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how's your team going to do this year?

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
wldcat_blldog
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by wldcat_blldog »

Coach Gibbs,

I think the best way to split up the Saint Louis county is into a five-team and four team division.

The West (Campbell Conference) would be Eureka, Lafayette, Marquette, P West and P South.

The East (Wales Conference) would be P North, P Central, DeSmet and Clayton.

The dividing line seems to fall along 141...everything on and to the east of 141 would be in the East division, and everything west of 141 would be in the West Division.

AShoaib
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by AShoaib »

Scogs has the right idea in terms of divisions.

Eureka may well provide 2 varsity teams (will have to talk to coach and see who shows up next year), and I think the teams are distributed pretty equally on both sides in terms of challenge. Clayton and Central on the East, Eureka and Lafayette on the West were seeded 4, 3, 1, and 2 respectively last year in Two Saints.

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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by FZW Coach »

Charbroil wrote: Mr Gibbs,

If you're going to make all Juniors & Seniors play Varsity, Howell Central is going to need another varsity team as well. We have 6 seniors and 2 juniors returning, notwithstanding recruiting.

Speaking of which, are we allowed to play sophomores up as varsity players as we have in previous years?
Charles,

Your coach signed up for 1 varsity and 1 jv team. If you do have the players you are saying, then yes you do need 2 varsity teams.



The thoughts on the division help. But, there will not be 5 and 4 teams as you have suggested. I fully anticipate all 8 varsity slots and all 8 jv slots to be filled in each of the 3 locations. I kind of know what I am doing her in forcing schools to allow their programs to grow. Teri's freshman year (2003 - 2004) was the first time we expanded. We picked up a second varsity team (although we wanted a jv team) when FHN could not. We had a couple of freshman on that team with Danielle as captain and went 1 - 7 (ugh). But, it was a start. In 2005 - 2006, we had two varsity and two jv teams. This allowed me to only have the top players on the varsity A team (we finished 3rd having lost just to PCH in the regular season but getting upset by FHC in the playoffs). This also allowed me to have a freshman only team. We will see if that pays off based on how the varsity A team does this year (which will be built largely from those same four players). In 2006 - 2007, we expanded to 3 varsity and 3 jv teams. Last year, we expanded to 4 varsity and 4 jv teams. We probably will have enough to expand to 5 varsity, but I am just signing up for 4 varsity for the sake of competition.

There is certainly no minimum age requirement on the varsity level. If you have players good enough for the varsity level, play them. Do you? Who do you have because I must confess I do not remember anyone on your jv team spectacular other than Kevin Robb (a junior). Oh, maybe you just mean in order to fill the slots on the 2nd team. Yes, that is acceptable.



Thanks agian for the input. I will work on the division and see if we can fill out the slots.

Encourage your coach to attend the MACA convention Monday, October 6. We will have a session where we can discuss matters and make Two Saints an even more beneficial experience for all of the students.

All coaches are also required to attend a rules review meeting. FZW is hosting that session in late October. But, if you attend the convention, then you don't have to come all the way out to us (which is quite a drive if you are coming from Eureka).

Abdulla, what do you think of Clayton? We are thinking of hosting the finals there. By the way, do you all know the finals will consist of the top 6 teams and be spread out over two weeks (which is unfortunate that it will take an extra week but quite exciting in seeing how the games will be played out)?

Charbroil
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by Charbroil »

Mr. Gibbs,

I was just curious, since I know your Junior Varsity teams are limited to underclassmen, and since that was a team policy you were extending to the whole of Two Saints, I was curious as to whether you were going to extend the other half of your policy, that Varsity was limited to upperclassmen (at least in the Fall). This year, we don't, as you put it, have any particularly incredible JV players who we would definitely want to play Varsity--though David Lanza is very good--but we have in the past, and so I was curious about the future.

And of course I'll speak to my coach. We might do cuts...that would be interesting. *Shrugs*

By the way, I think when previous posters said five and four teams, they meant five and four schools, not teams. The western division mentioned should have at least 7 teams, since Parkway South had 3 last year, with large numbers of substitutes even then--so if they reprise that, and Eureka adds a second team, that should be 8. The eastern division might not have eight, as it stands, but most of those teams had multiple substitutes at the Varsity and JV levels at Two Saints previously, so if you adjust things, it should work. At most, you can move Eureka or Parkway South into the western division--which, admittedly, damages the previous model's geographic perfection--to counterbalance.

It would probably be easier to organize, of course, if we could get an idea of how many teams each schools is bringing (and I realize that the unstable nature of recruiting makes that fairly difficult).

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Charlie Dees
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by Charlie Dees »

Please don't do cuts, just accomodate them and play a B team in varsity, even if they aren't that great.

Charbroil
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Post by Charbroil »

I'd personally prefer not to, but I don't have veto authority in this sort of thing. As I said, I'll talk to my coach.

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Post by FZW Coach »

Charles,

I think you are misunderstanding FZW's policy. I don't have a policy that says underclassmen are not allowed to play varsity. I just find it more beneficial to have my quality players learn to excel against players their own age. Julia did play jv (as did Teri before her), but ended up being a very valuable contributor to our team as she started in the Rolla championship game (and scored the 2nd most points behind only Teri) and the GAC championship game (scoring the 3rd most for the day and playing the entire game because of her strengths).

Would I ever play a sophomore on varsity? With our current program, I doubt it. If someone unbelievably in math came along, there would be a chance, but I would rather see them develop skills in other areas like literature and history first before moving up. I think I made a few mistakes with Danielle's (MIT student) development (mostly because we were not as established as we are now).

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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by FZW Coach »

There is an interesting development involving Two Saints. DeSmet has decided not to compete with us (at least in the current format) and is forming a branch modeled after Two Saints with just private schools in the St. Louis area. Coach Sothers believes teams competing will be: Villa, Visitation, Cor Jesu, SLUH, CBC, Vianney, Westminister and possibly Priory. I wonder if we will find a way to have our champion play their champion at the end. Based on his request, they do want to use the same questions that we do. I will have to see what we can work out.

wldcat_blldog
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by wldcat_blldog »

Mr. Gibbs,

Has there been any rumblings about maybe a team from Rockwood Summit?

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Charlie Dees
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by Charlie Dees »

While I have no idea what their program is like, I do know that Rockwood Summit had a team in 2006 when NKC played them at Rolla, and I saw them at both the 2007 and 2008 Washington University tournaments, so they at least had some program as of February this year. I had heard something about how they had a hard time finding players who didn't also have jobs that interfered with quizbowl.

AethyricNomad
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by AethyricNomad »

It's interesting reading everyone's thoughts and opinions (particularly on Tarkio and our district, but then that's my main area of concern, heh heh).

As for our team specifically... About half of Tarkio's team is going to be seniors this year, interestingly sort of parallel to our situation after 2005-06, where essentially our entire academic bowl team, with two exceptions, were seniors, and graduated. I'm not terribly optimistic that we'll suddenly become exceptional in math, but I have been hoping that we drop down to Class 1, most likely because I for some illogical reason hope/think/believe that playing teams that we actually play on a semi-regular basis (locally and at our conference championships, and St. Joe Christian at Savannah, which isn't the best indicator I'm sure of performance) means we have a better chance than playing teams that we usually only play at District championships, or if they happen to be at Savannah or the MoWest History Bowl.

Whatever happens, it'll be an interesting year.

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Charlie Dees
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by Charlie Dees »

The simplest way to prepare for winning is go to as many tournaments in your area you can reasonably get to, and consider going out of your area for some (I said it before, but it's about 45 more minutes to North Kansas City High School from Savannah, and the NAQT page says Liberty, a school of comparable distance, is also hosting a tournament on October 11th. Try getting to those, and take note that the state's elite programs have a history of traveling much further to play on better questions against more teams). Then on top of increasing your participation, start spending more practice (and if you're really motivated, personal) time reading through the high quality fact filled questions that I've mentioned multiple times, and which can be accessed at the links in my signature. If you start implementing any of these techniques your confidence and command of the game will increase dramatically over a year, and your challenge to win districts and state will be considerably diminished whether or not you are in class 1 or 2.

AShoaib
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by AShoaib »

Well, with DeSmet gone, we'll be in yet another quandary.... as Charles said, I know Summit has a Quiz Bowl team.... if they're interested in it this year.... that's another question. The teacher's email address who runs the program is willenbrinkjudith [at] rockwood.k12.mo.us (Mrs. Willenbrink) if you're interested in emailing her John.

FZW Coach
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by FZW Coach »

Thanks for that information about Summit. I had forgotten about them. She contacted me last year after we already had everything set up.

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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by FZW Coach »

We are hoping to have a unified championship. The plans are for the winner of Two Saints to play the winner of the private league. We will sketch out details at the MACA convention October 6.

Charbroil
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by Charbroil »

FZW Coach wrote: Charles,

I think you are misunderstanding FZW's policy. I don't have a policy that says underclassmen are not allowed to play varsity. I just find it more beneficial to have my quality players learn to excel against players their own age.
Mr. Gibbs,

I suppose I must have misunderstood your policy. My apologies.

Incidentally, wouldn't it be more interesting to expand the Two Saints/Private School competition to more than just the top schools--maybe the top three schools from Two Saints face the top three in the Private School group in a round robin?

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Post by FZW Coach »

That would be more interesting. However, I am also trying to think about not using up too many of our MSHSAA events.

I also am not sure if they would be all for it since many of them have turned us down before as far as joining Two Saints in the first place.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

I mean, I'm still at a loss to figure out why you can't just increase the number of games played on each night and decrease the total number of weeks used to play, or else lobby MSHSAA to rework those rules so that all of these tournaments that happen on weeknights over a month actually count as only one tournament.

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Post by FZW Coach »

I am working on the latter angle as well. We won't increase the number of games for each night because it won't help us grow. I have a three-fold goal of increasing the number of schools involved, the number of participants for each school, and the level of competition.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

How does adding one game per night make any difference with losing teams? I'm sure schools would much rather play one extra game a week since they're losing so many tournament days in the process.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

I figure there can't be a better place to post this on here, but here are the results from the hsquizbowl national poll -
Charter School of Wilmington has earned the top spot in our poll with 265 points out of a possible 275 and four first place nods out of 11. Second went to Dorman, who finished with 263 points and six first place votes. The remaining first place vote went to Walt Whitman. A total of 46 teams from 42 schools received votes.

Complete results (all teams are A-teams unless otherwise indicated):

1. Charter, 265
2. Dorman, 263
3. Hunter, 247
4. Thomas Jefferson, 233
5. Walter Johnson, 215

6. Gonzaga, 204
7. Maggie Walker, 199
8. State College, 180
9. Richard Montgomery, 176
10. Detroit Catholic Central, 166

11. Georgetown Day, 158
12. Chaska, 124
13. Bergen County, 112
14. Rockford Auburn, 106
15. Brookwood, 105

16. New Trier, 91
17. Stow Munroe Falls, 87
18. Grosse Pointe North, 85
19. Walt Whitman, 72
20. Rancho Bernardo, 71

21. Kellenberg, 55
22. James Island, 46
23. Detroit County Day, 41
24. Chattahoochee, 40
25. Eden Prairie, 27

Also receiving votes: Walton, 23; Dunbar, 18; Arcadia, 16; Minneapolis South, 16; Maggie Walker B, 15; Minnetonka, 15; Ransom Evergaldes, 15; State College B, 13; Ottawa Hills, 13; Santa Monica, 12; Stuyvesant, 11; Carbondale, 7; LASA, 7; North Kansas City, 5; Thomas Jefferson B, 5; Shady Side, 4; Dorman B, 4; Solon, 4; Eureka (MO), 2; St. Joseph's (IN), 1; MLK Magnet, 1
I believe this is an official challenge to Missouri teams to prove this wrong and go to nationals and perform.

AShoaib
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Post by AShoaib »

Wow, Eureka got 2 votes? Thats surprising.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

No, you got 2 points for being 24th on my ballot of 25. The higher your place, the more points you get.

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Post by FZW Coach »

ashkenaziCD wrote: How does adding one game per night make any difference with losing teams? I'm sure schools would much rather play one extra game a week since they're losing so many tournament days in the process.
Maxing out the 14 events is not a problem with most of us (a few of us, sure), but not most.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

This mentality you've shown before of "well, it may mess up a couple teams but the rest of us don't care enough for it to matter" really scares me since you have so much authority (previous example: your logic for not advocating a change to the travel limit). Every effort needs to be made to accomodate the teams who it does effect because they care enough about this game and should be rewarded instead of punished by having to sit out from titles they are otherwise eligible for.

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L-Town Expatriate
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how's your team going to do this year?

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

FYI: the travel limit is imposed on all events involving more than two schools, not just academic competition. For this to work, you'd have to get enough angry cross country, track, tennis, debate, basketball, volleyball, and wrestling coaches on board with ample justification for kids to miss more than one day of school to attend such tournaments and not break the bank flying the kids out there and back.

Then again, the limit doesn't apply to one-on-one contests. Just make sure there actually is a contest!

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

Dude, I know that. Also, I find the fact that it is so clearly biased towards sports like football without many tournaments offensive, and I don't understand why MSHSAA has the rule at all.

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Post by FZW Coach »

Honestly, I don't know why it is a rule as well (except the arguments already listed for state). In Bible Quiz, we traveled all over the country in order to play the best teams (knowing that we would play them at Nationals). So, I actually agree with you Charles. We did have a nice discussion at our August 6 meeting in which I reflected the views of many that we would like to know who the top 4 teams are in the state since that is what we are used to based on every tournament we attend.

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Post by L-Town Expatriate »

ashkenaziCD wrote: Dude, I know that. Also, I find the fact that it is so clearly biased towards sports like football without many tournaments offensive, and I don't understand why MSHSAA has the rule at all.
The official rationale from the then-head honcho herself in 2003:

They don't want kids missing a lot of class time.

Yes, sounds grossly inconsistent compared to Rockhurst travelling to Nevada, Texas and Ohio for football games!

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

I don't think I should have to explain why a quizbowl tournament requiring travel across the country can't possibly take up more time off school than driving a bunch of football players to nevada.

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Post by L-Town Expatriate »

ashkenaziCD wrote: I don't think I should have to explain why a quizbowl tournament requiring travel across the country can't possibly take up more time off school than driving a bunch of football players to nevada.
Don't. I find it just as ridiculous. And before someone defending the policy goes "oh, the schools are fully aware of missed class time when they agree to this game", the same thing happens when schools agree to go to events where they happen to be playing more than one school.

My guess is MSHSAA still wants this in place to prevent schools from going to week-long basketball tournaments in late January. Can't have Raytown South skipping school for a week to dunk baskets in Akron, Ohio!

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