My first and foremost concern is to extend thanks to the volunteers who took time to moderate at the ACF Nationals: Jason King, Mark Dawson, Scott Buckley, Bryan Herger, Kevin Olmstead, James Quintong, Jason Paik, Al Przygocki, Andrew Feist, Phil Groce, and Raj himself. Tech players Stephen Webb and Josh Clanton manned statistical duties, and Shae Williams, Tom Anderson, and Eugene Buchko provided relief as my numerous right-hand men. My continued thanks go to Jim Dendy for his guidance in the dubious art of tournament directing. Now to the issues raised over the last few days. Tournament length. At the morning meeting, both Raj and I noted for all present that the top 2 teams from each of the two divisions would complete a round robin in two more matches; and, in clarifying a question raised to us, that the remainder of the field would be divided up similarly. The kink in the plans came with Harvard's protest of the tiebreaker procedure. I made it clear to Raj that I wanted a head-to-head tiebreaker to be used - citing the similar case of Florida - and Raj agreed with my decision. My understanding of what followed is this. Mr. Vaz asked Raj if a shootout tiebreaker would be allowed if Vanderbilt agreed and asked Vanderbilt if they would agree to a shootout tiebreaker as deliberations between Raj and myself were going nowhere. Both teams then told Raj that they had agreed to the shootout and proceeded to play it. I found out about this about halfway through the extra match. I appreciate Mr. Keller's argument insofar as format consistency is concerned, but the fact remains that of the two teams who agreed to the extra match, Vanderbilt was the one with something to lose. The decision to allow the match at all was regrettable, but Raj made it in hopes of speeding things up, and I do not fault his intentions. During the resulting delays, we polled those present as to whether they wished to stay for a further four rounds. With a one day tournament in mind, I had made the original plan for two playoff rounds and one-game-advantage tiebreakers if necessary. However, due to the overwhelming response of players who wished to play four rounds, the playoff structure was revised. On a related note, I still find it difficult to imagine that I could have demanded more of the volunteer readers than they had willingly provided in the way of competence and of patience with last-minute changes. I do not doubt that teams of an ACF Nationals caliber would rather want to play more games than less, but a one-day tournament has its limits, and I appreciate Mr. Berdichevsky's acknowledgement of these limits. Statistics Mr. Romero and Mr. Greenstein have made it a point to promote the merits of SQBS where tournament statistics are concerned. I have not used this program before and will certainly look at it. However, I do not appreciate Mr. Romero's insinuation that the records we tabulated were inferior simply because our software was not his. As the statistics will be posted on the Georgia Tech webpage within the week, I expect that the details will speak for themselves, but every statistic he named or inferred is either explicitly provided or easily calculable in our program. I would have preferred not to respond at all to the patronizing references to Excel, but I am more than a little disappointed that petty sarcasm has found its way into the discussion. As to Mr. Greenstein's related question about playoff brackets, we had running totals and rankings prepared and had gone so far as to list them on the auditorium projector some five minutes after the last preliminary round had ended. However, both the change in playoff structure explained above and the time-consuming controversy surrounding Vanderbilt's head-to-head ranking over Harvard compelled us to wait for both issues to be resolved before we could make meaningful announcements. Questions This is Raj's area, and I will not respond to it one way or the other. Division II As it was explained to me, the highest ranked Division II team at the end of the day was to be awarded the D2 title, and no mention of separate D2 playoffs was made. However, I appreciate Mr. Frankel's concern about seeding and playoff structure. To him, I can only offer my apologies for the final results. Although our original plan had called for all teams to be seeded in playoffs (in sets of two rather than of four from each division), it assumed a seeding balance that simply was not there, and we were, to concede the point, more concerned with championship brackets than with anything else. Information This is an issue I was made aware of second-hand, and it surprises me that so many people had problems finding directions and maps or even the tournament field. The announcements and updates posted on this board contained the link to the tournament webpage. The 2003 Nationals page of the ACF website contained a link to the tournament webpage. Various maps (most of which were searchable), driving directions, contact information for the Georgia Tech visitor center, and links for travel arrangements by train and air were provided on this webpage. In light of all the complaints, I can only offer surprise and apology. To close, I thank all the teams who came to the tournament and gave it the level of competition which I hold as ACF's only meaningful trademark. I likewise thank all the players who have provided the encouragement, praise, and criticism without which this could not have been the learning experience that it was. Sincerely, Saurabh Vishnubhakat Georgia Tech Academic Team Tournament Director 2003 ACF National Tournament
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