by trbenedict » Thu Apr 26, 2018 11:16 am
I don't mean to hijack Josh's thread, and my points below have nothing to do with any conversations I've had with him (although I always enjoy seeing him at tournaments and have a lot of appreciation for everything he does around the circuit...props to you, Josh!). But here are some takes of my own, keeping in mind that it seems like the thread is about OAC the organization that sponsors Regionals and State, and not the OAC game format:
1. The primary issue I have with OAC Regionals, which is (I'm pretty sure) the most active weekend of quizbowl in the state, is that a bunch of teams see their day end after 2-4 games. Now, the teams in the field have qualified for Regionals, so it's not like this is the only time they're going to play quizbowl all year, but with a lot of squads that don't play Saturday invitationals every weekend, Regionals is a fairly significant opportunity to create ties in the quizbowl community. Rather than play double-elimination, I'd rather see a format like other Saturday tournaments or even OAC State: seeded prelim pools of ~6 teams, lunch/rebracket, playoff pools of ~4 teams, end of day. Everybody would be guaranteed eight games, and you'd need 10 packets plus tiebreakers. I'm aware that this requires two more full packets from the writers, who are already doing a ton of heavy lifting, and that it might be weird for scheduling (given that some regions had 13 teams and some had a full slate of 16, and to do a schedule like I'm talking about seems to assume 12 or 24 teams to get the 5+3 breakdown). I just feel like it's a shame that right now there are eight-plus quality packets being written and some teams only get to hear two or three of those great packets, which represent the ne plus ultra of OAC-format writing (no shade to all the folks who put in so much time to write league questions and the like, of course).
2. The bracketing can get weird, which is related to point 1 above. Northmont this year, who lost to Beavercreek in the top bracket, then saw them again in the bottom bracket and took their second defeat, is probably the best example of this, since they lost twice to the same team, who then went on to win the entire tournament (not a typical result, but not too outlandish either). You could argue that since Northmont didn't play Miami Valley, who ended up finishing second, that they didn't have as fair a shot as they should have to make State (since the transitive property is not the best way to figure out which teams are best). With a set prelim-playoff round robin schedule, all teams in the top bracket would play each other at least once. Another way to think about fixing this might be having the regional tournament directors, or OAC committee as a whole, seed the brackets 1-16 for prelims. Again, I know this is harder and a big departure from the traditional structure of Regionals, but we have much better access to stats than we have in previous eras.
3. The regions can get skewed. I don't mean to rehash the old "this fourth-place team out of Stronger Region would be champions of Weaker Region" argument, but to use an example from this year, Centerville (suburb south of Dayton) ended up being sent to the Northwest as an at-large, despite being geographically West Central, and ended up as NW Regional Champion. This is to say nothing of the combinations that take place in the Southeast, which could maybe be renamed South Central due to the combination of the Columbus and Waverly/Chillicothe/Hillsboro/etc. circuits.
Overall, my perception is that Regionals is designed to find the top two teams from each tournament site and to send those teams to State. As Ron mentions, this is no different from a district/sectional tournament for basketball or football or some such. In those tournament formats as well, there is a win-or-go-home stipulation, which is also reflected in OAC Regionals. I would say the Regionals tournament structure usually does a good job of finding the top two teams at a tournament site (although those might not add up to the best 12 teams in the state), and, with the new seeding procedures at State, the State tournament will likely do an even better job of taking those 12 teams and turning them into 4 and then 2 and then 1. I also don't believe any of the points above are breaking new ground, but are things about the OAC postseason that have been pointed out before.
This, again, is separate from OAC game format, which to me primarily offers teams 1) full collaboration at all times, putting in a potential safety net on tossups and an emphasis on the entire team's pooled knowledge base, and 2) guaranteed team points in the team questions/alphabet round (whereas, in tossup-bonus, you have to get the tossup to hear the bonus). You also know in the category round what the categories will be, which I guess helps with specialization, although at the two OAC postseason tournaments you can't sub a new specialist in or out until after the category round is over.
Tyler Benedict
Coach, Miami Valley School Quiz Bowl
OAC Committee Middle School Representative
OQBA NASAT and Matt's Buzzers Liaison
Miami Valley School '09