I never said that the Advantages had to be eliminated. You simply can't! However, they can be minimized whenever possible. For one example, schedule such that two Virginia teams play each other on the third team's packet. Further, I think Swisdak said it best: avoiding it altogether becomes logistical hell. But if you simply schedule teams in such a way that Inherent Advantage is minimized, all shall be well. As for teams not attending: you excuse George Mason but not GW, who was kinda busy running their own tournament the same weekend? Shame. And the rest have this issue called funding. I know Duke has very limited funds which prevented us from attending the Terrapin, especially when forced to choose between that and NAQT Conferences. These same monetary issues meant we only attended three tournaments last year. (Translation: Funding? What's that?) And even if money were there, not everyone wants to attend every weekend or close to it. With Conferences the next week and TRASH regionals the same weekend, burnout does become a factor. On the whole, there's two words I would like to say: LIGHTEN UP! Someone a few posts ago said "quizbowl is not life, and life is not quizbowl". That's still true... right? Andy
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