UKAT 2003-2004 ACF

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Heinrich Böll at Georgia Tech, Team A aka 'F*ck You'
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Kelly 4 49 5 9.80 116.25


Heinrich Böll at Georgia Tech, Team B aka 'Savage Man-Love'
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 5 47 1 47.00 93.00
Dana 5 2 0 -- 4.00
Bobbi Jo 5 1 0 -- 2.00


Heinrich Böll at Georgia Tech, Team C aka 'Fiery Nuclear Death'
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Robert 5 38 8 4.75 68.00
Richardson 8 10 4 2.50 16.00
Erin 5 3 0 -- 6.00
D.J. 5 1 1 1.00 1.00


Heinrich Böll at Georgia Tech, Team D aka 'Bukkake'
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 4 15 5 3.00 31.20
Nate 4 6 2 3.00 12.50
Todd 4 3 1 3.00 6.25
Gerald 4 2 1 2.00 3.75

Having thoroughly enjoyed itself at previous Georgia Tech-hosted events and in anticipation of another top-quality event in the form of the resurrected Heinrich Böll, the UKAT launched one of its more crackbrained schemes to date and decided to split up "Bachelorette Party Biker Cop" (its squad from last year's ACF Nationals) amongst four teams, with Kelly playing solo, Robert ably supported by Richardson and new players Erin and D.J., Chad buttressed by Nate, Todd, and newcomer Gerald, and novices Dana and Bobbi Jo stuck all day playing with Seth. Sadly, every conceivable misfortune short of a revisit by William Tecumseh Sherman struck the tournament itself, laying it waste, but the upshot is that after a diminished bracketed round-robin and an even further diminished playoffs the Kentucky teams took the top four places, with Kelly the deserving victor, Seth and company the embarassing second place, Robert et al. third, and Chad & Crew fourth.

Oddly enough, the teams managed to have a good time from the trip; this had, unfortunately, almost nothing to do with the tournament itself, which was a complete fiasco (no need to go into the laundry-list of imperfections, which are well-known to its director and would not profit anyone by their recounting), though it was satisfying for the UKAT to take the top four spots and for the Bitterness Triplets to take the top three individual awards (Kelly first, Seth second, and Robert third). Rather, the real fun to be had was getting to know the new players, who not only played well but were generally extremely pleasant company, setting the stage for what might be a great year with them.



Center of the Known Universe VI at UT-Chattanooga, Team A
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 9 48 9 5.33 48.33
Robert 9 37 3 12.33 39.44
Will 9 10 2 5.00 10.00
Richardson 9 5 2 2.50 4.44


Center of the Known Universe VI at UT-Chattanooga, Team B
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 8 48 15 3.20 50.63
Nate 7 21 4 5.25 27.14
Charlie 7 8 3 2.67 9.29
Dana 7 5 3 1.67 5.00
Bobbi Jo 7 3 0 -- 4.29

For this year's COTKU, UT-Chattanooga's (heavily) modified-ACF event, the UKAT found itself in the unique position of having a few too many players for the two teams it had designed to send and thus were compelled to make the five players on the Division II squad rotate in and out (never an optimal way to run a team) and to force Will - taking a break from his co-op assignment to join the team for the event - to compete in Division I with Richardson, Robert, and Seth (who is rarely pleasant anyway, least of all playing on questions he does not enjoy with only two hours of sleep, having gotten far too drunk for his own good the night before). Under the circumstances, the Division I team fared perhaps better than it deserved, pulling the ineptitude express into a third-place finish behind Emory and tournament victors Florida (congratulations to them); meanwhile, the Division II team came within a hair's breadth of securing the tournament victory before falling to Stephen Webb's Georgia Tech in the finals (congratulations to them). Damn it. Still, the team had a fairly good time, most of which derived from an impromptu calculus tutorial turned liquor-soaked debauch the night before with new member Charlie, though other highlights include Chad's excellent play (earning him a second-place DII all-star) and fourth and sixth place DI scoring awards to Seth and Robert, respectively; lowlights include the appalling number of interrupts for Seth, a frustrating day statistically for Richardson, and a waaaaay too-strong combination of crême-de-minthe and bourbon which left its taster pulverized the night before.



ACF Fall Tournament Midsouth at UT-Knoxville/Pellissippi State, Team A
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 12 91 6 15.17 73.33
Robert 12 67 10 6.70 51.67


ACF Fall Tournament Midsouth at UT-Knoxville/Pellissippi State, Team B
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Richardson 12 55 20 2.75 37.50
Gerald 12 12 4 3.00 8.33
Bobbi Jo 12 4 1 4.00 2.92


ACF Fall Tournament Midsouth at UT-Knoxville/Pellissippi State, Team C
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Will 12 41 5 8.20 32.08
Manker 12 28 18 1.87 17.27
Todd 12 10 0 -- 8.33
Christy 12 4 0 -- 3.33


ACF Fall Tournament Midsouth at UT-Knoxville/Pellissippi State, Team D
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 12 64 3 21.33 52.08
Nate 11 23 8 2.88 17.27
Charlie 12 18 0 -- 15.00
Erin 12 13 0 -- 10.83


Distracted by brief but intense personal squabbles and beset by travel difficulties, the UKAT nevertheless managed to pull itself together and register some decent performances at this year's ACF Fall: the B team (Bobbi Jo and Gerald under the somewhat suspect guidance of Richardson) was a little overwhelmed by its own inexperience, going 2-10; the C team (Christy, Todd, and Manker under the leadership of Will) started slowly but picked up momentum as the day went on, finishing a respectable 4-8; and the D team (Erin, Charlie, and Nate providing marvelous support to scoring machine Chad) continued to impress, with its 6-6 record including a pimp-caning of eventual Div. II champions Georgia Tech (joking apart, congratulations are extended to them). That leaves the "A" team of Robert and Seth, whose stubborn and persistent efforts to blow the tournament by losing to Emory and Indiana were foiled by Emory's own losses, leading to a playoff game it managed somehow not to drop and ultimately to a third straight ACF Fall victory for the Dubious Duo. In addition to the team's successes, other highlights include the company of Rose (who came down to moderate and did so with spectacular aptitude and aplomb), the general friendliness and high quality of the competition, the flawless logistics and excellent moderating of the tournament itself (kudos to Carol Gurthrie, Scotti Whitmire, and the whole UTK crew), twelve rounds of fantastic weapons-grade ACF, and all-stars to Robert (5th), Chad (4th, and with a TU/I of over 20, higher even than Seth's), and Seth (2nd); lowlights of the tournament itself are harder to find, though candidates might be one packet which the A team did not find much to its liking, one absolutely dreadful moderator, and the astonishing number of interrupts levied against Manker, whose TU/I of 1.87 drifts dangerously close to Freeburg territory.

Thus, despite perhaps more tension than in years past, this tournament turned out to be just as enjoyable for the UKAT as its predecessors, and while without doubt a chorus of imbeciles is already raising its howls of dissatisfaction on the various message boards, the consensus remains that this tournament was another of Kelly's masterpieces. Congratulations to him for another matchless editing accomplishment.



Illinois Open 2003: Transfigured Spite at the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Kelly 10 61 20 3.05 51.00
Seth 10 22 3 7.33 21.50
Robert 10 20 4 5.00 18.00
Chad 10 3 2 1.50 2.00


For reasons that are difficult to pinpoint exactly, the team did not have a particularly pleasant outing for this year's Illinois Open: fault certainly cannot be assigned to the moderating, which was good, the logistics, which were fair, or the packets, which were very difficult but did not stand out as being anything but well-edited. Nevertheless, the team certainly did not play terribly well and ended up finishing third; lowlights include a frustratingly uncharacteristic number of interrupts for Kelly, the fact that playoff games counted in the statistics, a cryptic but apparently malevolent camera incident, and those roving packs of non-QB people barging into rooms while questions were being read; highlights include a win over tournament victors Chicago (congratulations to them) and Kelly's second place all-star.



MLK Jr. Memorial at Georgia Tech, Team "A"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 10 100 8 12.50 96.00
Bobbi Jo 10 1 1 1.00 0.05


MLK Jr. Memorial at Georgia Tech, Team "1" (otherwise known as "B")
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Robert O. 10 77 10 7.70 72.00
Gerald 10 5 1 5.00 4.50
Erin 10 4 0 -- 4.00
Christy 10 1 0 -- 1.00


MLK Jr. Memorial at Georgia Tech, Team "Alpha" (otherwise known as "C")
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 10 46 6 7.67 43.00
Manker 10 18 3 6.00 16.50
Rebecca 10 5 1 5.00 4.50
Robert S. 10 4 0 -- 4.00


After contending with a legion of impediments centering around gathering everyone from Winter break, the UKAT managed at last to make it to Georgia Tech's version of the MLK, where for the sake of competition it decided to separate its power-hitters across three teams with stupidly chosen egalitarian names. Despite skills manifestly corroded by a winter's worth of rust, these teams all did fairly well: Alpha (Manker, Rebecca, and new player Robert Semones making his tournament début all under the able guidance of Chad) was victimized by the screwy playoff system but acquitted itself nobly with a fourth place finish; 1 (with Robert supported by Erin, Gerald, and Christy) came in third, while A (featuring Bobbi Jo once again compelled to endure a day playing with Seth) came in second behind South Carolina, who won (and convincingly pummelled Seth's team twice; congratulations to them). Lowlights were there in the form of the aforementioned whack-assed bracket system, the imbecilic team names chosen by Seth, and the counting of playoff stats for individual awards (which very likely cost Chad an accolade; seriously, this practice really needs to stop), as well as a disastrous 6-3 game against South Carolina (A) and a horrible game against Georgia Tech (1); highlights, however, are in greater abundance, including Gavin Mead's hilarious film clips, fantastic reduction in the interrupts from all the teams, Seth's 16-1 game (the best of his career), Robert's team beating out Seth's in the last game, the excellent play of Borglum and Dhuwalia's team (class acts, the both of them), and a second place all-star for Robert and MVP award for Seth.



Sword Bowl 2004 at UT-Chattanooga, Team "A" aka "Sipping Texas Gruel"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 8 69 4 17.50 83.75
Charlie 8 9 6 1.50 7.50
Dana 8 7 3 2.33 6.88
Gerald 8 5 1 5.00 5.63


Sword Bowl 2004 at UT-Chattanooga, Team "B" aka "Lushess Perma-Bitch"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Nate 8 23 5 4.60 25.63
Robert S. 8 14 3 4.67 15.63
Erin 8 9 1 9.00 10.63
Bobbi Jo 8 8 1 8.00 9.38

The UKAT's six first-year members are a fine group of young men and women. They had done nothing to deserve being subjected to a weekend with Nate and Chad, our resident Cheech and Chong, but morale was high as the eight set out to do battle. A night of intense and near-universal festivities followed, with team names coming from fall tournament leftovers and a dream Chad had in the shower. The day began with a jarring jolt, as the group arrived at venerable Grote Hall to find it empty. However, Manker came through from afar and directed the errant pilgrims to the true tournament site; once there, everything proceeded smoothly and pleasantly. Lushess Perma-Bitch (consisting of Nate, Robert S., Erin, and Bobbi Jo) slugged its way through a gauntlet of Georgia Tech, Athens State, South Carolina A, Berry, and dark horse Bevill State to a respectable 3-5 record, while Sipping Texas Gruel (Chad, Charlie, Dana, and a seriously ill Gerald whose still-reliable play was a testament to his resilience) rebounded from a opening last-tossup loss to Vanderbilt to go 7-1, including two last-tossup victories. In the playoffs, the old maxim that turnabout is fair play was proven as Gruel's semifinal last-tossup loss to UTK was avenged in the ensuing shootout (won on the last tossup), but a last-tossup victory in the finals over Georgia Tech served only to carry us into the Shootout of Doom (congratulations to GT for another well-earned championship). Lowlights for this tournament are in short supply but include Gerald's unfortunate malady, the strangely lopsided bracketing, and Chad's 2-5 extravaganza in the final shootout; among the abundant highlights are the fine organization of the tournament itself, the stiff competition, Erin's red pajamas, a last hurrah at the King's Lodge, and Chad's MVP and (more importantly) near-perfect buzz the night before. Congratulations are in order to UTC for a splendid time.



ACF Southeast Regional at UT-Chattanooga, Team B
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Kelly 13 162 27 6.00 114.23


ACF Southeast Regional at UT-Chattanooga, Team A
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 13 127 10 12.70 93.85
Bobbi Jo 11 5 2 2.50 3.64


ACF Southeast Regional at UT-Chattanooga, Team C
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Robert 13 83 16 5.19 57.69
Chad 13 23 3 7.67 16.54
Robert S. 13 9 0 -- 6.92
Erin 12 1 0 -- 0.83

Having had its fill of February weekends in a less-than-hospitable Chicago, for this year’s Regionals the team decided to take three teams and return to its familiar Southern home of Chattanooga. There, to accommodate Kelly’s desire to play solo and to give Robert the chance to play on high-caliber questions freed from the shadows cast by his teammates, the Sunshine Trio again separated, with Chad, Erin, and Robert Semones providing the rhythm section for Robert (as Kentucky C), Bobbi Jo manacled to Seth (as Kentucky A), and Kelly foraging on his own (as Kentucky B). At the end of a very long day’s effort Kelly ate the flesh and drank the blood of all the teams in the field and won the tournament without a loss, while Seth’s squad finished fifth with a record of 8-5 and Robert(s) and Co. finished sixth with a record of 7-6. An unsettling number of lowlights exist, in the form of players having to miss games due to exhaustion and a severe onslaught of allergy/light sensitivity, a terrible game against Athens State (C), an execrable performance against Indiana ("A"), and the general impression from the field that the questions were a wee bit too hard even if they were indisputably excellently-written. On the other hand, far more highlights could be found, including another thwacking of the so-called A team by the C team, the "A" team’s close-fought loss to Emory, and Kelly’s personal best 18-0 game against Athens State; in addition, Robert was awarded a fifth-place all-star, Seth managed to answer enough tossups on giveaways to rope in second, and Kelly was named MVP.

All in all, a very fine tournament, for which innumerable encomia should be doled out to the TD, the editor, and the other teams in the field (especially the always classy South Carolina as well as such friendly cats as the squads from Athens State, Georgia Tech, and Furman), whose good humor made the tournament that much more enjoyable.



ACF Nationals at the University of Maryland
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Kelly 10 67 13 5.15 60.50
Seth 10 28 4 7.00 26.00
Robert 10 16 4 4.00 14.00
Gerald 10 0 1 N/A -.5


Since the 1997-1998 season the UKAT has had to contend with the unfortunate fact that, as each semester nears its end, practices become more and more sparsely attended, especially in the Spring Semester when the long interval between Regionals and Nationals lulls the less dedicated members of the team into the belief that weekly practices are unnecessary: in years past, lame attempts to hold a practice with three people before Nationals was not uncommon. This year, Kelly's declining interest in the game and Robert's move off-campus combined with the end-of-semester drought to result in a team which had not practiced since October and had not played together since November; thus, the stark contrast between the team's fairly good results at Regionals and its dismal showing at Nationals is less due to a sudden drop-off at the latter and more to a miraculously excellent performance at the former.

Thus, after an overlong but comparatively enjoyable ride up (during which Robert provided some fine
musical entertainment) and a stay at a great hotel due to Gerald's connections with Marriott, the team essayed to a Nationals which seemed fairly well-edited and well-moderated, providing those optimal conditions in which the better teams would shine and the worse teams would fade. This is exactly what happened: after a long day whose theme was "What the hell is this guy's name? I knew this six months ago!" - often uttered after buzzing in and shortly before the award of an interrupt, of which the team had a disgusting number - the UKAT finally finished fourth. Lowlights center around the squad's horrible play and are abundant, but highlights exist in the form of Kelly's all-star and novice player Gerald's declarations that he will soon get hard-core and become a killing machine.

Oh, well.



Moon Pie Classic at UT-Chattanooga, "Most Overrated Player"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Seth 8 87 4 21.75 106.25


Moon Pie Classic at UT-Chattanooga, "Mystery Team"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Will 9 16 2 8.00 16.67
Dana 9 9 4 2.25 7.78
Christy 9 3 0 -- 3.33
John 9 4 4 1.00 2.22


Moon Pie Classic at UT-Chattanooga, "Mister Mister Big Gay Al Gore Vidal Sassoon"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Chad 9 76 8 9.5 80.00


Moon Pie Classic at UT-Chattanooga, "Chock Full O' Downers"
Player Games Tossups Interrupts TU/I PPG
Erin 9 19 1 19.00 20.56
Nate 9 17 1 17.00 18.83
Bobbi Jo 9 11 0 -- 12.22

To celebrate the end of the school year, the conclusion of the UKAT's season, and the end of Division II play for Chad and Nate, nine players departed from a rainy Lexington to a sunny, breezy Chattanooga whose lovely weather complemented what turned out to be an overwhelmingly pleasant tournament experience. While lack of officially released standings and statistics (those here were snatched from the wall by Seth) prevent passing along the exact placements of the two of the four teams which competed, it can be reported that in Division I Christy and Will were joined by Bigg Dana and John (a new member making his tournament début, who, like Dana, generously agreed to eschew Div II for this tournament), and though their combined lack of practice and experience limited their success to winning one game, they neverthless enjoyed themselves highly; meanwhile, a shorthanded Div II squad of Erin, Nate, and Bobbi Jo picked up momentum after a slow start and in the end seemed pleased with their late-day performance. As for the other teams, bad Chad, playing solo in his farewell to Div II, gave the Division a reason to celebrate his departure by taking third place behind Georgia Tech and Emory (congratulations to them), while Seth somehow managed to finish second in Div I behind Nodya and Raj of Florida, who put the seal on the tournament by convincingly stomping him in the playoffs (congratulations to them).

All in all a good time seems to have been had by all, with lowlights almost non-existent (they might include damage to Nate's CD player and a tense ride down for one of the cars and the delay in official records) and highlights everywhere, including getting to hang out with cool cats like the teams from Valencia, Florida, and Georgia Tech, Division II MVP honors for Chad, and personal best scoring numbers for Erin, Bobbi Jo, and Seth (himself the Division I MVP with 106 ppg). Thus, a great final outing for the team; on to the summer.