Statistics from Sacramento Winter can be found here.
This write-up focuses only on the four teams that placed within the Finals and Playoffs brackets.
Because rosters were so anomalous, there isn’t much to be gained with future performance predictions by these specific teams, so they’ve been left out.
1st place – Davis B
A mix of players from Davis’s usual A and B teams, a well-balanced Davis B is led by senior Jayanth Sundaresan (4th scorer at 47.5 PPG), junior Teddy Knox (6th scorer at 40.42 PPG), and sophomore Eliot Williams (7th scorer at 38.33 PPG) to a 10-2 finish, dropping games only to “Haarlem”’s A and B teams, both by pretty large margins (210-415 and 250-375, respectively), probably due in part to their negs (6 and 4, respectively). However, they also managed to win games against both teams, beating “Haarlem” A 325-245 and “Haarlem” B 315-220. These results can be attributed to “Haarlem”’s similar decision to mix their usual A and B players. Narrowly managing the second-highest PPB of the field, they average 20.21 (compared to “Haarlem” A’s 20.45), they did top 22 PPB in five rounds over the course of the tournament. Their closest game of the day came in a 240-200 win over “Haarlem” B, and they managed to power 10 tossups and answer 3 others in their 460-70 game against Rio Americano. Their main issue of the tournament was their negs, of which they had the most of any team at 31 (compared to “Haarlem” B’s 29).
2nd place – “Haarlem” B
Likewise composed of mixed A and B team members, “Haarlem” B is led to a 9-3 finish under 65.42 PPG senior Cody Zeng (tournament 2nd scorer), with most of his support coming from Bibhav Poudel (24.58 PPG). They had a PPB of 18.71 but topped 20 in five rounds, one of which saw them answer 15 tossups (465-85 win over Davis D). In rounds with a similar result, they went 8/7/2 against Rio Americano and 5/8/3 against Folsom. They finished with the second-highest number of negs of the field with 29, but my guess is that this – as well as the other abnormally high neg rates – can be attributed to the unorthodoxy of the tournament thanks to the abnormal rosters.
PLAYOFFS 1st – “Haarlem” A
“Haarlem” A went 7-3 under tournament top scorer Eric Chen (108 PPG), who played largely without support barring some from grade Gautham Pavar, dropping games to “Haarlem” B and Davis B by relatively large margins, but only losing closely to “Haarlem” B in their second round (205-265). Notable games saw statlines like 7/6/4 (win over Davis A), 8/6/0 (win over Davis C), 7/6/4 (win over Folsom), and 10/5/1 (win over Rio Americano). They had the highest PPB of the tournament at 20.45 and managed 23+ a few times, which serves as a testament to Eric’s knowledge.
PLAYOFFS 2nd – Davis A
Going 4-6 for the day, Davis A finishes second in the Playoffs bracket led by usual A team lead scorer junior Anthony DiCarlo (56.5 PPG, tournament 3rd scorer). They had a reasonable PPB of 18.04 and while they topped 21 in a two rounds, the overall result from this experiment probably supports the idea of maintaining stacked A and B teams. As expected from the lead scorer, Anthony had the majority of the team’s negs, which at 27 were something that could probably have been curbed. They got 6 negs in one round, which was likely the result of that being a loss to Davis B (170-375). Their closest game was a 230-245 loss to “Haarlem” B, which also wasn’t helped by their 4 negs that round, while they were able to win by 20 points over Davis C (270-250) because they only had 2 negs.
Thanks on behalf of all of us at the NCQBA to those who staffed and played in Sacramento Winter.
