Minnesota Effect - Revision history

Kevin Wang: /* Is the Minnesota Effect Real or Perceived? */

2021-06-14T02:51:15Z

Is the Minnesota Effect Real or Perceived?

Kevin Wang at 02:50, 14 June 2021

2021-06-14T02:50:58Z

Charles Hang at 21:07, 1 April 2010

2010-04-01T21:07:13Z

fix>QBWikiBot at 23:52, 24 January 2010

2010-01-24T23:52:01Z

New page

The '''Minnesota Effect''' describes the tendency for teams with major knowledge holes to finish poorly at [[mainstream quizbowl|mainstream]] [[ICT|national]] [[ACF Nationals|tournaments]] but still win [[CBI NCT]].

The term was coined by [[Chris Frankel]] in [http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1763&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50 this thread] and named after 2005 champion [[Minnesota]], who had won CBI Nationals despite having limited or no knowledge of several categories, most prominently literature. These major knowledge holes led to their 27th-place finish at that year's ICT and a description of "no championship material" from [[Jerry Vinokurov]], who played against them at the ICT and thus witnessed them firsthand on non-CBI questions.

==Reasons for the Minnesota Effect==
#"Dumbing down" of questions by CBI compared to other national tournaments*. CBI uses non-pyramidal, sometimes even antipyramidal, tossups and its target difficulty is far lower than other national tournaments. It also places a far greater emphasis on non-academic subjects.
#"Dumbing down" of the nationals field*. Historically strong ACUI regions (e.g. 6, 15) and historically weak regions (e.g. 13, 14) are each only guaranteed one spot in the NCT, and the sixteenth team is a wild card ostensibly picked at random from the second-place Regional Tournament finishers (but no statistically strong second-place team has been chosen as the wild card team in recent memory). In addition, several of the top teams in the nation no longer play CBI; typically, CBI participants make up no more than a quarter of the top-bracket field in either of the other two tournaments. Also, CBI's restriction on graduate student participation ensures that many teams are not able to field their actual "A" team at NCT.
#Bizarre results and overwhelming upset potential. While the "best" team does not always win every game in even an ideal quizbowl format, bizarrely unexpected results are a regular occurrence during CBI tournaments, and the winner of any given game, even a gigantic blowout, cannot be said to be the more knowledgeable team. At the time of Frankel's post, this was best exemplified by Minnesota's 100-410 prelim loss to 5-10 Montana State, though equally strange results are standard at any year's NCT. Therefore, top-bracket teams at other national tournaments may suffer enough losses to less-knowledgeable teams to prevent them from winning the championship or even making the playoffs. This was best exemplified by the 2005 NCT, in which two top-bracket finishers at that year's ICT ([[Rochester]] and [[Stanford]]) were eliminated in the playoffs and another ICT top-bracket finisher ([[Illinois]]) did not even make the playoffs.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Original reasons given by Chris Frankel

==Is the Minnesota Effect Real or Perceived?==
Data from the past ten years seem to show that the Minnesota Effect is not as pronounced as initially thought when ; in particular, six of the past ten CBI champions also placed in the top bracket at both NAQT ICT and ACF Nationals in that year. However, five of those ten teams were from either [[Chicago]] or [[Michigan]], neither of which has attended a CBI National Tournament since 2004, and only one of the past five NCT Champions (2006 [[UCLA]]) has even attended ACF Nationals, thus lending credence to the theory.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0"
! Year
! NCT Champion
! ICT Finish
! ACF Finish
|-
| [[1999 NCT|1999]]
| [[1999 Chicago|Chicago]]
| 1st
| 1st
|-
| [[2000 NCT|2000]]
| [[2000 Michigan|Michigan]]
| 6th
| 3rd
|-
| [[2001 NCT|2001]]
| [[2001 Michigan|Michigan]]
| 2nd
| 1st
|-
| [[2002 NCT|2002]]
| [[2002 Michigan|Michigan]]
| 1st
| 1st
|-
| [[2003 NCT|2003]]
| [[2003 Chicago|Chicago]]
| 1st
| 5th
|-
| [[2004 NCT|2004]]
| [[2004 Minnesota|Minnesota]]
| 28th
| Did not attend
|-
| [[2005 NCT|2005]]
| [[2005 Minnesota|Minnesota]]
| 27th
| Did not attend
|-
| [[2006 NCT|2006]]
| [[2006 UCLA|UCLA]]
| 8th
| 6th
|-
| [[2007 NCT|2007]]
| [[2007 Minnesota|Minnesota]]
| t14th
| Did not attend
|-
| [[2008 NCT|2008]]
| [[2008 Rochester|Rochester]]
| 28th
| Did not attend
|-
|}

If one concentrates on the past five years, a pattern of low or non-existent finishes at other national tournaments emerges. The 2006 results, though they may have cast initial doubt upon the reality of the Minnesota Effect, may be best explained by noting that both of the NCT Finals teams were each led by one of the top players on [[the circuit]] (UCLA's [[Charles Meigs]] and Illinois' [[Mike Sorice]]) and were able to avoid enough upsets to ensure that one of them would win that year's championship. Subsequent results indicate that 2006 was likely an aberration and that the Minnesota Effect is not actually an illusion perpetuated by anti-CBI partisans.

Due to the suspension of CBI's program following the 2008 NCT, it is unknown whether this pattern would continue; however, the growing trend of circuit teams de-affiliating from CBI implies that the continuation of the Minnesota Effect would be likely.

[[Category: Quizbowl lingo]] [[Category: College Bowl]] [[Category: Bad quizbowl]]
[[Category:Original QBWiki Page]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:50, 14 June 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	The '''Minnesota Effect''' ~~describes~~ the tendency for teams with major knowledge holes to finish poorly at [[mainstream quizbowl\|mainstream]] [[ICT\|national]] [[ACF Nationals\|tournaments]] but still win [[CBI NCT]].	+	<onlyinclude>The '''Minnesota Effect''' described the tendency for teams with major knowledge holes to finish poorly at [[mainstream quizbowl\|mainstream]] [[ICT\|national]] [[ACF Nationals\|tournaments]] but still win [[CBI NCT]].

		+	This term is no longer in use, as CBI is defunct.</onlyinclude>
		+
		+	==History==
	The term was coined by [[Chris Frankel]] in [http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1763&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50 this thread] and named after 2005 champion [[Minnesota]], who had won CBI Nationals despite having limited or no knowledge of several categories, most prominently literature. These major knowledge holes led to their 27th-place finish at that year's ICT and a description of "no championship material" from [[Jerry Vinokurov]], who played against them at the ICT and thus witnessed them firsthand on non-CBI questions.		The term was coined by [[Chris Frankel]] in [http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1763&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50 this thread] and named after 2005 champion [[Minnesota]], who had won CBI Nationals despite having limited or no knowledge of several categories, most prominently literature. These major knowledge holes led to their 27th-place finish at that year's ICT and a description of "no championship material" from [[Jerry Vinokurov]], who played against them at the ICT and thus witnessed them firsthand on non-CBI questions.

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 ==Is the Minnesota Effect Real or Perceived?==
-Data from the past ten years seem to show that the Minnesota Effect is not as pronounced as initially thought when ; in particular, six of the past ten CBI champions also placed in the top bracket at both NAQT ICT and ACF Nationals in that year.  However, five of those ten teams were from either [[Chicago]] or [[Michigan]], neither of which has attended a CBI National Tournament since 2004, and only one of the past five NCT Champions (2006 [[UCLA]]) has even attended ACF Nationals, thus lending credence to the theory.
+Data from the past ten years seem to show that the Minnesota Effect is not as pronounced as initially thought; in particular, six of the past ten CBI champions also placed in the top bracket at both NAQT ICT and ACF Nationals in that year.  However, five of those ten teams were from either [[Chicago]] or [[Michigan]], neither of which has attended a CBI National Tournament since 2004, and only one of the past five NCT Champions (2006 [[UCLA]]) has even attended ACF Nationals, thus lending credence to the theory.
 {| border="1" cellspacing="0"

@@ Line 73: / Line 73: @@
 If one concentrates on the past five years, a pattern of low or non-existent finishes at other national tournaments emerges.  The 2006 results, though they may have cast initial doubt upon the reality of the Minnesota Effect, may be best explained by noting that both of the NCT Finals teams were each led by one of the top players on [[the circuit]] (UCLA's [[Charles Meigs]] and Illinois' [[Mike Sorice]]) and were able to avoid enough upsets to ensure that one of them would win that year's championship.  Subsequent results indicate that 2006 was likely an aberration and that the Minnesota Effect is not actually an illusion perpetuated by anti-CBI partisans.
-Due to the suspension of CBI's program following the 2008 NCT, it is unknown whether this pattern would continue; however, the growing trend of circuit teams de-affiliating from CBI implies that the continuation of the Minnesota Effect would be likely.
+Due to the suspension of CBI's program following the 2008 NCT, it is unknown whether this pattern would have continued; however, the growing trend of circuit teams de-affiliating from CBI implies that the continuation of the Minnesota Effect would have been likely.
 [[Category: Quizbowl lingo]] [[Category: College Bowl]] [[Category: Bad quizbowl]]
 [[Category:Original QBWiki Page]]