Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 15:45:08 -0500 From: Charlie Steinhice Subject: QB: RESULTS: Sword Bowl 1999 By all reports, UTC's first effort at a junior bird tournament was quite a success. Sword Bowl 1999 came off virtually without a hitch. Every team that said they'd show up did. We had to condense the tournament from two buildings to one, so people wouldn't be crossing back and forth in the rain, and the field size (19 teams) led to a creative schedule of 11 rounds with every team playing one or two randomly draw out-of-bracket matches, yet we still managed to finish on time. We had a very competitive field, with lots of close matches and a suspense-filled final round with playoff berths still in question. And a good time was had by all, or if not, nobody told me. We seem to have found the right niche for a tournament to complement Penn Bowl -- rather like the figure skating ESPN usually shows during the Super Bowl. Based on the response, I'd say it's 99% certain there will be a Sword Bowl 2000. TEAM RESULTS 2-year colleges are denoted with a *. It also bears mentioning that both teams from the University of the South, both teams from MTSU, and I believe the team from Alabama were all playing in their first tournament, and that Lee U. had a one-man team who still managed to finish 3-8. After the round robin (plus wild card matches) the standings were as follows. (Wins and losses will not add up; the 11 teams that submitted rounds were awarded wins for their bye rounds to make the number of matches played come out even.) Samuel Bracket Kentucky (Evil Petting Zoo) 11-0 Illinois (Damn Yankees) 10-1 Vanderbilt (Vandals) 8-3 MTSU Instruments of Indignation 8-3 UTC 6-5 Alabama (Alex Chiu Liberation Front) 3-8 Lee U. (The Soup Nazi) 3-8 *Palm Beach C.C. 2-9 *East Georgia 2-9 Univ. of the South II 2-9 Thomas a Bracket South Carolina (Kung Fu Rebels) 10-1 Univ. of the South I 9-2 Georgia Tech 8-3 Oklahoma (Governor Pataki) 7-4 * Valencia C.C. (Chuck Daly's Fish Eye) 6-5 Georgia 6-5 Tennessee Tech 6-5 MTSU Yo-Mama 2-9 *Dalton State 1-10 As Samuel's #1 seed, Kentucky would face the #2 seed from Thomas a. Going into Round 11 that looked to be South Carolina. Then Tennessee Tech upset Univ. of the South I, and it appeared that South Carolina would be the #1 seed and Georgia Tech the #2 -- but then Oklahoma knocked off Georgia Tech, giving the #2 seed to the Univ. of the South I. Semifinals (single elimination due to constraints of one-day tournament): Univ. of the South I 315, Kentucky 185 South Carolina 290, Illinois 270 Finals The finals were a rematch of the tournament's most exciting match, in which the Univ. of the South I had a 10-point protest upheld (after we sent one of the two reference librarians on duty to check it out) and subsequently defeated South Carolina on tossup 21. The results were different the second time around, though: South Carolina 245, University of the South 110 Congratulations are in order for the University of South Carolina, which sent teams to two tournaments this weekend and came away with a first place and a second place. And we can only wonder how the University of the South, a team formed just this month, will do at their *second* tournament. INDIVIDUAL RESULTS We have seen the future and its name is Justin Sauville. At his first intercollegiate tournament, Justin was the MVP, averaging a whopping 89 PPG to outscore every other player by 20 points. The all-stars were: Justin Sauville Univ. of the South I 89.00 Martin Sheehan S. Carolina 67.73 Kao-Ping Chu Vanderbilt 67.50 Robert Osborne Kentucky 62.00 Andrew McKenzie Oklahoma 57.50 Four other players topped 40 PPG: John Carlson Tennessee Tech Jarrett Greer Kentucky David Moore UTC Mike Angel Illinois Stephen Weichsel of Valencia C.C. received a special award as the highest scoring junior college player. GRATUITOUS SALES PITCH Question packets (13 rounds' worth) are available for sale at $15 per set, either hard copy or by e-mail. In fairness I must note that thanks to a trade with Samer Ismail, some questions submitted for Penn Bowl were used to supplement the Sword Bowl questions; these account for perhaps 5% of the total questions you'd receive. While I'm at it, we also have questions from last fall's Center of the Known Universe Open (college) and Trevor's Trivia: Bob Selcer Memorial (high school) and last month's TrashMasters available for sale, also at $15 per set. There's a substantial overlap between C.O.T.K.U. and Trevor's Trivia, so you probably need only one or the other. GRATITUDE I noted above that the tournament was virtually glitch-free. The major reason was the quality of volunteer help we had on hand. We had outstanding house readers, most of who traveled a considerable distance in the rain just for the reading (and of course UTC's traditional house reader bribe, a free dinner.) Thanks to Al Przygocki, Scott Gillispie, Dave Leach, Scotti Whitmire, Travis Buck, Brad Bennett, and the one and only Albert Whited., who also filled in when my cracking voice prevented me from my usual self-indulgent reading of the finals. Special thanks to Aaron Dobbs, who traveled the farthest of any house reader and then shifted without complaint from moderating to assisting with stats and other logistics. Thanks also to the coaches and veteran players who pitched in from time to time as readers: Tom Deaton, James Washick, Gail Celio, Hing Chan, Joseph Dion, John Carlson, and especially Dave Murphy. (If I left anyone out, a thousand pardons.) Thanks to absentees Chris Borglum and Seth Kendall for providing blind rounds for the playoffs. And as always, thanks to my ever-cooperative team at UTC for lots of logistical legwork and an unfailing cheerful attitude. ===================================================================== Charlie Steinhice "Come, come! Why, they couldn't Chattanooga, TN hit an elephant at this dist..." (center of the known universe) -- Gen. John Sedgwick =====================================================================