I sincerely apologize if my prior message displayed a lack of sensitivity. My message was based on my team's experience over the weekend, which differed somewhat from BU's. In Region 6, at least, point differential was significant in breaking ties among teams involved in a "Circle of Death." Entering the tournament, we thought the possibility of such an circle existing was relatively high, as UGA, Berry College, and UF generally play very competitive matches against one another. USF and FSU were the other circuit regulars among the 15 teams in Starkville, and Dalton State had a former UGA player (and eventual touranment high scorer) - but we felt that, barring upsets, UF, UGA, and Berry would probably finish atop the standings in some order (the senario which very nearly played out as we beat UGA, UGA beat Berry, and Berry beat us in the round-robin). Consequently, we tried to score as many points as we could on the questions we were presented. Against non-circuit teams, we did not go so far as to interrupt bonus parts with an answer, but neither did we drag out the clock after we had arrived at an answer. The questions went our way and we ended up on the good side of a couple of 600 point games (615-10 and 600-(-5), I believe), as well as several 400+ point games. After these games against CBI-only teams, we acknowledged the score, signed the sheet, and shook hands and usually chatted with our opponents. Several players, and even a couple of coaches, asked us how we had prepared for the tournament. When we told them about the circuit, many had never heard of it. We gave them the URL's of the Maize Pages and the Stanford Archive and wished them the best of luck in the rest of their games. I did not hear any complaints from these teams over our behavior or style of play and I hope that there were none. I believe that we conducted ourselves politely irregardless of the match's outcome. Rather than being discouraged, I would like to think that the teams returned home motivated to prepare for next year and I sincerely hope to see several of them join the circuit here in the spread-out Southeast. -Dan Nordby UF College Bowl (though not speaking for it)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:43 AM EST EST