Re: Northeast Sectional

• From: cdbarker
• Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 21:40:46 -0800
• Message-ID: <000SB1JUU.000BD59Q1.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

This is posted on behalf of fellow Michigan
player David Goodman. He asked me to post for him, and
on his behalf. All opinions expressed in this
posting are his, and if you wish to contact him, his
email is at the end of the posting:

Joe Wright
wrote:

>Perhaps what should actually be under review is NAQT's
policy of awarding
>multiple bids to the same
school. It is not obvious to me why each
school
>shouldn't put together its best squad to represent the
school at the ICT,
>and that as many schools as
possible should be represented. 

>The split of
two separate fields--Div. I and Div. II--suggests to
me that
>schools should be able to qualify a
team for each, but not multiple teams
>within
the same field.

>I'm not against B teams at
all--I'm just not sure they have a place at
a
>national championship tournament. And you can go ahead and
accuse me of
>pure self-interest since USC is high
on the wait-list, but if that's
>clouding my
thinking on this issue, it's just a minor part of why I
think
>this way. 
------

I disagree with this
position. The reason to disallow a "B" team is
it's
supposed inferiority to the school's "A" team - despite
notable cases of
extremely deep teams placing multiple
squads in the top of tournaments.
(i.e. in 1994 when
Maryland A and B were 2nd and 4th at ACF). Some
schools
are deep enough that their "B" teams can beat their
"A" teams and
contend even for National Titles or
D2 titles. THose squads shouldn't
be
removed.

If we extended the "B" team inferiority argument, we
might be inclined to
exclude any school considered
worst than the best "B" team from the
national
tournament as not worthy of competing for a
championship.
Ultimately it doesn't matter much, because few bubble teams
for a 40+ NAQT
tournament are going to affect the
National championship outcome - though
maybe the
Undergrad.

Of course, at CBI, where the winner is occasionally
drawn from a hat, that
isn't the case. But, NAQT
isn't CBI.

David Goodman
(dlgood_at_...)
<a href=http://www.umich.edu/~dlgood target=new>http://www.umich.edu/~dlgood</a>
U of Maryland '98 BA Government
U of Michigan
'00 M. Public Policy