I think with new teams, I understand there can be a bit of a psychological effect in terms of tournament preparation - like how much preparation for events is needed, what the tournament as a whole is like (such as the standard ceremonies and the swap meet), worrying about logistics that are addressed before the tournament (aka COSTS, transportation, rooming, etc.), etc. For returning teams, they've handled it before so it shouldn't be as much of a problem arranging all that jazz, but for new teams going, it can be overwhelming, like the feeling of wanting to be like, "OK ONE THING AT A TIME" but in reality, there are so many things to handle, not to mention pressure new teams may feel from wanting to do just as well as the team that represented their state the year before.EastStroudsburg13 wrote:It's not that they never do well; it just tends to happen that they do worse than a multi-year defending team had done in the previous years. There are a few examples in both divisions from last year:Juanyjose wrote: What's the whole thing about new teams never doing good? Kinda like beginners bad luck or something? We bombed a lot of events at state too, we were surprised we got past Pembroke.The only major exceptions were California Trail (KS B) and Capital (ID C). So yes, it does happen, but traditionally teams that break a team's big streak tend not to do as well as that team had in the past. There are, of course, natural explanations for this; a new team is much more likely to really get into the special events and pageantry surrounding nationals, whereas a team that experiences it year after year is more likely to just focus on the events themselves. And I also think that more new teams going to nationals is a really good thing, and something I love seeing. However, from a predictions perspective, it's more likely that a team that's qualifying for the first time will not do quite as well as the teams that preceded it, just from historical results.
- Carmel (IN C)
Believe me, that definitely occurred with our team last year, but at the same time, plenty of people on our team last year skipped many of the special events (one reason being that we didn't start Expo sign up until < 2 weeks before nats, so there weren't a whole ton of options open anyways - side note: missing expo signups was probably a side effect of being a new team as well) to focus on the actual events, so the part about being more into the special events and not the main events at nationals is not always the case although sometimes it can be.
And then there's always those events that can be very volatile in terms of results from competition to competition, like all the builds, WIDI, and ExDes, and in addition, some teams can get hit significantly with event conflicts between state and nationals (which also happened with our team - our state schedule worked out nicely for us, but the nationals schedule was really gnarly for us, one example being that my forensics partner and I were also both the two primary cell biology competitors, but neither of us were able to compete in the event due to the time conflict with forensics; another example being that I got put into dynamic planet for nats because one of the two primary competitors in that event had a conflict with green generation) - that can also have an important effect on team performance at nationals, especially with teams that don't build their teams around the tentative nats schedule since they're not positive they'll be able to make it out of their state tournament.
TL;DR: I think East has some good points on reasons why new teams aren't as successful, but they MIGHT not necessarily be the case, and there are many other factors that can also hinder or enhance the success of a new team at nats.
Honestly I went on two off-campus trips with the expo last year at nats and still medaled in one event, made the top 10 in another and made the top 30 in my last one (that I was not primarily in/only doing due to time conflicts on my other events), so it's definitely still possible to enjoy some of the special events and still do well in the tournament!
And East is going to roast me in 3...2...1...