Andy says : "I never stated a bias for or against CBI. I was merely reacting to your statements about CBI being bush-league. If you really wanted to see bush-league, go to a tournament run by a beginning program -- like, say, ours -- and witness the following [summary deleted]:" Andy, a key difference between your tournament and CBI NCT is that Duke has made no attempt to claim that it's a "national championship tournament," and that no one else I know of has made such claims on their behalf the way people do for CBI NCT. " Of course, the argument can be made that these were "rookie mistakes" and that CBI should do better with organization. But which of the problems often cited are the fault of CBI, and which are the fault of the host?" A set of what are often - year in, year out - poorly run RCTs serve as the total gateway to NCT. CBI generally does run the process of NCT itself fairly well, including the creature comforts. But the rules (and their arbitrary enforcement) and bureaucracy remain consistent, and the questions are terrible arbitrators of telling who the best teams in a given region are, let alone the best teams in the nation. "There's a serious difference between a tournament being elitist and its attendees being elitist." (Attack on ACF deleted.) Your first statement is true enough. But no tournament staff can somehow order players to not be elitist, nor do I know what good that would do if they could. And while you have a point about too many tournaments geared toward the very top of the field, tournaments where national titles are at stake are _supposed_ to cater to the top teams. CBI's target audience is beginner college students. That's fine, but questions primarily designed with beginner college students in mind are not the stuff of a national championship. If ACF and NAQT are "Millionaire", "Win Ben Stein's Money," and "Jeopardy!", CBI is more like "Hollywood Squares." "On the contrary, the field at CBI NCT can be argued to be the _most_ legitimate. All but one of the teams present won their regional..." ...which in the old days, when many good circuit teams played CBI, and there were fewer alternatives, was worth something. Nowadays, it's more typical (with a few odd exceptions) for there to be maybe one circuit team per region, and usually not a particularly strong one at that. An average run-of-the-mill 16-team invitational in many parts of the country has a stronger top-to-bottom field than CBI NCT does this year. "I also know that, when NAQT announced its waiting list, you were upset...does that not deligitimize NAQT's championship, for not have the best teams there?" I'm unsure of why you brought this up. But even so, we're talking about _huge_ differences in degree here. Would the field have been marginally stronger if GW and Maryland attended in place of some of the teams NAQT put there? Probably. But the NAQT field included almost without exception any team with even the most tenuous claim on being one of the truly best teams in the nation. The ACF field was smaller, but still included the majority of teams people talk about when conversations about "best teams in the nation" come up. CBI doesn't even come close. I bitch about NAQT's selection system and their questions sometimes, because I expect better from them and know there's a chance they're listening. "Perhaps, if you see fit, rather than referring to CBI as a National, you could consider it a Tournament of Champions. At the very least, this is what it is." It is a highly flawed tournament that brings together 15 winners of even more highly flawed tournaments - many (most?) of which included exactly zero teams that belong at a truly national championship - at least if said alleged championship were to be limited to 16 teams) plus another team selected essentially at random. That is a minor-league event, whatever its historical value
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