tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550124863478158162.post7792702745089440643..comments2009-03-30T10:26:10.384-05:00Robert T. Sherwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17063867868287002509noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550124863478158162.post-63939549439017803812009-03-30T10:26:00.000-05:002009-03-30T10:26:00.000-05:00I think you make a good point, but I do think the numbers are counterintuitive. One would figure that given the de-emphasis of the brief (in particular, it's elimination from consideration in the break rounds), the teams with the top oralists would dominate in the elimination rounds. Otherwise put, I would expect nearly every oralist on an advancing team to win an oralist award, or at least a majority of them to win. But the numbers don't really reflect that. It's true that a fair share are winning; I just expected the number to be higher.Robert T. Sherwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17063867868287002509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550124863478158162.post-52846834720307509532009-03-28T22:37:00.000-05:002009-03-28T22:37:00.000-05:00I don't get the significance of "only" 23 top speakers being on advancing teams.<BR/><BR/>There are only 24 advancing teams. That means each advancing team bagged an average of about 1 speaker award. Yeah, 37 top speakers weren't on advancing teams, but there were 163 teams that didn't advance. So each non-advancing team averaged less than .25 speaker awards.<BR/><BR/>Which means the teams that advanced put top speakers on the board at a 4x greater rate than the rest of the field.<BR/><BR/>And that seems to go a long way toward explaining why they weren't part of the rest of the field.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com