Category: MBA Coverage Page 1 of 8

In MBA Coverage, National Circuit Results

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This year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin, the season’s first major extemp tournament, produced the only tie in tournament history as two-time defending champion Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) and Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA) had the same forty-five rank composite at the end of ten rounds of competition. The pair settled the tie in the tournament’s Exhibition Round with the ranks of the seven MBA tournament alumni judges determining the outcome. Nellans and Wartel each had a “strike” to eliminate one judge’s decision prior to the round and in a 4-1 decision, Nellans emerged victorious and claims her third consecutive Round Robin title. The victory constitutes Nellans sixth career major championship, which ties her with Kevin Troy for most career major championships. Troy’s record has stood unchallenged for the better part of the last eight years, but Nellans will have an opportunity to break it at this year’s Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC), Catholic Forensic League (CFL) Grand National Tournament, and the National Forensic League (NFL) National Tournament. Nellans was also the winner of the tournament’s Exhibition Round.

Miles Saffran of Trinity Preparatory School (FL) also came very close to making the tournament a three-way tie, as he finished two ranks behind Nellans and Wartel. Saffran finished fourth at last year’s Round Robin.

It took a cumulative score of sixty-four ranks to make the Exhibition Round and the top five finishers of the tournament were at least thirteen ranks above the next out finisher. This is one of the widest margins between the top five and the rest of the field in MBA history.

Here are the results of the 2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin:

2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: Exhibition Round Participants!

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The Exhibition Round participants have recently been announced for this year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin. These are the top five placing competitors of the tournament, but they will not know their final placements until the awards ceremony, which will take place at 4:00. The Exhibition Round will be judged by the eleven competitors that did not make the Round Robin, with a tiebreaker panel of MBA alumni also judging the round. The alumni panel will be composed of Jason Warren, Tyler Fabbri, Logan Scisco, David Tucker, Peter Vogel, Hamilton Millwee, and Aaron Lutkowitz. The Exhibition Round does not count into the tournament final standings, although the winner of the Exhibition Round will receive a separate award.

For the first time in MBA history there is a tie for first place. Tournament director Adam Johnson has decided that the alumni panel will break this tie based on the Exhibition Round. This means that of the two competitors that tied for the first the one with the better Exhibition Round performance will win the tournament. This is very interesting when one considers that the wacky graph has shown the same competitor in first place for the duration of the tournament.

The topic area for the Exhibition Round is today’s headlines.

Here are the participants in this year’s Exhibition Round (listed in speaking order):

*Arel Rende (Booker T. Washington High School, Oklahoma)
*Lily Nellans (Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa)
*Miles Saffran (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Josh Wartel (Lake Braddock Secondary School, Virginia)
*Chase Harrison (Millburn High School, New Jersey)

For those that want to see how the wacky graph turned out at the tournament’s conclusion:

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 10 Pairings

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Draw for the final round of this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin is underway. This is the last opportunity for extempers to make a move in the final standings, as this round will constitute the last three of an extemper’s thirty ranks for the tournament. In the past, extempers have managed to move into first place in round ten and have spoken their way into (and out of) the tournament’s Exhibition Round.

As stated this morning, Adam Johnson will announce the Exhibition Round participants at 1:35 p.m. CST and we will be as prompt as possible getting the names of those participants to you.

The topic area for this round is global hot spots.

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 9 Pairings

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The third and final day of this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin has kicked off. The competition will be taking place today in the Nashville Airport Marriott and two rounds of competition remain. Once those rounds are over, competitors will enjoy a forty-five minute lunch break and the participants in the Exhibition Round will be announced by tournament director Adam Johnson at 1:35 p.m. CST.

Last night’s experimental round saw extempers presented with a list of names of notable people that passed away in the last year, which included Tom Foley, Helen Thomas, and others. Extempers had to discuss who this figure would “haunt” if they returned to Earth and what they would do.

The topic area for this round is every extemper’s favorite: domestic social.

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 8 Pairings

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Draw for the last round of day two of the 2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin is underway. Competitors have participated in six rounds today and eight rounds are in the book. Two rounds, in addition to the Exhibition Round, remain and the tournament will conclude tomorrow at the Nashville Airport Marriott. This is the first time that the tournament will conclude at a non-MBA site.

This round features another experimental round, this time with a domestic focus.

Draw for tomorrow’s ninth round begins late, starting at 9:10 a.m. CST. Check back tomorrow for more live updates concerning tournament pairings, wacky graphs, and the announcement of the tournament’s Exhibition Round participants. We will also provide a results listing late tomorrow evening.

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 7 Pairings

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There are two more rounds to go at the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin before competition ends for the evening. The topic area for this round is international economics.

2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: Wacky Round Robin Graph

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Here is the annual wacky graph at the MBA Round Robin. Each line represents a competitor during the tournament. Lines that are straight illustrate a competitor holding their rank and position. Lines that go down are illustrating a competitor moving up in ranking (e.g. going from fifth to third). Lines going the opposite direction illustrate a competitor moving down in ranking (e.g. going from third to fifth). Competitors do not know their lines, so it leads to much correct (and incorrect) speculation about who is who at this point in the tournament. Do you know the line of the competitor you are rooting for?

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 6 Pairings

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We are halfway through the competition at the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee. Competitors have three rounds remaining in the day and the next round will be a domestic round, with the focus on President Obama and his administration.

Last round’s experimental topic concerned the Sochi Olympics. Extempers had two fake news stories to read discussing a new terrorist attack in Russia and the disaffection in the Russian military and then had to use that information to inform their approach to one of four questions they could select on various approaches toward the Sochi Olympics, which involved moving them to Vancouver, a Western boycott of the Olympic Games, whether Vladimir Putin should meet a series of Western demands about human rights in order to get security assistance, and whether the Olympic Games should be cancelled. There will be one more experimental round in the tournament that will be domestic in nature.

On January 2, 2014

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For those who plan on following our live coverage of this year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin, here is the schedule for this week’s tournament. The tournament will take place starting tomorrow evening and run through late Sunday afternoon. The tournament will feature ten rounds of competition, with four rooms of four competitors. Each round will have three judges and will feature three minute cross examination.

Our live coverage will provide the postings for the rounds, the topic areas for each round, the announcement of Exhibition Round participants, and the results of the tournament. We will try to be as prompt as possible when putting the pairings online.

The first two days of the tournament will take place on Montgomery Bell’s campus and the last day of the tournament will be held at the tournament hotel, the Nashville Airport Marriott.

Here is this year’s tournament schedule:

2014 Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin: Sweet Sixteen Preview (Part 2)

On December 27, 2013