by trbenedict » Thu Apr 18, 2019 2:43 pm
Jumping off of David's post, I have some thoughts to raise as well about the playoff format (which I freely own that MVS benefited from).
1. As written in the tournament announcement, the goal of this year's playoff system was originally that a team wouldn't be eliminated with one loss, which is objectively ideal and helps address issues with the tournament finals last year. However, once one round was read out of order, leaving only 9 packets, the ability to ensure that one loss wouldn't doom a team went away. The question then becomes how to most fairly eliminate a one-loss team.
2. Based on what I understood at the tournament site, the top two teams in each division remained in championship contention: Copley A, MVS, Solon, Northmont A, Copley B, and Heights. MVS and Copley A, the top two seeds, played each other for a fast-track to the finals. Meanwhile, Solon played Northmont, and I'm assuming Copley B played Heights, in what were elimination games (with the fast-track 1 v. 2 matchup and the other elimination matchups, this looks like a Page playoff but with six teams, or maybe like a modified form of the OAC Regionals bracket). Northmont and Heights ended up going home with 4-2 records, and MVS lost to Copley A, dropping to 5-1. For winning the 1 vs. 2 matchup, Copley A got rounds 7 and 8 off and earned a place in the finals.
3. With MVS, Copley B, and Solon all still in it, MVS gets matched up with Copley B, and Solon sits out Round 7. MVS beats Copley B in Round 7, dropping them to 5-2 and eliminating them. MVS then goes on to play Solon in Round 8 and wins, eliminating Solon with a 6-1 record. This is the first weird thing: Solon is now out of the tournament with one loss and without a chance to play Copley (if they actually did play against Copley during that Round 7 that I thought was a bye, disregard this).
4. The second weird thing occurs in round 9, the last full packet remaining.(*) Copley A (6-0) is now matched up against MVS (7-1) in a one-game final, which MVS wins, dropping Copley to 6-1 and improving MVS to 8-1. Copley A and MVS now have one loss apiece, with both teams having only lost to each other. By virtue of the playoff format, MVS outperforming Copley in Round 9 counted more than Copley outperforming MVS in Round 6, so MVS won. For everyone except MVS, the playoffs have been essentially single-elimination.
To re-state the question above: what is the most fair way to eliminate a one-loss team? Could this have been improved?
You could just take four teams to the playoffs and do a true Page playoff (you'd have the finals set up with two packets left). However, with three 5-0 teams it still means someone's getting knocked out with one playoff loss, and the two bracket runner-ups who don't qualify for wild card would also be eliminated with one loss. (We actually ended up playing the games that would go with this scenario this year: Copley and MVS would be the 1 v. 2, Solon and Northmont would be the 3 v. 4, MVS vs. Solon for the second finals berth, then MVS vs. Copley, now with two rounds left, in an advantaged final. Solon still exits with one loss).
You could also take eight teams to the playoffs, split them into Flight 1 and Flight 2, and have the winners of each flight meet in a one-game final...but again, with three 5-0 teams, one of those could be eliminated with one loss, and potentially so would the loser of the one-game final (Rounds 6, 7, and 8 would be read for the playoff pools and Round 9 would be reserved for the final).
If you really wanted to, you could just throw the four top seeds into a round robin and see what comes out after those three rounds, but see caveats above.
None of these scenarios is great, and you can decide for yourself whether any of them would have been more "fair" than what the actual format was last Saturday. Greg was put in a very difficult position having to work one round short, and I have nothing but respect and gratitude for his work on MS State this year...this post is not meant to be a finger-wag, but to be part of a larger conversation about how things could continue improving.
After all this, what I would really like to propose is a hard cap of 12 teams at next year's NAQT MS State (and, to ensure diverse representation of schools, ask each school to only bring one team, with B teams and beyond being waitlisted). For context, this year we had 11 different schools represented if you count the Empty Chairs team, and last year we had 12 different schools represented.
Last year and this year, we ran into the problem of not having enough packets to do a fair advantaged final. With a 12-team cap, everyone is guaranteed 8 games (6/6 in the morning for five prelim games, 4/4/4 in the afternoon for three playoff games). You also, assuming no packet security issues, save rounds 9 and 10 for finals (tiebreakers and replacements can be pulled from questions 21-24 in each packet). This also means you only have to run six game rooms, so you don't have to find as many quality readers (always tough with the HS championship going on down the hall). We can't currently support a 24-team NAQT MS State, and carrying 18 teams has created playoff format problems. I'd be interested to know what other members of the community think about this idea.
Again, I want to express nothing but thanks to Greg, Cortney, and everyone else who made NAQT State Weekend happen. It takes a lot of hard work to run two state championships on the same site in the same day, not to mention a lot of volunteers, and it's only through their efforts that we get to enjoy the convenience of having both the HS and MS championships in one place.
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(*) Josh Eck, Sue Korosa, and I were talking after the MS final,(**) and Josh made the good point that we potentially could have pulled the unused questions 21-24 from the other MS packets to make a new 20/20 round...while not a great solution due to a potentially skewed distro, this could have worked, except some readers were apparently reading all 24 tossups in the morning so the questions could have been spoiled.
(**) In relation to the above, I'd also like to thank Sue and Josh for both being incredibly gracious after the MS playoffs ended despite the issues with the playoff format. It goes without saying that they're both stand-up coaches with quality teams made up of excellent kids, but I'm going to say it anyway.
Tyler Benedict
Coach, Miami Valley School Quiz Bowl
OAC Committee Middle School Representative
OQBA NASAT and Matt's Buzzers Liaison
Miami Valley School '09