MLK Tournament at U of Michigan, 1.17.04
Results: Northwestern A
(Colby Burnett, Robert Flaxman, Justin Moles, Vishal Saxena)
Our academic A team had been pretty solidly me, Colby,
Jan and Mike for the better part of two years, but all good things must come to an end and
Jan and Mike graduated. This left me wondering how we'd play it this year. At
least one answer turned out to be the lineup you see above. I think we finished
respectably - middle of the pack, sure, but over .500 at a tournament with nearly 30 teams
and some of the heaviest hitters (though several of them, including Michigan A, Illinois,
and Kentucky, were in the other bracket) is pretty respectable for a team that had half
its lineup and probably its best player taken away by graduation.
Favorite Tossup: MLK added powers this year, enabling me to
power "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge." If there's ever a question on
that that someone beats me to, I'll seriously be quite surprised. Some enjoyable
non-power ones, because I got them due to either writing questions on the same subject or
recent big-time knowledge: Tagore, Atlas Mountains, Basque.
Favorite Bonus: I actually didn't write any down,
which oughta say something. The only bonus I noted at all was one I didn't
get - where they wanted the author of "Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
I actually said out loud, "Oh my God, Alma is going to kill me," and she
was in fact a bit upset that I didn't remember when I told her later.
Worst Neg: Just about every neg (there were six)
pissed me off, as most were ones I knew almost immediately thereafter, and the ones I
didn't were bad reaction buzzes. Here I will defend all of them, a rarity for me:
1. "The Catch" for "The Immaculate Reception." I buzzed in
almost right away on the first clue about who the play was designed to go to. I had
read about both of these recently and just inverted them, and knew immediately after I was
called wrong what I should have said.
2. "Pause - was going to say Postal Service" for "Death Cab for
Cutie." Kind of a dumb buzz as I was fairly sure from the outset that they
wanted the band that the Postal Service guy was in, but I reaction-buzzed on the part
about exchanging the music by mail. As I buzzed, they began to say "Postal
Service" and I could not for the life of me pull out the real answer.
3. "Poltava" for "Lutzen." Bad reaction buzz on Charles XII.
Probably the worst of the bunch.
4. "Maldives" for "Seychelles." Reaction buzzed on
"Mahe," thinking of "Male." Talk about knowing too much for your
own good.
5. "Godard" for "Antonioni." Reaction buzzed on writing for a
cinema magazine - it just wasn't the same cinema magazine. I would have had it two
seconds later when they said "Zabriskie Point." And I'm supposed to be the
movie guy. Just annoying.
6. "Fra Girolamo" for "Savonarola." Right book, wrong character
name said. Zeke even said to me "I think you know it and just said the wrong
name." Correct-a-mundo, Zeke.
Heard It!: I've written questions on Wittgenstein in
the past, so it wasn't like this was so nuts, but he had still come up earlier in the day
when I reaction buzzed on the clue of "Philosophical Investigations."
Wrote It!: I included a bonus on mountain ranges in
our packet. It wasn't used, probably because there was a tossup on Atlas Mountains
already out there. Needless to say, I got it. The same was true of the Tagore
tossup, which also explains why my Nobel laureate bonus was axed.
On Second Thought, How About I Give the Right Answer:
I nearly negged on Susquehanna with Delaware until they said Delaware right as I
buzzed. Fortunately there's only one other major river in eastern Pennsylvania.
Thank You for Actually Using Our Packet: In past
years, MLK has asked for packet submission and then used very little, and sometimes none, of our
packet. This year was a turnaround - despite (and I hope not because of) the
lateness, our packet actually made it in largely unscathed. MLK combines packets, so
the fact that 14 of our tossups were used means they actually split us 50/50 with whoever
we were paired with (Rochester C, sayeth the schedule). Of those 14 tossups, only
three featured any significant revision. They also used 11 bonuses, which I think is
just less than half but is way more than the two they used last year.
Woo: We beat Iowa A on the last question, as Colby got
a tossup with like two seconds on the clock and we 30d the bonus. I've already
forgotten what that bonus was, though I bet he knows.
Un-woo: We then lost to Iowa State on the last
question (having been tied at 165) two rounds later.
Yay, I Guess: Also, we "held" Chicago A to
320 points - not exactly great, but 100 under their round robin average. As Colby
noted, when Ed Cohn is your third option (the first two being Yaphe and Subash, who only
won this tournament as a two-man team in 2002), you've got a pretty good team there.
Finally: I don't know what the "official"
(read: probably wrong) stats will list me at, but I averaged 31.15 points per game, my
best-ever result at MLK (and quite a leg up from freshman year, in which official stats -
I wasn't yet keeping my own - list me at 7.72 PPG, my only ones-place finish ever).
EDIT (1/21): Actually, they got my totals exactly correct, all the more impressive
considering they did not have every round correct. They managed to mess up
just enough to be right!
Round Robin - Maize Bracket
Round One: BYE
Round Two: Northwestern A 270,
Texas A&M 80
Round Three: Rochester A 295, Northwestern
A 125
Round Four: Carnegie-Mellon 235, Northwestern
A 110
Round Five: Northwestern A 205,
Notre Dame A 80
Round Six: Northwestern A 195,
Michigan C 15
Round Seven: Northwestern A 335,
Western Ontario B 30
Round Eight: Chicago A 320, Northwestern A
120
Round Nine: Carleton 235, Northwestern A
135
Round Ten: Pittsburgh A 170, Northwestern A
160
Round Eleven: Northwestern A 175,
Rochester C 60
Round Twelve: Northwestern A 250,
Iowa A 235
Round Thirteen: Northwestern A 265,
Chicago D 65
Round Fourteen: Iowa State 190, Northwestern
A 165
Overall: 7-6; 7th place in Maize bracket (out of 14); 12th place overall (out of 28)
Personal Stats: Questions Answered
No one's asking you to care about it. Powers are in bold; neg-5s are in italics with the real answer following. Anything in plain text was just ten.
Round Two
Rub al Khali
Joe Torre
Greed
Round Three
Jon Krakauer
The Catch (really the Immaculate Reception)
Round Four
Helios
LeAnn Rimes
Rowan Atkinson
Mario Puzo
Round Five
Legionnaire's Disease
Scientology
Samuel Tilden
Susquehanna River
Rabindranath Tagore
Round Six
Pause, was going to say Postal Service (really Death Cab for Cutie)
Ganges River
Round Seven
Wet Hot American Summer
Rivers Cuomo
Battle of Poltava (really Battle of Lutzen)
Cornish
Ashcan School
Round Eight
Maldives (really Seychelles)
Impeachment
George Steinbrenner
Singapore
Round Nine
Atlas Mountains
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Most Extreme Elimination Challenge
PLO
Round Ten
Verrazano Narrows Bridge
Let It Be Naked
Jean-Luc Godard (really Michelangelo Antonioni)
Round Eleven
Sophie's Choice
Battle of Antietam
Poseidon
Basque
Round Twelve
Enrico Fermi
Tigris River
Fra Girolamo (really Savonarola)
We Shall Overcome
Round Thirteen
Niger
A Room with a View
Michelle Pfeiffer
Ohio River
Eos
Round Fourteen
King Phillip's War
Borneo
PPG: 31.15