State Tournament Results

[Unome]

Eagle Hill.

Murphy.

Tbh I also feel bad for teams in other states that bring more than 1 team to states and lose that way. Why would a team do that? Basically, each team would want to beat the other but the better scores in events would only count for one team with a few events, so the team that did overall better would lose.

Montgomery lost very controversially in 2017 to South by one point.
I feel like bringing more than one team to any competition (other than invitationals) isn't a good idea (unless you are really really really confident that you can qualify for states/nationals).

Yeah at least for states bringing more than one team, unless your completely sure you have your best competitors on the same team, would only bring down your chances of winning.

Not necessarily. A second team could also increase the gap between a winning team and their competitor.

[hippo9]

Montgomery lost very controversially in 2017 to South by one point.
I feel like bringing more than one team to any competition (other than invitationals) isn't a good idea (unless you are really really really confident that you can qualify for states/nationals).

Yeah at least for states bringing more than one team, unless your completely sure you have your best competitors on the same team, would only bring down your chances of winning.

Not necessarily. A second team could also increase the gap between a winning team and their competitor.

I understand, but usually in dividing for a second team, the top 15 are not necessarily placed on the "stacked" team, which could be the difference between qualifying for nats, and being a few points short.

[Riptide]

Or if you miss nats by like 20 pts but got DQed/tiered in some event

Eagle Hill.

Can't help but feel bad for teams that miss nationals by one point. Even then any team that comes within 5 points wonders what could have been improved on.

Murphy.

Tbh I also feel bad for teams in other states that bring more than 1 team to states and lose that way. Why would a team do that? Basically, each team would want to beat the other but the better scores in events would only count for one team with a few events, so the team that did overall better would lose.

Montgomery lost very controversially in 2017 to South by one point.
I feel like bringing more than one team to any competition (other than invitationals) isn't a good idea (unless you are really really really confident that you can qualify for states/nationals).

My first year in Science Olympiad in division B, our two teams at regionals placed 3rd and 4th, with only a 7 point difference. Top 2 made it to state that year. We were unstacked (not by choice, our coach wouldn’t let us stack for some reason) and most likely would’ve have made it to state that year if we had brought only one team. Texas doesn’t allow multiple teams from the same school at state, but I would say if there’s any doubt of not qualifying for state/nationals, it’s best not to bring a second team, even if the first team is stacked.

[Alex-RCHS]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes that, when there are two teams at states, they are necessarily unstacked. Sometimes teams are completely stacked and the "worse" team still does pretty well. For example, our varsity team got 99 points at regionals, our JV 128. Our teams were completely stacked. My guess is the second place team in VT was also completely stacked.

Also, "manual stacking" assumes that you can assimilate people perfectly into one team, which is almost never true, so it usually exaggerates the strength of the schools with multiple teams. You still can only have 15 (except in NC and NJ and probably a few other states) people on a team.

[Unome]

Also, "manual stacking" assumes that you can assimilate people perfectly into one team, which is almost never true, so it usually exaggerates the strength of the schools with multiple teams.

^ This. For those using manual stacking for predictions, definitely be careful and try to account for this.

[pb5754]

Also, "manual stacking" assumes that you can assimilate people perfectly into one team, which is almost never true, so it usually exaggerates the strength of the schools with multiple teams.

^ This. For those using manual stacking for predictions, definitely be careful and try to account for this.

Maybe we could try taking the average of the placements for a school in each event? This may account for such exaggerations.

[Name]

Also, "manual stacking" assumes that you can assimilate people perfectly into one team, which is almost never true, so it usually exaggerates the strength of the schools with multiple teams.

^ This. For those using manual stacking for predictions, definitely be careful and try to account for this.

Maybe we could try taking the average of the placements for a school in each event? This may account for such exaggerations.

This could significantly skew data so single teams seem stronger.

What about builds always being manually stacked higher and have the average of the events the second team placed higher in.

Also I see no reason not to bring multiple teams to regionals/states if the teams are fully stacked. The points lost would generally be counteracted by the other teams points loss and could possibly help you. Also provided a good learning opportunity for the future.

[EastStroudsburg13]

I've thought about doing some sort of "degree of stacking" that uses a log function or square root or something to reduce the impact of manually stacking the scores of significantly unstacked teams, as a way of more accurately representing how a single team would have performed, but I haven't really delved into it fully yet.

[knottingpurple]

NJ has quite a lot of teams from each Regionals moving on to States, and it also only has a half slate of events, so back in the days when we could have 2 teams, we would always just guarantee everyone spots on the teams even if they didn't normally do any of the regionals events, so our teams were unstacked, randomized, everything, but we were still confident of making States because there are hella spots and not that many teams. This year, with only one Regionals team, we filled it as much as possible with freshmen because doing well at Regionals matters at least as little to us as doing well at invitationals, and it was much more valuable as an opportunity to give them experience. I can see how a team like Troy, which doesn't really doubt their advancing to Nats I imagine, could do something like that with States, even.

[Name]

NJ has quite a lot of teams from each Regionals moving on to States, and it also only has a half slate of events, so back in the days when we could have 2 teams, we would always just guarantee everyone spots on the teams even if they didn't normally do any of the regionals events, so our teams were unstacked, randomized, everything, but we were still confident of making States because there are hella spots and not that many teams. This year, with only one Regionals team, we filled it as much as possible with freshmen because doing well at Regionals matters at least as little to us as doing well at invitationals, and it was much more valuable as an opportunity to give them experience. I can see how a team like Troy, which doesn't really doubt their advancing to Nats I imagine, could do something like that with States, even.

While Troy probably could, socal is actually pretty hard, with Troy not winning events they probably could win nats in (I'm assuming they sent thier full team). Also were you not allowed multiple teams? We always run 3 at Regionals. Also I would think that most team members wouldn't want to give up spots for freshman