Illinois 2019

[19alekb]

AA is for the better teams and A is for the newer teams.

[TheChiScientist]

AA is for the better teams and A is for the newer teams.

Partially true. AA and A is more dependent on school size. AA for larger schools and A for smaller schools. After that, they add the smaller schools to AA based on their State results. Ex: my team is small yet in AA.

[fiddhantfen]

AA is for the better teams and A is for the newer teams.

Partially true. AA and A is more dependent on school size. AA for larger schools and A for smaller schools. After that, they add the smaller schools to AA based on their State results. Ex: my team is small yet in AA.

Oh...ok. thank you

[K2005]

If your team only has gone to state for one year, is it possible to be placed in the AA division?

[noah.blome21]

If your team only has gone to state for one year, is it possible to be placed in the AA division?

Probably not but in theory, if you place top two or first overall depending on how many teams your state brings to nats you can still qualify for nats because it is the top scoring team(s) that go to nats overall.

[Selundar]

If your team only has gone to state for one year, is it possible to be placed in the AA division?

Probably not but in theory, if you place top two or first overall depending on how many teams your state brings to nats you can still qualify for nats because it is the top scoring team(s) that go to nats overall.

My middle school actually placed in AA in its first year (4 years ago). Placement in A/AA is determined partially by the team’s state performance in the preceeding year. However, I believe performance at regionals is the main factor ISO uses to decide team placement for that year.

[19alekb]

A and AA don't really matter though. if you outscore teams in AA and you are in A, you can go to nats.

[knightmoves]

A and AA don't really matter though. if you outscore teams in AA and you are in A, you can go to nats.

90% of the teams at state aren't thinking about going to nationals. For 90% of the teams, what they get out of state is a good experience, some good competition, and a chance at some medals. They know going in that they have no practical chance of making nationals, because they're just not performing quite as well as the top few teams.

If your team is thinking there's a chance it might be in either A or AA, then you're probably expecting to place somewhere in the 20s overall at state. If you get placed in A, you'd expect to win medals in lots of your events, and your team might be in the running for a trophy for your overall place. If you get placed in AA, you might well go home with nothing.

We're talking about B division, so let's look at last year's results. Woodland won the first place A trophy, and medaled in lots of events. They finished 16th overall. This was a great performance for them, and they've clearly built on that performance and will be challenging for the top few places this year. Had they been in AA last year, they'd have won medals in two events.

That's the difference that it makes.

A vs AA really doesn't depend on school size at all - it depends on performance. But big schools usually have a bigger pool of good people, so probably perform better than smaller schools, where the team consists of anyone who is prepared to take part.

We've talked earlier about how Quest are qualifying for state for the first time. They finished 3rd at Neuqua, with a score distribution almost identical to the team that finished 2nd, and clearly above some other teams that are usually ranked AA. So I think Quest will be AA this year, and if they do well, they'll place in the top 20. I think the top 5 from Neuqua will be in AA.

It's worth mentioning that the seeding committee usually does a pretty good job - if you look at the overall results, there aren't usually many A teams in the top 25, and the worst AA teams aren't far out of the top 25.

[TheChiScientist]

Because I finally had time in the chaos prepping for state...
ILLINOIS STATE COMPETITION PREDICTION TOURNAMENT!!!
Div C
Div B (Coming Soon!)
Predict away! I will say that this year will be the most interesting state competition in a decade so don't miss your chance to predict its outcome!
Rules
1. Place the teams you feel are most likely to win. Polls close 11:59 PM 4/12 CT time.
2. Place tiebreakers in the event you well... Tie. Otherwise the person you tie with wins by default.
3. Place your username in the form or else your predictions will not count.
4 Have fun! Maybe the best predictor win!

[Selundar]

It seems like the A/AA team list has been sent to coaches, which I assume means this spreadsheet will be updated soon with that information. For Div C, it appears there are 25 teams in each division, and I would expect the same for Div B.

Looking at Div C, I am somewhat surprised to see Whitney Young and Walter Payton placed in single A. In that light, I think the top 4 teams for single A at State will be Whitney Young, Walter Payton, Warren Township, and Huntley, possibly in that order. After realizing that AA has 25 teams (I previously thought it was just 20), I am actually a lot more surprised because I think WY and WP have a very good chance to place top 20 overall. I would also expect Warren and Huntley to beat a handful of AA teams.

This actually makes me wonder if the seeding committee places teams in AA who they expect to get top 25, or if they leave a few of those teams in single A to make the competition feel a little more intense for those few teams (maybe Skink knows?)