Re: Where have all the D1 teams gone?

• From: kactigger <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:29:04 -0000
• Message-ID: <c1be00+49rl_at_...>

I know this is some sort of inside reference that I'm not getting, so 
what was Dwight Kidder's bathroom adventure?

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, fluidmosaic6 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> 
> This is interesting.  The main reason might just be that CBI has no 
> interaction with the circuit at all, even to the extent that at 
Pitt, 
> nobody on our team knew when CBI intramurals was until about ten 
days 
> before the event, when it turned out to be the day after Penn Bowl, 
> right in the middle of five straight weekends with a tournament (it 
> became four because there wasn't enough interest in ACF Regionals 
> after all that).  We could have asked the Program Council earlier, 
> but there didn't seem to be any reason to make it one of our top 
> priorities, compared to Penn Bowl, MLK, NAQT Regionals, our high 
> school tournament the next weekend, or ACF Regionals.
> 
> Pitt's intramurals annually have 4 to 6 teams, half of them 
> containing at least one person from the circuit team.  There's one 
> group of biology majors who's competed at intramurals the last 4 
> years, and then 2 or 3 teams of random people who are totally 
> outclassed.  This year I think there were 5 teams, including 4 
> circuit people and none of our 10 circuit freshmen.  It's hard to 
> explain to people at practice why they should play on semi-
pyramidal, 
> inconsistent questions read by people who have never read questions 
> before and have never seen the questions before the tournament, 
with 
> a rigorous format in which there are several ways to know the 
answer, 
> buzz in first, and not get credit for it.  It's also not all that 
> much fun to have circuit people competing against non-circuit 
> people.  I've started feeling like circuit people are sort of out 
of 
> place at our intramurals.
> 
> New people on the circuit team might also get a bad impression of 
CBI 
> from hearing about incidents like Dwight Kidder's bathroom 
adventure, 
> or the time last year when we had a bye round right after lunch, 
and 
> the times of the matches weren't lined up properly with the 
matchups, 
> causing two of us to think that (lunch + bye round) = 2 hours 
instead 
> of 1.5 hours, with the end result being that Josh and I played 
> against Moravian, won 270-120, and got credit for a loss thanks to 
> not having enough players.
> 
> I don't know if it's the same at other schools, but at Pitt the 
team 
> for regionals is chosen as an "all-star" team by the people who 
> moderated at the intramurals, and they don't put much effort into 
> telling non-circuit people why they would want to go to Susquehanna 
> or Penn State over a weekend with strangers and compete in an 
> academic trivia tournament.  This year the "all-star" team was two 
> circuit people (Erik and Beth, who were at regionals), and three 
non-
> circuit people, only one of whom (David, who also went to LA two 
> years ago) was ever heard from after intramurals.  If only two of 
the 
> five all-stars wanted to go, then we wouldn't have a team.  And of 
> course you can't be on the team for regionals if you weren't at the 
> intramurals.
> 
> As for the small number of D1 teams, that seems obvious: Why would 
> you compete in D1 if you're eligible to compete in D2?  And the 
> reason why these D2 people don't move up to D1 is that they are 
still 
> D2 eligible, so why would they want to move up and decrease their 
> chance of qualifying for nationals?
> 
> > How about a new rule: you can stay in D2 until you
> > win or place at a tournament, even if you have older students on 
> your
> > team. You can move up at any time into D1, but as long as you 
> haven't
> > had a strong result, if you want to keep playing D2 you can. 
Winning
> > or placing doesn't automatically bump you up to D1 unless you have
> > experienced players; a team of mighty frosh can enjoy their D1
> > victories all year. 
> 
> Isn't this the case now?  I think you can play D1, not qualify for 
> nationals, and then drop back to D2.  I'm sure you can play D2, not 
> qualify for nationals, and then play D2 the following year.  If 
> that's not the case, I agree that it should be.
> 
> Don't understand the point about moving up and moving down, 
and "all 
> year", since there's only one tournament each year that divides 
> people into D1 and D2.  
> 
> I don't think it's a question of having a small number of D1 teams, 
I 
> think it's a question of having a large number of D2 teams.  Lots 
of 
> people want to go to NAQT regionals as D2 because A) they don't 
have 
> to write questions, B) the questions aren't all that hard, so 
they're 
> more likely to answer questions, and C) they aren't going to get 
> crushed by Michigan A, Chicago A, or Rochester A; if they get 
crushed 
> it's likely to be by a team with comparable experience, and 
therefore 
> seems more fair.
> 
> Michael Davies
> pittqbowl_at_e...