will not be held at a resort, but rather on a college campus, much like many other high school quizbowl events held throughout the year. Furthermore, we will use a normal format comparable to regular-season events: games will consist of twenty tossups, with a thirty-point bonus being played after each correct tossup answer. Teams will play head-to-head, two at a time. "Performance-based," multimedia, calculation, and pop culture questions will not be used. Teams will play twelve to sixteen games, in line with other national championship events, over the two days of the tournament. Because this event will be played by highly skilled all-star teams, the question difficulty will be higher than that used at existing national championships such as the NSC and HSNCT. The style and subject distribution of the questions will be quite similar to existing HSAPQ sets. The entry fee is $525 per team with a $20 discount for bringing up to one buzzer system per team. HSAPQ will be issuing suggestions on nearby hotels, transportation and dining options, and so on, but will be neither providing nor selling such accommodations ourselves, with the exception of a possible Friday night event. Teams travelling by air are advised that Port Columbus International Airport (CMH) is the major airport serving the metro area.

We recommend the Blackwell Columbus as a hotel.

All teams must submit an application to HSAPQ for entry into the tournament. In the vast majority of these cases, applications will be accepted outright. However, if more than one contingent from a state seeks to enter this tournament, HSAPQ will evaluate applications from each potential team and determine who may represent their state at the National All-Star Academic Tournament. The only criterion that will be used in this decision is our assessment, based on a review of the players' achievements in the 2013-14 competition year, of which team is likely to perform the best at the tournament. Therefore, GPA, test scores, and non-academic extracurricular activities should not be included on any application; other academic extracurricular activities (e.g. Science Bowl) should only be included if there were limited opportunities for teams in the state to compete at quizbowl. HSAPQ plans to continue consulting with a regional network of advisors who will advise HSAPQ on these decisions.

HSAPQ will once again use a rolling application procedure: teams who submit applications to HSAPQ on or before March 14 will be notified of HSAPQ's decision no later than March 21. We may also approve an application submitted from this point onwards as soon as "immediately" if we find it unlikely that a stronger team from the state could be assembled. Teams who submit applications to HSAPQ between March 14 and June 1, inclusive, will be notified no later than one week after the application is received. In other words, March 14 is not a hard deadline, and you may still enter the tournament afterwards, though you are encouraged to start forming and fundraising as soon as possible so that a logistical problem does not cause an interested team to miss the tournament. Once a team from a state or state-equivalent has been approved by HSAPQ, HSAPQ will no longer accept alternate applications from that state, but will accept roster changes made by the official team contact (in most cases, the individual that submitted the application). Team applications will be handled by Matt Weiner ([email protected]).

If you have any questions or concerns please contact me at dgh4bp[AT]virginia[DOT]edu. We look forward to a diverse field and another excellent event in Columbus this year!

Roster bids submitted/accepted:

California
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Missouri
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia

Any suggestions for challenging try-out sets for NASAT 2014?

Edward Powers wrote:Any suggestions for challenging try-out sets for NASAT 2014?

On this note, has anyone HSAPQ considered my suggestion of appointing a semi-official tryout set or just partnering with someone who's producing a set to encourage them to protect it for such purposes?

Grams's Go-Go Boots wrote:

Edward Powers wrote:Any suggestions for challenging try-out sets for NASAT 2014?

On this note, has anyone HSAPQ considered my suggestion of appointing a semi-official tryout set or just partnering with someone who's producing a set to encourage them to protect it for such purposes?

This is something that I will discuss with Matt. At the moment though, HSAPQ does not recommend any particular set as a tryout set.

Does anyone know if there is a 2013-2014 version of the Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament Set that might be available for NASAT try-outs?

There will be, although I don't know when it will be ready by.

For those who were wondering, the distribution of questions at the 2014 NASAT will be as follows:

4/4 literature (this will contain equal amounts of American, British, and European, with World comprising one-third of the amount of any one of those categories. We are also piloting in this tournament a new subdistribution in which 10% of the British literature is specifically on Shakespeare, with the intention of using that approach in regular sets next year if this succeeds)

4/4 history (9:5:3 ratio of European:American:World, with European further subdivided by time period in the usual way)

4/4 science (1/1 each on biology, physics, and math; .75/.75 [or 3 questions per every 2 packets] on chemistry; remainder roughly evenly divided among astronomy, earth science, computer science, and science history) The bumping of math to a full 1/1 per packet is also a pilot project that will be implemented at lower levels if it works here.

3/3 arts (1/1 each on painting and music, remaining 1/1 split roughly evenly among sculpture, architecture, opera, film, and a jazz/ballet/dance/misc catchall)

2.5/2.5 RMP (Bible/Christian, other religion, Greek myth, other myth, and philosophy each get exactly 1 question per packet)

.5/.5 current events (always complementing the fifth RMP question in tossup/bonus type, and split evenly between US and foreign)

1/1 social science (heavily weighted towards psychology and economics but including some representation from all subcategories usually put here)

1/1 geography (11:6:3 ratio of worldeurope)

I apologize in advance if an unlinked post goes against board protocol. Here is the Team Illinois selection announcement posted under the Illinois thread:

CometsCoach wrote:It is my pleasure...regarding the members of Team Illinois 2014. A big thanks to all of those who tried out, and also those who assisted Sharon Lorinskas and myself in selecting these students to represent our state at NASAT this June:

Jason Asher, Stevenson
Anton Karpovich, IMSA
Evan Pandya, Rockford Auburn
Cole Timmerwilke, Rockford Auburn

EDIT: Punctuation

EDIT: Quoted post edited for brevity.

Just FYI: the link on the left of this page that says "2014 NASAT" actually goes to the page for the 2013 version of the event.

HSAPQ is happy to announce that the official hotel for the 2014 National All-Star Academic Tournament is the Blackwell Inn and Conference Center. The Blackwell is a four-star hotel located directly on the Ohio State campus within easy walking distance of our game rooms. We will host the regular schedule in the OSU buildings, with official lodging and the finals/trophy presentation taking place in a ballroom at the Blackwell.

We have negotiated a spectacular $119 rate, which can be used on either king or double rooms. We strongly encourage all participating teams to take advantage of this excellent pricing and convenience for a luxury hotel experience.

In addition to the excellent pricing, the hotel offers a free shuttle from Port Columbus International Airport, meaning that teams do not have to rent a car to attend the tournament.

To reserve, use http://www.theblackwell.com/ or call 1-866-247-4003. Mention "HSAPQ" to get the $119 rate on the phone or use the code HSAPQ0614 on the website.

Just a reminder that this tournament is approaching, and we're still hoping for bids from all the quizbowl states that haven't signed up yet! Join us for what looks to be the largest NASAT ever!

Below is the current field:

Roster bids submitted/accepted:


California
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Missouri
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia

Hey, I'd just like to remind everyone that tomorrow is the last day to book the official hotel. We still have a few rooms available and it really is the best deal you're going to find at $119 for a four-star venue that is directly on the campus adjacent to the competition buildings & has an airport shuttle.

We have 17 states registered, making this already the largest NASAT ever, and are looking forward to hearing more from Minnesota and Alabama as they check on interest for a team. Anyone who else who wants to come is encouraged to keep working on forming a squad; we can take late registrations essentially up to a few days before the tournament with little trouble. The only thing you will lose is the early payment discount and the opportunity to book the official hotel at the lower rate -- otherwise, feel free to join this exciting tournament as soon as you have your lineup plans together.

With 18 teams, are you likely to start with 2 groups of 9, then split 10/8 for crossover?

jonpin wrote:With 18 teams, are you likely to start with 2 groups of 9, then split 10/8 for crossover?

EDIT: It looks like we will run a full round robin if we have 17 or 18 teams. If we have 19 teams, then we will use a split format similar to the one that Jon described.

Yes. We will most likely adopt this schedule.

I've hunted down people for each state to compile an unofficial roster for the tournament, which can be found at the following link. If anyone has any corrections for the team, PM me or message me on Facebook and I'll try to change it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

The official rosters (subject to change) for the tournament are as follows:

California
Hidehiro Anto
Assem Keyal
Bruce Lou
Kevin Wang

Delaware
Varun Wadhwa
Naman Agrawal
Mohan Malhotra
Shrayus Sortur
Jared Saquing

Florida
Kevin Noh
Michael Wong
David Jelke
Dante Bolzan

Georgia
Nick Pinto
Thomas Dellaert
Shubhom Bhattacharya
Thomas Evinger
Zack Johnson

Illinois
Jason Asher
Anton Karpovich
Evan Pandya
Cole Timmerwilke

Indiana
Nolan Liu
Davide Behr
Michael Oei
Kyle Pratt
Benjamin Eby

Kentucky
Alex Malone
Alice Liu
Athena Kim
Kieren Weisert
Olivia Kiser
Will Walters

Maryland
Sameen Belal
Gabe Guedes
Isaac Kirk-Davidoff
Lawrence Simon
Gary Tse

Massachusetts
Colin Cantwell
Saadya Chevan
Regulus Luo
Shashank Madhu
Victor Pavao
Arjun Sarathy

Michigan
Jack Watts
Austin Foos
Harris Bunker
Nishant Kheterpal

Missouri
Jialin Ding
Jared Lockwood
Kisan Thakkar
Ben Zhang

New Jersey
Jack Mehr
Shravan Bialaji
Rohan Kodialam
Sean McBride
Shristi Srivastava
Stephen Badger

New York
Lucia Geng
Christ Hillenbrand
Brent Morden
Albert Tai
Aryeh Zax

North Carolina
Alex Li
Jonathan Williams
Justin Luo
Manu Gargeya
Sanjay Kannan
Ziad Ali

Ohio
Sam Blizzard
Arjun Venkataraman
Zel Demere
Sayeef Moyen
Jack Martin

Tennessee
Griffin Ray
Kai Smith
Zach Billett
Aram Bejnood
Akshay Soni
Jesse Bennett

Texas
Carlo DeGuzman
Ben Jones
Corin Wagen
Henry Hawthorn
Ethan Russo

Virginia
Eric Xu
Mason Hale
Reese Fulgenzi
Ryan Golant
Evan Washington
Tigran Asryan

As you can see, with 18 teams currently registered, this year's NASAT will not only be large, but should also be exciting!

Dan,

Shristi cannot make it to NASAT, so her place on New Jersey's team will be taken by her High Tech teammate, Patrick LeBlanc.

In the interest of an accurate program (and seeding, if the final format uses brackets), HSAPQ encourages all teams to update their rosters when roster changes are made. There are a number of discrepancies between Eric's unofficial rosters and HSAPQ's, so please let us know if what we have is out of date.

Smuttynose Island wrote: New Jersey
Jack Mehr
Shravan Bialaji
Rohan Kodialam
Sean McBride
Shristi Srivastava
Stephen Badger

In the interest of correctness, it's Shravan Balaji and Srishti Srivastava.

The Tennessee team will consist of Griffin, Akshay, Aram, Jesse, and I. Zach will not be able to make it.

Those not attending this tournament may wish to play the open online mirror.

The New York team's had a slight roster change. We are now:

Lucia Geng (F)
Chris Hillenbrand (M)
Allan Lee (M)
Albert Tai (M)

The Delaware team has had a roster change and now consists of:

Varun Wadhwa
Shrayus Sortur
Mohan Malhotra
Rohan Narayan

Team Indiana lost one player:

Smuttynose Island wrote: Indiana
Nolan Liu
Davide Behr
Michael Oei
Kyle Pratt
Benjamin Eby

I will not be attending, so Team Ohio is Sam, Arjun, Zel, and Jack

Team Ohio will actually be Sam, Arjun, Zel, Jack, Nour Hijazi (Sidney) and Kara Combs (Northmont).

An up to date stat report for NASAT 2014 can be found here

Team Illinois' scores are being kept live here

Something is wrong with one scoresheet. Team Ohio had 8 tossups in round 1 (Zel Demere had the missing one). I wish we had 29 ppb!

Team Missouri live scoresheets are here

I made a grid of game results so far, similar to the ones that Harry and Jon have made for some previous tournaments. It's posted here: http://www.mit.edu/~seltinge/nasat/Standings.html.

In each cell, the first score listed is the score for the left-hand team, while the second score is the score for the team along the top row. Green cells correspond to wins for the left-hand team, while red cells correspond to losses. A green cell in the lower left (or a red cell in the upper right) could be considered an "upset," if the actual team strength is taken to be the standard SQBS tiebreaking order of win percentage, followed by PPG.

If you want to follow Illinois today, go here.

Can Texas (14-1) still win outright with a win over Virginia and an Illinois loss to Missouri? Trying to keep up without today's live results.

Stats through round 16 are up:

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... 014_nasat/

Texas, Illinois, and California are still alive based on possible results of round 17, which is now in progress.


Teams are playing for a chance at the final here:



After which we'll have the National Quizbowl Awards:



And lunch:

etchdulac wrote:Can Texas (14-1) still win outright with a win over Virginia and an Illinois loss to Missouri? Trying to keep up without today's live results.

I apologize for the delay. Stats through Round 16 can now be found here. A team must clear the field by two wins in order to avoid playing a final.

Texas wins and Illinois is second!

California and New Jersey are playing a third place game in the ballroom imminently.

California won the 3rd place game.

First-timers from Florida really enjoyed this! Happy to share thoughts with coaches and teams from yet-to-compete states.

Team Indiana really enjoyed this tournament; the set was well-written overall, and the camaraderie, gameplay, and level of competition exhibited throughout were really fun and excellent.

This set was fun and the questions were highly original, for the most part. This is quite commendable.

Although I personally was a little shaken up by the difficulty of some of the questions at this tournament, overall, this was one of the most pleasant tournament experiences I've ever had. Everything ran very much on schedule, the readers were all high quality, the competition was incredible, and the set truly challenged the top states in the nation and rarely felt unfair or too heavy on buzzer races, which is impressive considering the difficulty of the set. I would like to tip my hat to all the writers and editors for making a difficult, yet interesting set to close off the year.

Regarding bonus conversion, is this approximately what the set is intended to have, with 20 ppb being the goal for the highest few teams? I'm not saying it's a bad goal, but I just wanted to know what difficulty NASAT is aiming for on its bonuses.

On behalf of Team Illinois and its sponsor, IHSSBCA, we thank HSAPQ, Daniel, Matt, and the entire staff that put together a great tournament. We also thank Dave Madden and NHBB for providing the lunch on Sunday, and Ohio State for hosting the event.

It is my hope going forward that I will be able to establish a team and a circuit in the greater Des Moines, IA, area, as I am moving there next month and will continue my teaching career at Waukee High School. I believe the potential is there in that area to create a highly competitive circuit and develop the game further.

Will the stats be updated with the 3rd place match between California and New Jersey?

Will there be a private discussion thread for this or by now it is it just easier to wait until after the online mirror and make it public?

Cheynem wrote:Will there be a private discussion thread for this or by now it is it just easier to wait until after the online mirror and make it public?

I'll post a public thread after the online mirror.

All stats have now been uploaded.

The 2015 edition of this tournament will be held on June 13 & 14. It is likely that it will once again be in Columbus. A full announcement is forthcoming.