• High School
• NAQT Missouri Qualifier
• 2017

2017 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Announcement

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance invites all MSHSAA-registered high school Scholar Bowl teams to participate in the 2017 NAQT Missouri Qualifier, which will be held at William Woods University in Fulton on March 4, 2017. Please note that this is a different location from previous Qualifiers.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is an organization dedicated to providing high-quality quizbowl tournaments to all Missouri teams. As one of MOQBA's flagship events, this tournament regularly features a diverse field of teams from throughout Missouri, recognizing the state's top teams for national tournament qualification in a fast-paced championship atmosphere. Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne will serve as the tournament directors.

Format

The NAQT Missouri Qualifier will use NAQT Invitational Series #166. As of November 16, this question set was not assigned to any other tournament in Missouri. It is your responsibility to ensure that your team has not previously heard this question set and will not compete in any other tournaments using this set. Question set assignments are subject to change at any time; a list of tournaments using this set is available on NAQT's website.

Games consist of twenty tossups worth ten points each followed by non-rebounding bonuses worth up to thirty points. Tossups will feature "powers" (correct buzzes early in the question receive fifteen points instead of ten) and "negs" (five point deductions for incorrect answers before the question is finished).

The top four teams will receive plaques, and an all-tournament team will be recognized based on individual performances in the preliminary rounds. Teams will not be divided into separate divisions based on school size, but the top small school team (by NAQT's definition of a "Traditional Public" small school) will be recognized with a plaque as the small school champion.

Schedule

Check-in on the morning of the tournament will begin at 7:45. We will have an introductory meeting at 8:30, with the first round of tournament play beginning no later than 9:00.

For the preliminary rounds, teams will be divided into pools that will each play a round robin. Following the preliminary rounds, all teams will be rebracketed into championship and consolation pools, in which teams will play more games against teams that finished similarly in the preliminary rounds. All teams are expected to return from lunch to play their scheduled afternoon rounds. The exact schedule for the tournament will be determined by the final field size, but 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 eligible 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.

Each school in attendance will receive a printed copy of the questions after the tournament.

Qualifying for National Tournaments

The top fifteen percent of the field will automatically qualify for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT) in Atlanta on May 26-28, 2017. Unlike previous NAQT Missouri Qualifiers, if all teams in the top fifteen percent had already qualified for the 2017 HSNCT at earlier tournaments, NAQT will no longer offer a special bid to the highest-ranking team that had not previously qualified.

The top 30% of teams eligible for the small school title will qualify for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 28-30, 2017 in Chicago. While not eligible for this tournament's small school title, the top 30% of schools meeting NAQT's eligibility criteria for the "Charter-and-Private" division will also qualify for SSNCT. Additionally, any small school team that qualifies for HSNCT will automatically qualify for SSNCT.

This tournament has received platinum certification from the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence, so the top 25% of the field will qualify for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Chicago on June 10-11, 2017.

We encourage all teams to participate even if they do not plan to attend a national championship.

Pricing

• Base entry fee: $70 per team.
• Buzzer discount: $5 discount for each working buzzer system your school brings (limit 2). Each system must be fully functional for eight players to receive the discount.
• Travel discount: $5 discount for every 75 miles your school travels to the tournament (one-way, as determined by Google Maps).

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 breakfast and lunch.

• You will receive a $15 discount for each competent scorekeeper your school brings.
• You will receive a $25 discount for each experienced moderator your school brings. Moderators must be able to complete a 20 tossup/bonus game in 25-30 minutes to keep the tournament on schedule. We will reserve the right to choose our moderators.
• The minimum entry fee after all discounts is $0.

Field Size and Registration Procedure

We will be using an online registration form again this year; please complete this form to register for the tournament. Registrations will be processed in the order they are received through this form, and will not be accepted via any other method. This tournament traditionally fills very quickly, so we strongly recommend that you reserve your spots now.

We have room to host up to 36 teams on the William Woods campus. We anticipate that the final field size will be between 30 and 36 teams, but to ensure that we continue to run an efficient tournament, the field will initially be limited to 24 teams until we have secured enough staffers to run a larger tournament in a timely manner. To give more interested schools earlier confirmation to make arrangements to attend, we will be using the following procedure to fill the field.

Initially, only one team from each school will be admitted to the field, with one exception described below. Schools that would like to bring more than one team may indicate the number of teams they intend to bring, but any teams after the first will initially be placed on the waitlist. Subsequent teams without a corresponding staffer will only be admitted if there are openings that are unlikely to be filled by schools registering late; we do not anticipate admitting these teams any earlier than January 15.

Because more moderators and scorekeepers will help us expand the field sooner, each staffer that a school provides will move the next waitlisted team from that school into the field, or, if the field is full, to the top waitlist group. Schools that provide staff will receive a discount on the registration fee, as noted above.

We expect to be adequately staffed to the point where this will not be necessary, but if one or more teams from a school are admitted to the field early by offering staff that subsequently become unavailable, we will reserve the right to drop any number of that school's teams if the tournament would be short-staffed as a result.

The waitlist will be grouped in this order:

1. Teams with a corresponding school-provided staffer (one team per staffer), ordered by the time each staffer is promised.
2. All first teams from a school, ordered by registration timestamp.
3. All second teams from a school, ordered by registration timestamp.
4. All third teams from a school, ordered by registration timestamp.
5. ...and so on...

Our goals with this system are to give interested schools at least one confirmed spot in the field as early as possible so that they have plenty of time to make transportation arrangements, still provide a way for schools to claim multiple spots early, and to secure more staffers sooner so that we can confidently expand the field to admit waitlisted teams to the field earlier. Additionally, if there are late openings, any waitlisted teams at that point should mostly be from schools that already have a confirmed spot in the field rather than from new schools who would then need to make last-minute travel arrangements.

Tournament information, including a list of registered teams and current staff counts, will be updated regularly on the Missouri Quizbowl Message Board.

We hope to see you and your team in Fulton 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 Matt Chadbourne
2017 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Co-Directors