Boston Regional

[Leviathan]

bigscooper,

You're suggesting a very severe level of impropriety on the part of Harvard.  I'll put some hard data against your anecdotal evidence.  I just pulled up the tab summaries from last year's championship round, and this year's regionals.  Here's what I found:

2007 Championship round:
20—Π Joseph Kerns, Harvard University, Team TT (796)
20—Π John James Snidow, Harvard University, Team UU (797)
17—Δ Guy Edouard, Harvard University, Team UU (797)

2008 Boston Regional:
18 Δ - Team 796 – Harvard University – Joseph Kearns
18 Π - Team 796 – Harvard University – John James Snidow
17 Δ - Team 796 – Harvard University – Guy Edourad

Who knows why they did what they did in stacking the teams.  Maybe some underclassmen from last year surpassed other veterans from last year's championship squad.  But right here, we know that Harvard sent 3 people to regionals this year who were also championship competitors last year.  They did not send all freshmen, and this very well could have been their A and B teams.  Harvard is still a better judge of who their best teams are than some random speculators on perjuries.

Anything can happen on any given Sunday.  It looks like Harvard's best teams just got beat, and that's all there is to it.

[bigscooper]

You used the term "severe level of impropriety" not me.

All I stated was that, simply stating that the program used "good faith" when making their decision, seems to fail, when at least two members of that team were not at the regional that the A and B teams attended.

Also, it is important to note that Kerns, Snidow, and Edouard were not in the championship round last year. They were all Harvard team members, who all went to Gold, but your hard data shows that only Kerns was on the team that went to the final round. Snidow and Edouard were on the Harvard B team at Nationals last year, and as such, would appropriately be on an A or B team at regionals this year, given power assignments.

Will Cooper, who you left off of your "hard data" summary was an 18 rank best attorney for the team that was in the final round, but, he is now, apparently, a D teamer.

However, it looks like of the three Harvard Championship round people we know are still at Harvard, one of them went to the regional on the A or B team, and two of  them are going to a different regional as the D team.

I am not saying they are doing anything wrong, and perhaps their program is that strong, however, "good faith" is hardly a sufficient justification for having two championship round players going to a regional on the D team.

[bigscooper]

I also must correct the record, Riley Catlin was also on the B team at Nationals last year. So it appears as if Kerns and Cooper, who are the only Gold Championship folks we know about still at Harvard are at different regionals, and are on different teams.

Kerns is an A team, Cooper is a C or D team member.

[UMCane*GWB]

The rule is that teams have to make a good faith effort to send their best teams as they are at the time of regionals to certain regionals. The rule does NOT require that teams actually stack and make th ebest possible team the program can make and send that team to a certain regional. If Harvard decided to go into regionals unstacked, that is their completely legitimate choice. The only way this would have been unethical is if they DID stack, but sent their best team to New Haven as a D team. The Tab summary that leviathan provided shows that is not the case.

There is absolutely nothing to this issue, it should be dropped.

[NovaMT]

"There is absolutely nothing to this issue, it should be dropped."

Agreed.  They were great teams to compete against.  Great sportsmanship and they certainly competed like an A team in the round I saw.  As far as I can tell they sent the best team that they thought they had.  If there are people who competed in the Championship round last year on D teams this year, then I wouldn't be surprised if they still won a Gold bid or two and I wouldn't suggest it's because they sent a superior team to New Haven, but rather that their program is simply that deep.  Good luck to them in New Haven and to everyone competing this weekend.

[The Gelf]

The rule is that teams have to make a good faith effort to send their best teams as they are at the time of regionals to certain regionals. The rule does NOT require that teams actually stack and make th ebest possible team the program can make and send that team to a certain regional. If Harvard decided to go into regionals unstacked, that is their completely legitimate choice. The only way this would have been unethical is if they DID stack, but sent their best team to New Haven as a D team. The Tab summary that leviathan provided shows that is not the case.

There is absolutely nothing to this issue, it should be dropped.

And who could possibly tell us the answers to those questions other than Harvard?  Frankly, there are a myriad of reasons why returning competitors, even championship round competitors would be placed on the apparently weaker teams.  I'm surprised that any AMTA coach actually voted for a system like this that could potentially end up requiring said coach to divulge his or her thought processes in allocating team members.   

[MegaConservative]

And who could possibly tell us the answers to those questions other than Harvard?  Frankly, there are a myriad of reasons why returning competitors, even championship round competitors would be placed on the apparently weaker teams.  I'm surprised that any AMTA coach actually voted for a system like this that could potentially end up requiring said coach to divulge his or her thought processes in allocating team members.  

This sounds like a violation of the Work Product Doctrine!

[mtwhaaat]

I agree with NovaMT.  I saw both of the Harvard teams compete this weekend and each one was extremely competitive, talented and nice!

It seems that Harvard believes many of its teams are equal in talent and ability, which gives them the right to send teams where they see fit.  If only all teams were that deep!

I am very against the system of demanding programs to send certain teams to certain regionals for exactly this reason.  We should not give Harvard a hard time for not molding the way their program works to the new system that AMTA has placed on regionals.

That being said, the Boston Regional was extremely well run and I appreciated how quickly the tab room moved and opened up to coaches and captains.  The courtrooms were great and once security let up a little, there were few problems getting into the buildings.  Also the BU program is straight up awesome. 

Though I gotta say, the fact that this regional turned into a 18 team tournament with 7 bids was quite interesting!

[MockMaster]

  I'm surprised that any AMTA coach actually voted for a system like this that could potentially end up requiring said coach to divulge his or her thought processes in allocating team members.   

How else is AMTA supposed to balance the power among regionals?   If everyone agrees that there is typically a difference between a program's A and D teams, you can't balance power without knowing where the A team is going and where the D team is going.

[nextel hata]

As to the 18 team regional, we had 22 at the beginning. 3 dropped out within 2-1 weeks of the tournament and we found out that one team wasn't coming the day of (luckily, I had bye buster logistical nightmares the week before!) because of a registration issue from a few months ago. Since it was our first year hosting, I'm not gonna lie that I was relieved the field was small, especially since there was a fire on the green line (subway) on Friday and 10 of the judges couldn't make it!  ..I mean, seriously? You plan for something for a year and then the subway catches on fire? Thanks Murphy.


Also, Harvard's A and B teams were there. They shouldn't have to defend themselves, if they have 3 comparable teams and a freshman team (which is MY understanding), then 2 teams go to Boston and 2 to Yale. Their freshman team didn't compete this weekend, btw. You split up your talent, new mockers can't teach themselves, especially on a heavily student run organization like Harvard. Caitlin Donovan and Matt Roeller also competed this weekend, they definitely have been in the championship round.  How much evidence do you (plural) want?  The top 10 teams sort of beat the hell out of each other, it was split city some rounds.  So what if Will Cooper competes at Yale? A program has the right to divide up their teams however they want to. If you have 3 teams that are equal, the label they get is arbitrary. I never even QUESTIONED which Harvard teams were there, the first time the question even occurred to me was when it was posted in this thread. Let it drop. Maybe even apologize to Harvard and to the teams who worked their assess off this weekend. Because for one it's rude to Harvard to question their integrity, especially because it could exacerbate their feelings on the matter, and secondly it's rude to Brandeis, Villanova, BU, and the other programs who were there and don't want their performance questioned in such a way. 

[Golden Skull]

This kind of seems like a ridiculous debate.  What's the basis for the allegation that Harvard didn't send the right teams -- that they didn't win the regional?  Weird assumption, that the only reason Harvard might not have won is that they did something improper.

[Rane]

This kind of seems like a ridiculous debate.  What's the basis for the allegation that Harvard didn't send the right teams -- that they didn't win the regional?  Weird assumption, that the only reason Harvard might not have won is that they did something improper.

Who would ever believe that Boston U, Villanova, and Brandeis  could beat out Harvard, not like those programs ever earned their stripes.




(Just so no one takes any of this out of context, yes, it's sarcasm. Pure sarcasm.)

[ridinDirty]

wait, if four teams drop from a regional then a bid or two can't be reallocated? if it can, why was this not done? it just seems a little odd, considering bids can be allocated after the fact. but i imagine its a matter of logistics?

[The Gelf]

How else is AMTA supposed to balance the power among regionals?   If everyone agrees that there is typically a difference between a program's A and D teams, you can't balance power without knowing where the A team is going and where the D team is going.

I'm not 100% convinced AMTA should be tinkering so heavily to power-balance regionals, but that's a whole other issue.  As I said, the way to eliminate many, if not most, of these headaches is for AMTA to simply limit schools to TWO TEAMS AT REGIONALS.  Then you don't have to worry about C & D teams (and beyond) busting up tab-room pairings or giving regional coordinators headaches as they try to split up a program's teams among regionals. 

[UMCane*GWB]

I'm not 100% convinced AMTA should be tinkering so heavily to power-balance regionals, but that's a whole other issue.  As I said, the way to eliminate many, if not most, of these headaches is for AMTA to simply limit schools to TWO TEAMS AT REGIONALS.  Then you don't have to worry about C & D teams (and beyond) busting up tab-room pairings or giving regional coordinators headaches as they try to split up a program's teams among regionals. 

This would result in a significant reduction in the number of regional tournaments, and would open up a whole can of worms that would go along with that. The ramifications would have to be thoroughly explored and considered before making such a drastic change.