> To reiterate my position, I think the outright D1 and D2 champions > from each SCT should receive automatic bids, regardless of the > quality or size of their fields. I don't care about the > undergraduate championship, since they nominally haven't actually > *won* anything. This policy, far more than the current one, would introduce geographic anomalies into the selection process. Teams would receive the benefit of geography by attending weak sectionals (or sectionals with no other teams in their division) and they would have an incentive to attend a different (weaker) section on account of it. NAQT is confident that your hypothetical team has the same chance to qualify regardless of the sectional it attends. Going undefeated against (primarily) Division II opponents is simply not in the same category of accomplishment as going undefeated against primarily Division I opponents and should not be treated as if it were by a fair invitation process. A fair process needs to consider the abilities of the teams that were defeated. It is not asking more of a team to convert questions at a higher rate if they are also only required to play against weaker opponents. > If overall field strength is the primary concern in this rule, then > why give host schools an automatic bid? They haven't proven > anything, either. I can't imagine that this rule affects more than Hosts are given automatic bids because they are expected to use their top players as moderators and scorekeepers. NAQT makes no claims about the competitiveness of host teams vis-a-vis the rest of the field. > 2 or 3 SCT divisional competitions. Are the last invited teams in > D1 or D2 going to bring that much more power and strength to the ICT > field? I say no, and it makes infinitely more sense to reward a > team that went 11-0 and won its sectional outright than a team in a > more competitve SCT that went 7-5 to finish 5th. Based on data from past sectionals, this is almost certainly true. Are you implying that the NAQT formula is likely to do this? I disagree and would be very, very surprised if that was the result come Monday. On the other hand, a Division I team that beats 11 Division II teams converting 35% of its tossups and scoring 8 points per bonus versus a Division I team that lost to (hypothetically) Michigan (twice), Chicago (twice), and Illinois while converting 40% of its tossups and scoring 17 points per bonus? It's not immediately clear to me that the 11-0 team would defeat the 7-5 team or that they would do better at the ICT and are therefore more deserving of a bid. Perhaps they are, but that's why we have a complicated formula for comparing cross-sectional performance. -- R. Robert Hentzel President and Chief Technical Officer, National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC
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