--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Viking Squirrel" <geertgen22_at_a...> wrote: > --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, <cwhite2_at_s...> wrote: > > If I remeber correctly, Yale A's other loss was to Emory, who won > our bracket. It was Emory's one loss (to Michigan B I believe) that > was to a lower-ranked > > team. > > > > Thanks, Chris; I wasn't sure about that. This really emphasizes the > point further: Yale A did not play a team that finished in the top > six, nor defeat a team that finished in the top seven (Emory also > ended up 11-3). So I believe Yale A did not beat a playoff team that > finished with fewer than four losses. > >-Adam That is, until we beat Michigan and Rochester. We played rather poorly in the prelims, but we assumed that we could make up for that since we qualified for the playoffs as the 2 seed in our bracket. The fact whether we "deserved" to be in the final four was rendered moot--we won all the games we played from the power matches through to the end. We couldn't play some of the teams ranked higher than us--it simply was not scheduled as such until the single elimination finals. Is there any way a team that beats the number one and two seeds head to head does not "deserve" to be in the top 4? This isn't really like the Maryland situation from last year's NAQT nationals. Had Maryland been the number 3 team going into a 4-team playoff and then proceeded to beat Chicago and Berkeley, I think they would "deserve" a tournament victory. Had we lost in the final four, an argument could have been made that we didn't belong in the group, but we didn't lose. I think the stats (bonus conversion, etc.) will also show that we were easily among the top four teams by the end. I don't really like how things turned out in some ways--the packet snafu forced a reduction of the number of power matches, blurring the final playoff picture. Power matches aren't really to blame here- -only the number of them. There were power matches last year at PB, if I recall correctly, and they went fine. Also, I don't recall many people complaining about NAQT's "power matches"--ladder play and modified versions of ladder play generally drew the most ire. Perhaps an 8-team playoff like last year could have helped in this situation. The questions, on the whole, were pretty good. Maybe not quite as good as last year's, but still at least the second-best Pennbowl set I've heard. The literature was a bit 20th-century heavy in the earlier rounds, but righted itself by the end. The playoff questions were generally quite good. The number of "real" repeats seems to be somewhat exaggerated. Powers were generally difficult to come by. The only major problems were logistical--buildings being locked down before the tournament was over, a late start due to late arrivals (which, consequently pushed the whole tournament back), a few poor moderators, delays caused by multiple protests during the power matches, and not having any extra, decent "emergency" packets. That's understood going in, though--it is Pennbowl, after all. Anyway, thanks to Samer et al. for running an entertaining tournament. Mike Wehrman Yale
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