Re: ICT Div I Qualification Thought?

oilbaronsball <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Sat, 28 Feb 2004 21:08:41 -0000

Nick-

The best way to make yourselves competitive once you leave the cocoon 
of novice tournaments is to (1) attend more tournaments for 
experience, (2) write questions, and (3) study for quizbowl.  Seeing 
as you guys won Division II at SCT, you guys are pretty competitive 
already and you could hold your own at any open tournament, 
especially in the mid-Atlantic where, as Chris White noted, there are 
less grad students per capita than almost everywhere else.

I disagree with your idea for ICT.  Making an arbitrary division 
would water down the D1 tournament.  Many people would not hold NAQT 
national championship in as high a regard if the 32 best teams were 
not present, especially those 17th and 18th best non-undergrad teams 
left out of the tournament who know they are better than the 13th-
16th best undergrad teams and could probably prove it.  Also (just 
noticed this), I find your idea of segregating the teams abhorent.  
Despite the celebration of Subash's performance for the ages, if you 
thought Chicago's blowout of Berkeley in last year's final was 
impressive, would you still consider it impressive if this year's 
Berkeley team played undergrad champion Harvard in the final and won 
by only 300 points?  Nine out of ten times, it would be a yawner (no 
knock against Harvard's ability intended).  In addition, the idea of 
separating the teams into separate divisions within Division I will 
deprive those undergrad teams of valuable experience against graduate 
students and further stratify the ranks.

Quizbowl (I prefer that term, as College Bowl is CBI, an inferior 
format) is for all college students, whether graduate or 
undergraduate.  Juniors or seniors are just as welcome as freshmen 
and sophomores, despite tournament restrictions.  I realize the ratio 
of junior birds to regular invitationals is pretty large, but that is 
not stopping you from attending invitationals.  Rather than expect 
the circuit to cater to you, you need to take things into your own 
hands.  If you put in the work, you are likely to be rewarded.

On the topic of junior birds, why are you guys not coming to DSHIT 
next weekend?

Dan

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "nicolas_walters" <Sywolf_at_a...> 
wrote:
> I guess this message is mainly directed at R. and the other NAQT 
> brass, although I would love to get everyone's feedback on it. 
What's 
> prompting it is a reflection on thinking about my own team's (Penn) 
> chances of qualifying for Div I ICT next year. Right now, I would 
say 
> they're pretty slim, although not totally out of the question. For 
> the record though, we won Mid-Atlantic Div II Sectionals this year. 
> And yes, the point I'm getting at has been brought up several times 
> before. The jump for even really good freshman and sophs. to "open" 
> competition is quite severe. An easy solution would be to eliminate 
> grad students from the mix, and make ICT for example an undergrad 
> only tournament. Since I know that's not going to happen, I'm not 
> going to even bother proposing. Here's what I am proposing though. 
> Have the Div I field be composed of 16 "open" teams with grad 
> students included of course, and 16 undergrad only teams. Then, the 
> winner that comes out of each bracket will face each other in the 
> final. Granted, the winner of that game might almost always be the 
> open team. But this is a way to insure undergrad participation at a 
> much broader level. Having an undergrad champion in the current 
> format does some to help the problem, but not nearly enough in my 
> opinion. This new format would insure that the best undergrad team 
in 
> the country is declared champion, and that some good (but not 
> stellar) undergrad teams qualify for ICT, and play some against 
some 
> reasonable competition. It does marginalize or reduce grad student 
> participation a bit, but then the question must be asked: whom is 
> college bowl targeting? If, as implied by the name, it is college 
> students...then this solution seems like a perfect balance. In 
Penn's 
> own case, virtually all of our team is freshman and sophs. right 
now. 
> So next year, it will be juniors, sophs. and freshman. A lot of 
those 
> juniors are already ineligible for most events in our area, b/c 
> everything is like a junior bird. I know Harvard and Princeton are 
in 
> similar boats, as are most of the liberal arts colleges of course. 
> This would just be one way to at least give juniors and seniors a 
> better chance of playing more tournaments, and insuring a 
continuous, 
> four year quiz bowl experience for undergrads. That said, I'm 
really 
> eager to hear everyone's thoughts.
> 
> --Nick Walters, Penn College Bowl