Way Too Early Predictions

[Unome]

As Godly as Troy is, they aren't unbeatable. We'll see what happens at MIT.
I know Troy isn't attending MIT, but MIT is a great way to see where all the teams are right now, and if there's any strong contenders other than Troy.

Far fewer competitive teams are participating at MIT this year (only 1 out of Nats top 5 and 4 out of Nats top 10). I don't think we have a culminating invitational (traditionally MIT) like previous years that gives comparable results as most of the top teams are spread out between attending MIT, UPenn, Cornell, GoldenGate etc. We can only speculate about the comparability and competition of different invitationals to make predictions.

There's very little in the way of top teams at Cornell and Golden Gate, but the absence of Troy, Solon, and Mason makes MIT less of a benchmark for comparison. Regardless, I doubt predictions will suffer that much because of this - we've had plenty of time to get acclimated to the competitiveness of various invitationals to the point where we can accurately compare them (I certainly haven't noticed any improved accuracy in my current predictions versus those of five years ago, notwithstanding getting the top 7 Div C Nationals teams correct last year).

[whythelongface]

Just want to remind you all that Troy is very good for a reason: they're a magnet school that can claim highly talented kids from their entire area. Beating them is going to prove to be pretty much impossible for most public school teams.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

Just want to remind you all that Troy is very good for a reason: they're a magnet school that can claim highly talented kids from their entire area. Beating them is going to prove to be pretty much impossible for most public school teams.

We've still got a shot!

[whythelongface]

Maybe we give them a giant wooden horse and claim it's a gift?

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!

What about UPENN? They're pretty stacked.

SOUP is a great competition for judging the Northeast region in general, but historically Troy and Solon haven't showed. I think it unlikely that this trend will be broken; SOUP is a difficult competition, but it doesn't have the "prestige" of MIT, which I guess really does matter for Troy.

[Riptide]

What about UPENN? They're pretty stacked.

SOUP is a great competition for judging the Northeast region in general, but historically Troy and Solon haven't showed. I think it unlikely that this trend will be broken; SOUP is a difficult competition, but it doesn't have the "prestige" of MIT, which I guess really does matter for Troy.

Unless they’ve made some last second decision that I don’t know about, Troy will be attending SOUP alongside many other top teams (most likely the most competitive invitational this year). While SOUP may not have the prestige of MIT, it is a great tournament and will still be a pretty good indicator of how many schools stack up to each other. SOUP Teams.

While I’m here might as well make my prediction:
1. Troy
2. Harriton
3. Solon
4. Mason
5. TX
6. Mounds View
7. Acton Boxborough
8. Mira Loma
9. NJ
10. New Trier

[whythelongface]

What about UPENN? They're pretty stacked.

SOUP is a great competition for judging the Northeast region in general, but historically Troy and Solon haven't showed. I think it unlikely that this trend will be broken; SOUP is a difficult competition, but it doesn't have the "prestige" of MIT, which I guess really does matter for Troy.

Unless they’ve made some last second decision that I don’t know about, Troy will be attending SOUP alongside many other top teams (most likely the most competitive invitational this year). While SOUP may not have the prestige of MIT, it is a great tournament and will still be a pretty good indicator of how many schools stack up to each other. SOUP Teams.

While I’m here might as well make my prediction:
1. Troy
2. Harriton
3. Solon
4. Mason
5. TX
6. Mounds View
7. Acton Boxborough
8. Mira Loma
9. NJ
10. New Trier

I was not aware of this, thanks for the correction. Didn't Troy only say they were going to SOUP because they're not going to MIT?

[Unome]

SOUP is a great competition for judging the Northeast region in general, but historically Troy and Solon haven't showed. I think it unlikely that this trend will be broken; SOUP is a difficult competition, but it doesn't have the "prestige" of MIT, which I guess really does matter for Troy.

Unless they’ve made some last second decision that I don’t know about, Troy will be attending SOUP alongside many other top teams (most likely the most competitive invitational this year). While SOUP may not have the prestige of MIT, it is a great tournament and will still be a pretty good indicator of how many schools stack up to each other. SOUP Teams.

While I’m here might as well make my prediction:
1. Troy
2. Harriton
3. Solon
4. Mason
5. TX
6. Mounds View
7. Acton Boxborough
8. Mira Loma
9. NJ
10. New Trier

I was not aware of this, thanks for the correction. Didn't Troy only say they were going to SOUP because they're not going to MIT?

As I understand it, Troy chose Mira Loma over MIT, and decided on SOUP because they wanted a tournament where they wouldn't win 1st and 2nd. I think there's a thread on here somewhere about it.

[Justin72835]

As I understand it, Troy chose Mira Loma over MIT, and decided on SOUP because they wanted a tournament where they wouldn't win 1st and 2nd. I think there's a thread on here somewhere about it.

For those that are interested, this is the thread that Unome is referring to.

[AlbatrossTree]

Lol good luck. They're Troy. They don't fall until they have fallen.

2016 wasn't that long ago...

I believe that Paypog is saying that you can't say that Troy will fall until it actually happens.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Troy will pull what they did at Nats several years ago and bomb an event or two (Wright Stuff was the issue that year if I remember correctly?). This time I would expect it to be Mason or Solon (Harriton is possible too) taking that top slot instead of Mira Loma though.

[Alex-RCHS]

I'm disappointed that nobody has mentioned Enloe yet... Just like nobody saw them coming last year either.

MIT tomorrow will give us a better look at them, but I think they have a great chance to do well this year. Last year was the first time in many years that any team has completely ran away with NC at states. It makes me think that they might be able to focus more on nationals from the start of the year (I heard that placing top 10 as they did last year was not on their radar at the beginning of the year) and therefore do better this year.

With that being said, I did hear that they lost a lot of talent last year, so who knows.