Upcoming Events

2018 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Announcement

The 2018 NAQT Missouri Qualifier was held on March 3, 2018. This is an archive of the original tournament announcement. Read the recap.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance invites all MSHSAA-registered high school Scholar Bowl teams to participate in the eleventh annual NAQT Missouri Qualifier on March 3, 2018. This tournament has been sanctioned by MSHSAA.

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.

Location

Columbia College (Main Campus)
1001 Rogers Street
Columbia, MO 65216

Question Set

The NAQT Missouri Qualifier will use the 2018 NAQT Division II Collegiate Sectionals question set, which is more challenging than NAQT's regular season Invitational Series questions but a step below the difficulty of NAQT's High School National Championship Tournament questions. This is a change from previous Qualifiers because NAQT is producing one fewer Invitational Series set this year.

As of December 12, this set was not assigned to any other high school tournament in Missouri. It is your responsibility to ensure that your entire team has not previously heard any part of NAQT's 2018 Collegiate Sectionals question sets 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 known to be using this set is available on NAQT's website.

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

Format

Games consist of twenty tossups worth ten points each followed by non-rebounding bonuses worth up to thirty points. Tossups will feature 15 point "powers" and -5 point "negs".

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. We will use NAQT's most recent determinations for which schools are eligible for the small school title, or publicly available enrollment data if a determination from NAQT is unavailable.

This year, we will also award a plaque to the top team from a "Very Small School", which we will define as a "traditional public" school in MSHSAA Classes 1 or 2 for Scholar Bowl.

Schedule

Registered teams should arrive between 7:45 and 8:20 AM for check in. We will have an introductory meeting at 8:30, with the first round of tournament play beginning around 8:50-9:00. A lunch break will follow the preliminary rounds, with all teams returning from lunch for championship or consolation games in the afternoon. All teams will be guaranteed 9-10 games and most teams should be done by 4:30. The top few teams overall and top 2 small school teams should anticipate the possibility of additional games, which are expected to end by 6:00.

Qualifying for National Tournaments

The top 15% of the field will qualify for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT) in Atlanta on May 25-27, 2018.

The top 30% of teams eligible for the small school title will qualify for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 27-29, 2018 in Chicago. While not eligible for this tournament's small school title, the top 30% of schools meeting NAQT's eligibility criteria for the "Open" division of SSNCT will also qualify. 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. The top 25% of the field will qualify for the PACE National Scholastic Championship near Washington D.C. on June 2-3, 2018.

Pricing

Registration and Waitlist

If you are planning to register more than one team, please read the details below before registering.

After registration opens on Thursday, December 14 at 6:00 AM, 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. Our tournaments traditionally fill very quickly, so we strongly recommend that you register early.

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 an opportunity to secure a spot as early as possible, through the end of December, only one team from each school will be admitted to the field. Schools that would like to bring more than one team should indicate the number of teams they intend to bring, but any teams after the first will initially be placed on the waitlist. Starting on January 1, any openings in the field will be offered to teams at the top of the waitlist.

The waitlist will have two groups, both ordered by registration timestamp:

  1. If the field fills before the end of December, the first team from each additional school registering in December that did not secure a spot in the initial 24 team field.
  2. All remaining teams, including all teams from schools that register on January 1 or later.

Unlike MOQBA-hosted tournaments in previous seasons, offering to provide staff will not improve your position on the waitlist.

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 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 Matt Chadbourne
2018 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Co-Directors