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Posted by Joe Johnson, Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 3/20/99 8:09 PM MST


In Reply to: New Jersey Regional posted by Johnny Bledsoe on 3/20/99 6:53 PM MST:



Some interesting things from the results of the NJ:

Assuming the results posted are correct (as well as the top 10 at the end of Friday), then:

1) all the top 8 teams came from the top 10 at the end of Friday (but there was significant trading of positions)

2) the teams that made it to the elimination tourney were ranked 1-13, 15, 18, & 21. In other words unlike in Chicago at least, there was not significant picking out of order. Only teams 18 and 21 don't belong in the gang of 16 according to the ranking.

3) the #1 seed did not win it again. The number one seed has finished #1 Chicago, #3 California, #2 Florida, #8 Philly, and #3 or #4 New Jersey. Not a great predictor of success.

4) rookies are doing okay based on their represention in the group of 8 and the gang of 16. (they are ~ 1/3 of all teams so we would expect 2.7/8 and 5.3/16 if the competition was a random picking of teams, to the extent that having experience is an advantage, we would expect that they would not meet this number)


Chicago: 2/8 and 2/16 (no rookie picked teams, ouch!)
California: 5/8 and 10/16 (very high percentage of rookies at this regional)
Florida: 2/8 and 6/16
Philly: 2/8 and 3/16
New Jersey: 1/8 and 3/16

Average: 2.4/8 and 4.8/16

Average w/o CA: 1.75/8 and 3.5/16

I will be honest, I expected much worse numbers than that. In fact, I had originally type "rookies are under represented... " It is a classic case of reading my own biases into the data. I was sure that the rookies were getting a raw deal this year, until I actually studied the numbers.

Hats off to all the rookie teams out there running with the big dogs. Keep up the pressure.

Joe J.