Upcoming Events

2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Announcement

The 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier was held on March 1, 2014. This is an archive of the original tournament announcement. Read the recap.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance would like to invite your teams to participate in the 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier, which will be held on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia on March 1, 2014.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is an organization dedicated to providing high-quality quizbowl tournaments to all Missouri teams. As MOQBA's flagship event, this tournament regularly features a diverse field of teams from throughout Missouri, creating a championship atmosphere and recognizing the state's top teams for national tournament qualification. Jeffrey Hill and Alex Dzurick will serve as tournament directors of this official NAQT event, which will use untimed NAQT rules only modified where necessary to comply with MSHSAA requirements.

Format

This tournament will be run in the twenty tossup/bonus format on NAQT Invitational Series #134. Games consist of twenty tossups worth ten points each followed by non-rebounding bonuses worth up to thirty points. Tossups will feature "powers" (additional points awarded for correct buzzes early in the question) and "negs" (five point deductions for incorrect answers before the question is finished).

The field is currently limited to the first 30 teams to register, though we intend to expand the field once we have confirmed that we have a sufficient number of staff. We are offering a $20 discount for providing a scorekeeper and a $30 discount for providing an experienced moderator, so if you are able to take advantage of these discounts, we would certainly appreciate your help as it will allow more teams to participate.

If the field fills, a waitlist will be formed on a first come first served basis, though we may allow waitlisted schools that are able to provide staff to enter the field ahead of other waitlisted teams. There will not be a separate junior varsity division, but schools are welcome to register multiple teams.

The tournament will feature a bracketed round robin and playoff, the exact specifications of which will be determined by the final field size. The field will not be divided into small and large school divisions, but the top-finishing small-school team (as well as the top four teams overall) will receive trophies, and an all-tournament team will be recognized.

Qualifying for National Tournaments

The top fifteen percent of the field will automatically qualify for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT), to be held in Chicago on May 30-June 1, 2014, and the PACE National Scholastic Championship, which will be held in the Washington D.C. area on May 24-25, 2014 (Memorial Day weekend). In addition, the champion of this tournament is guaranteed a spot in the 2014 HSNCT, and the top team that had not qualified at any previously-held tournament will also receive a bid to HSNCT. We encourage all teams to participate even if they do not plan to attend a national championship.

Beginning this year, the top small school team by NAQT's definition will no longer receive a special bid to HSNCT. Instead, the top 15% of small school teams will qualify for NAQT's new Small School National Championship Tournament on May 2–4, 2014 in Minneapolis, and the top small school team that had not qualified at any previously-held tournament will also receive a bid to SSNCT.

Pricing

Staff discounts:

Please let us know as soon as possible if you will be able to provide any moderators or scorekeepers. All staffers will be needed throughout the preliminary and playoff rounds since all teams will be playing. Staffers will be provided lunch.

Formalities

We will be using an online registration form this year. Please complete this form to register for the tournament. Registrations will be processed in the order they are received through this form. This tournament traditionally fills very quickly, and a limited number of openings remain as several teams have already registered, so we strongly recommend that you reserve your spots now.

Check-in on the morning of the tournament will begin at 7:45. We will have a short team meeting around 8:30. The first round of tournament play will begin no later than 9:00. All teams will be guaranteed at least 9 games, ending around 4:00. Depending on the format, the top 4-6 teams should anticipate up to 4 additional games that should end no later than 6:00. If no small schools remain in contention for the overall trophies and the top two small schools are close enough in the standings, those two teams will play a small school final of up to 2 games, ending by about 5:00.

After the completion of the tournament, each school in attendance will receive a copy of the questions used.

Tournament information, including a list of registered teams, will be updated regularly on the Missouri Academic Competition Message Board.

We hope to see you and your team in Columbia in March and wish you the best of luck as you compete this season. If you have any questions about the tournament, don’t hesitate to ask us at qualifier@moqba.org.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Hill and Alex Dzurick
2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Co-Directors