Season Sweepstakes 2010-2011
Last year we tried for the first time to run a season sweepstakes. I still have to get trophies to the winners but they are in process =)
here is a recap of the award winners:
Lincoln Division (Highest % of adjusted wins in at least three tournaments)
1 Biola University
2 University of California, Los Angeles
3 California State University, Los Angeles
4 Pasadena City College
5 Mt. San Antonio College
6 Pt. Loma Nazarene University
7 Irvine Valley College
8 Azusa Pacific University
9 California Baptist University
10 Riverside Community College
11 El Camino College
Douglas Division (Highest number of adjusted wins in at least three tournaments)
1 Biola University
2 El Camino College
3 Irvine Valley College
4 California Baptist University
5 Pt. Loma Nazarene University
6 California State University, Los Angeles
7 Pasadena City College
8 Riverside Community College
9 Mt. San Antonio College
10 Azusa Pacific University
11 University of California, Los Angeles
Top SoCal-LD Debater (Highest Win Percentage in at least three tournaments)
1 Biola VanHuystee
2 Biola Hensley
3 CSULA Swanson
4 Biola McCurley
5 Biola Reynolds
6 Cal Baptist Lamascus
7 El Camino Maxwell
8 UCLA Matthews
9 Cal Baptist Rose
10 Biola Scofield
So my question to all of you: your thoughts?
Should we have a season sweepstakes this year? Are there any changes to the divisions, formulas, etc… you think we should introduce?
This will be a task that the executive committee will ultimately decide but I wanted to get community input first before we start drafting the rules for this year’s sweepstakes (if we proceed with it again).
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Comments
I think two divisions is a great idea because it rewards those who compete in open (and hopefully prevent keeping people in junior and novice longer than they should be) throughout the year and also would encourage those who are new to LD (which is really important in order to have a thriving socal ld community)
I don’t think that novice and junior should ever be counted on the same level as open for any type of sweepstakes scheme. First, the difficulty level just is not comparable, so it doesn’t make any sense to rank them on the same level. Second counting them on the same level encourages sandbagging, which I think we can all agree is bad.
Maybe have two divisions for the SoCal LD sweeps: open and novice. Open would count all results in open division. Novice would count all results by first year college debaters, in any division.
Two observations:
1) Elim rounds are ridiculously overweighted. If you can win just one or two elims your ballot count for that tournament could easily exceed 8 or 9.
Instead of just giving 3 free ballots for every elim round regardless of outcome, consider the following scheme:
* Give 2 ballots for every outround win with 80% or more judges voting for you (i.e. a 3-0, 4-1, or 5-0 decision). Give 0 ballots to the loser.
* Give 1 ballot to both the winner and loser for any outround with a decision split less than 80% (2-1, 3-2, 6-3, etc).
This largely minimizes the massive outround ballot giveaway.
2) Use an NPTE style scoring system for both the Lincoln division and the top overall debater standings. By this, I mean that only the top five tournaments for each debater should be factored into the rankings. This is good because a) it minimizes the effect of one or two bad tournaments, and b) it incentivizes competing in as many tournaments as possible to accumulate the best stats.
Having calculated NPDA sweeps for 3 seasons I think we need to keep things simple. One of the reasons for the single division last year was that it made it straightforward to count.
I’d be worried about verifying what debaters are in their first year college debaters – we would essentially have to contact every coach from every NFA-LD program to see who is in their first year.
Let’s try to keep things simple. Perhaps we could keep the one division for the “top debater” award but require at least one open tournament (or 2 out of the 5 be open if we go with that)?
Sandbagging is inevitable in Lincoln and Douglas divisions for reasons that have nothing to do with the sweeps award.
The only place we should be making distinctions in is the top debater area.
I think that all the tournaments to be a “top debater” should be against other top debaters… hence only open should qualify.
Thus, why I feel that breaking novice/junior and Open from one another is the best solution. We could have “Top debater” and “Best Beginner” or something.
Please take my previous absence from this discussion to imply two things:
(1) Most of the time – regarding this particular aspect of SoCal NFA-LD – I have no clue what you’re talking about; HOWEVER
(2) From what I read here, you folks are doing a helluva job without the benefit of my ignorance.
Keep up the good work! 
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Yes to sweeps.
We do need a fix for the “top debater” though. When only 4 of the top 10 debaters in So-Cal ever stepped foot into an (yes an – even one) open round I think there is a problem.
Maybe an Open for top debater and a lower division for top debater. The two are kept separate, but it would be possible for a debater to move from novice to open and take top debater in open, too. All it would take is 6 tournaments in a year which is doable.
By all rights Nick could have started in Novice and just wracked up points there until he moved to open…
Also, MAD PROPS to Mike for taking care of the sweep system last year for us!!!