Speaking on behalf of UF's teams, Division I and II, I would like to second the suggestion that questions repeated across Divisions be confined at a minimum to segments of the tournament in which teams have no cross-divisional contact (e.g. first night, before lunch, after lunch). Personally, I see no reason that duplicated questions could not have been used in the same ROUND in each Division if they were sorted into packs in an orderly and logical manner. To cite a particular case, UF A and MIT were put in an uncomfortable situation during the power matchings on Saturday when a close (10 point) match won by MIT included one MIT tossup after which the correctly answering player exclaimed "That's just like the question from Division II last night!" Our protest was resolved with a replacement tossup (which MIT nailed to confirm their win), but my point is that there is no way to tell how many other times this situation occurred without a player verbally acknowledging prior knowledge of a question. The above is not intended in any way to imply that any large-scale, premeditated cheating occurred at the ICT. Most compromised answers probably slipped out accidentally over dinner and drinks on Friday night. But the suggestion that a "non-disclosure" rule (given ONLY to Division II players for reasons I cannot comprehend) somehow guaranteed the security of the questions is ludicrous. It is only natural for players to want to discuss their buzzes, good and bad. The "non-disclosure" rule puts an unnecessary onus on the players for question security - the responsibility of the Tournament Director. I doubt that any team spent the night comparing answers with their Div II team and discussing lead-ins, if for no other reason than the fact that the two pre-tournament favorites ended up in the Division I finals. However, the possibility of such a midtournament question-swap WAS real and it must be avoided in the future if the results are to have any legitimacy. -Daniel Nordby Communications Director, UF College Bowl
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