Dave said: << Well,for what it's worth, DCD attends the National Academic Challenge on a regular basis, and they do very well. >> I know that. But for a lot cheaper, they can also drive to Cleveland and play teams that are similar in caliber and quality. Last year, Great Lakes Regional had 1st place State College PA, 2nd place Detroit Catholic Central, 3rd place Henry Ford II, 4th place Copley. I think combined all these teams went 38-5 (my estimate) at all the national championship comps last year (not including Panasonic because... well, the format is whack) which featured two national championship placements (SC, DCC), one runner-up (Copley), and two semifinal placements (DCC, Ford). I'm sure I won't get to have as talented a Final Four as I did last year in March in a long time, but it's a testament to the caliber of team that we want to get for our March open super-regional tournament. The added side-effect is that they get to gain experience and knowledge about how well their own team is relative to other national caliber teams, and how much more work needs to be done in the remaining weeks and months before they have to take them on again in a national tournament. That's why I keep encouraging teams to play as many tournaments as they can and travel to play as many other national-caliber teams as they can. Plus, our protest rule isn't that insane. We actually do have some procedure of a written appeal to the TD if one is absolutely convinced they should have won a protest ruling made by a bracket-head. Usually we have our question-writers on staff who can directly rule correct or incorrect on any protests, which many of the college-team-run competitions have too. It just amazes me how a program is willing to spend thousands of dollars on a national tournament to play a minimum of 4 games, and forego attending a tournament in driving distance with similar-caliber teams and play a few more games on what I hope are better-written questions. I know there are other factors involved, but sometimes the decision-making process by certain teams (like one particular Utica MI team that I won't mention too loudly) confounds me.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:42 AM EST EST