Unofficial Rankings B

[ckssv07]

IK agree with Unome. It seems like theres a general pattern. But we have to remember that many of the schoold that get top 5 in the last few years just jumped into there almost out of nowhere. There could be some magic team that nobody noticed before which owns the competition. I think we should watch out for some of the less competitive states like california, new york, etc.

I would in no way call NY and CA less competitive states as they constantly have teams placing rather high. Just last year 2 teams from each state placed in the top 10, which in my opinion is nowhere close to less competitive.

[Bazinga+]

I meant like top 5. All the candidates people are proposing consist of the same teams as always. There could be a change this year. And i meant 'less competitive', and i think we can all agree NY and CA are less competitive than some states like Ohio...

[taaffeite]

It's way premature to speculate since NY and other states have yet to have the state competition. But last year both NY teams made top 10 at Nationals. Which two that will be is yet to be determined. But both will be very strong.

[syo_astro]

It's way premature to speculate since NY and other states have yet to have the state competition. But last year both NY teams made top 10 at Nationals. Which two that will be is yet to be determined. But both will be very strong.

Well, considering you're from FM...you probably know just as well how dominant Gelinas and Eagle Hill are here. Not saying it's impossible for CP Weber, Murphy, Maine-Endwell, etc to take the B NYS title, but it'd be tough for those schools...likely either Gelinas or Eagle Hill will at least get top 10 (they are both quite strong). But I do know also B is sometimes harder to predict than C with certain things at times, so we shall see indeed.

[taaffeite]

It would be presumptuous to assume anything except that the strongest two NY teams will win. Which ever they are, and I have my favorite of course, they will represent NY very well at Nationals. All together, last year combining Divisions, NY took 20% of top 10 at Nationals which is similar to a few other states. Good enough to conclude that NY is competitive.

[Schrodingerscat]

I would just like to throw in my two cents of analysis to this debate on competitiveness.

I have found most similar arguments come down to two separate meanings of competitiveness, which I will henceforth refer to as absolute and relative competitiveness. As the name implies, absolute competitiveness describes the states who have the best teams in the nation and the highest level of difficulty to place well in events. These would be states whose top teams regularly place at the top at nationals.

However, a second type of competitiveness that exists in some states is what I would call relative, or perhaps internal, competition. The best examples of these would be the states that frequently change champions, and the champions typically only win by a small margin over several other schools. Many smaller (in terms of teams) states exhibit this kind of competitiveness despite their champions rarely placing well at nationals. However, these two types of competitiveness are not mutually exclusive, and consistent relative competitiveness may be a key mechanism in building absolute competitiveness.

[schist99centz]

1. Solon
2. Meads Mill
3. Marie Murphy
4. J.C Booth
5. Daniel Wright
6. Winston Churchill
7. Paul J. Gelinas
8. Shady Side Academy
9. Beckendorff
10. Muscatel

[Algorhythmic]

1. Solon
2. Meads Mill
3. JC Booth
4. Daniel Wright
5. Marie Murphy
6. Churchill
7. Memorial
8. Gelinas
9. Shady Side
10. Muscatel

[cupcakegirl]

In general, I prefer not to speculate too much, but am I the only one who thinks Daniel Wright has a really good shot at winning? They were extremely close last year, and in the past few years, have only had an upward trend.

Just out of curiosity, why haven't many people been placing Beckendorff in the top ten?

[Algorhythmic]

In general, I prefer not to speculate too much, but am I the only one who thinks Daniel Wright has a really good shot at winning? They were extremely close last year, and in the past few years, have only had an upward trend.

Just out of curiosity, why haven't many people been placing Beckendorff in the top ten?

The way I see it, people aren't placing Daniel Wright within the top three spots is because of the potential that other teams show at invitationals. This year, we had Meads Mill win the Wright State invitational over Solon and JC Booth had a very impressive turnout at Solon this year. We make speculation from the evidence that we have. Although it's true that Daniel Wright did have a very close second to Solon at nationals last year, teams have their rise and fall. I'm not saying that DW's skills have fallen in any way, it's simply that other teams are rising to the national challenge and increasing their game. Who knows? Maybe Daniel Wright will prove us wrong and be like Memorial, who showed up out of nowhere to beat Magsig and make it to nationals for the first time, completely CHANGING our expectations of them from their showings at invitationals.

As for Beckendorff not being in a lot of these lists, it's simply because we don't have a comparison. All these teams (apart from CA) battle it out in the same area of the country and give us perspective. I personally have no idea what goes on in the south, despite originally being a Texas native.