2020 Regionals Analysis Week 1

Please share your own thoughts below. This is intended to start a discussion, if you have seen a team and you think we are over or under valuing them let us know! Good luck with regionals! If you aren't on here, then prove us wrong! If you made our list, then prove us right! - MockAnalysisIsMyDrug

Claremont: (24 Teams) ‘Stressed Coast' (MAIMD Ranking 29/32)
- 2 teams in top 50, 2 teams in top 100, 5 in top 200

First in:
UCLA A
UC Santa Barbara A

Bubble:
UC Santa Barbara B
Redlands A
UCLA D
Claremont McKenna A
Pomona A
Cal Poly, Pomona A
Cal Poly, SLO A
Scripps A


Initial Thoughts:
Last year, the Claremont regionals was one of the most unpredictable regionals. We saw teams that consistently advance like Scripps A and UCLA D play top teams in the first few rounds and get knocked out early, while teams like LMU A and Moorpark avoided playing some of the top teams and advanced. This was in part due to having a 32 team regional, but despite dropping 8 teams, we expect this regional to still be unpredictable.

While teams like UCLA A and UC Santa Barbara A should have no problem advancing, there’s a large group fighting for those final four spots. Some of those include teams like Pomona A, UC Santa Barbara B, UCLA D and Scripps A who failed to earn bids last year and are looking for redemption. Others like Cal Poly Pomona A and Redlands A are looking to repeat last year’s success. Meanwhile there are teams like Claremont McKenna A and Cal Poly, SLO A who are always competitive, but haven’t advanced to ORCS in a few years and are looking to make a comeback.

If anything, having this many teams that could, in theory, break in a small region makes this even more unpredictable than some of the jumbo regionals we have seen from Claremont in the past. We suspect that the final round of this regional will have a large cluster of teams stacked up around the middle of the bracket rather than the more evenly distributed groupings we often see in large regionals. The bubble teams will have to play each other in the late rounds at this tournament, and it’s anyone’s guess which of them makes it through that bunch.

Team to watch: Cal Poly, Pomona A

Cal Poly, Pomona’s a team that is consistently underrated on the west coast and they proved themselves last year earning 4 wins at the Decatur ORCS earning 4 individual awards in the process! While that alone is impressive, they brought a 6 person team meaning that ⅔ of the team won individual awards! Led by President and All-National attorney Emma Jue-Sans, it seems like they had no graduating members of their ORCS team and are all returning looking for that trip to Chicago. Their fall invitationals haven’t produced any outstanding team performances tough, which is slightly concerning. They went 2-6 at AAMTI with a CS of 23, 3-5 at Mocktopia in Santa Barbara and 3-5 at Cowtown in Davis. Despite the below average win rate, they’ve still earned a few individual awards while facing challenging teams so this team is truly one to watch as it could go either way.



Norman: (18 Teams) ‘The Book of Norman' (MAIMD Ranking 30/32)
- 1 team in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 4 in top 200

First in:
Rhodes B
Rhodes D
Texas A

Bubble:
Central Missouri A
Arkansas A
Oklahoma A
Oklahoma Christian A
Texas, Dallas A (added to the region after initial posting)

Initial Thoughts:
Norman hosts what is (as of now) the smallest Regional, at 18 compared to San Diego’s 19. With the current team assignments there will be 6 bids assigned to Norman though, the same as for any other Regional. We expect 2 of those to go to Rhodes College, a school which, in addition to winning this year’s GAMTI and having their D and C teams take first and second at the Arch Invitational respectively, earned a bid for each of the four teams they sent to Regionals last year. The only other clear favorite here after Rhodes is Texas, a team which took 5 ballots at last year’s Memphis ORCS.

Past those three we have a variety of teams which have either experienced moderate success or shown potential which warrants attention. Given the limited number of teams we may seem some flukey results though, which is why we have limited our “First in” teams to Rhodes and Texas. Central Missouri has been to ORCS for four years running and Arkansas for three, with each topping out at 4.5 ballots in that span. We expect above-.500 performances from both, with Central Missouri retaining All-National Attorney Nicholas Hutsell and Arkansas keeping All-Regional Attorney Hayley Harris. As for the up-and-comers, we have an Oklahoma team which has shown flashes of talent but remains unranked, and Oklahoma Christian, founded last year and led by their captain Turner Smith. While neither of the two Oklahoma teams have proven their competitive acumen in the official AMTA season yet, we believe that the strength of their units is not far off from that of UCM and Arkansas.

Aside from the teams already mentioned have Hendrix, which made it to Memphis last year but delivered an underwhelming performance, and a few unranked schools, including Missouri Southern, Kansas C, and Texas Tech, all of whom attended Regionals last year but remain somewhat unknown. Overall, we expect a moderately competitive regional with potential randomness exacerbated by the limited bids available.

Good luck to our new school in this region, the Bronchos of Central Oklahoma!

Team to watch: Texas A
Texas has been the epitome of consistency in the South (long an AMTA Circuit which Rhodes has made a desert and termed ‘peace’). Texas has sent a team past Regionals every year AMTA has on record, dating back to 2007. While their success at Regionals is undisputed, Texas has had a tough time breaking through to the NCT, last doing so in 2015. This year though Texas has staked out its position in the Invitational season, sending teams across the country and placing second at Happy Valley in the process (taking two ballots off Brown A and splitting with Yale), while taking first at RiceBowl back in their home state. As to personnel, Texas is returning 2019 Memphis ORCS Top Attorney Collin Fredricks, though it is losing two well-awarded attorneys, Insiya Aziz and Faith Wright. With all that said, Texas performed well at ORCS having never surpassed 3-5 at a non-Texas Invitational last year, while this year they have done so at both Happy Valley and Tobacco Road. The Norman Regional may be able to tell us if this is the year that Texas turns their Regionals success into an NCT bid, particularly if they perform well against a Rhodes B team they may see in Memphis.

Orlando: (28 Teams) ‘The British Invasion' (MAIMD Ranking 26/32)
- 1 team in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 5 in top 200

First in:
Florida A
South Carolina A
Florida State A

Bubble:
Central Florida A
Florida International A
South Carolina B
Nova Southeastern A
Flagler A
Palm Beach Atlantic A
Florida C
Georgia Tech C


Initial Thoughts:
This region is BIG. It has the most teams out of any regional, and may well end up with the same number of bids as the other regions. There are also a lot of teams at Orlando that have earned bids in recent years from this regionals or other nearby regions. This means that Orlando has a very large bubble. There are guaranteed to be teams that qualified out of regionals last year who do not qualify this year. So this regional will be turning some teams away disappointed. On the bright side for any middle tier teams trying to qualify who haven’t yet qualified, the average strength of the teams at this regional is below average. AMTA filled up a lot of the extra spaces in this region with teams that have never bid. So the top may be difficult but on average this is not a regional we rate as particularly difficult, even with the large number of teams.

At the top of this field we have Florida who has fairly consistently made it to nationals over the last few years. Florida State who has come close but hasn’t managed to reclaim the glory they had a few years ago and an up and coming team that managed to scrape a top team placement at nationals in South Carolina. Following that group we have a cluster of teams that have made ORCS in recent years but have not bid to NCT. Mixed in with that bunch are a number of C and D teams from some of the very large programs this area of the country has so many of. These C and D teams are highly variable in their strength from year to year. They tend to be quite young, and so their strength is usually dependant on the most recent crop of incoming freshmen (making them harder to predict than others).

We also have a lot of new schools in this region. Good luck to the Scorch of Southeastern University, the Dolphins of Jacksonville University, the Empty Set of New College, and the Ospreys of North Florida. Finally, good luck to our first team from the UK: De Montfort University Law School!

Team to watch: Florida International University

Florida International remains a relatively new team, having been founded in the 2017-2018 season. Since its foundation it has proven itself to be a solid competitor in the Southeastern circuit, advancing to ORCS in both years of its existence. While FIU has yet to make a big splash, they have been steadily improving, going 1-7 off an open bid to Wilmington in 2018, and 3-4-1 last year at Decatur off an earned bid. This year, FIU put on an impressive performance at Classic City, going 5-3 as a result of 3 bizarre splits, winning by double digits on one ballot and losing the other by one point in each of rounds 1, 3, and 4. This resulted in a low CS, leaving them at the bottom of the Honorable Mentions, but the third-highest point differential at the tournament (only finishing behind two NCT mainstays, Rhodes and Florida State).

While we like FIU’s chances, it is important to keep expectations reasonable. They have taken an even 5 ballots at each of the past two years’ Regionals, and remain relatively reclusive during invitational season. We have seen teams in the past that are seemingly on the rise, only to hit a brick wall and remain perennially either on the low end of ORCS or left out altogether. Orlando’s Regionals ends prophetically on February 2–Groundhog Day. Their performance at Orlando will be a strong indicator whether FIU will emerge and challenge the preeminence of FSU and Florida within the Sunshine State, or if it will retreat back into the den of mediocrity that so many others have before them.

Both CMO and Arkansas seem to be pretty clearly on a different level than the two Oklahoma teams imo. Like you noted, CMO has been to ORCS four straight years (and even came close to Nats in 2017). They have been pretty solid this invitational season, placing a few times and even splitting with Miami. They still have Hutsell, and they have another competitor (Zachary Walker) who has won a few awards this year. As for Arkansas, last year they went 4-3-1 at ORCS while hitting Duke A, Duke B, Georgia Tech A, and FIU. They have also put up a few solid invitational results this year. Is there a reason you are so high on the Oklahoma teams/low on CMO and Arkansas?

UT Dallas A got moved to Norman. I would expect them tone competitive there.

TheRealMockProdigy wrote:Both CMO and Arkansas seem to be pretty clearly on a different level than the two Oklahoma teams imo. Like you noted, CMO has been to ORCS four straight years (and even came close to Nats in 2017). They have been pretty solid this invitational season, placing a few times and even splitting with Miami. They still have Hutsell, and they have another competitor (Zachary Walker) who has won a few awards this year. As for Arkansas, last year they went 4-3-1 at ORCS while hitting Duke A, Duke B, Georgia Tech A, and FIU. They have also put up a few solid invitational results this year. Is there a reason you are so high on the Oklahoma teams/low on CMO and Arkansas?

Not all of the teams on the bubble are going to be at the same level. In the original configuration for this regional, the top five teams based on the stats were Rhodes B, Rhodes D, Texas A, Central Missouri A, Arkansas A. But since this region may only get five bids and a most will get six, and since weird judging, or weird flukes, or changes in strength over the years result in the final qualifier list being different from the top five by past performance all the time, it seems imprudent to have five first in teams (that would essentially be betting on the entire field being predicted by the numbers). So then the question becomes, of those five teams, which are most likely to have something happen to them? Those teams get moved down to the bubble. The remainder of the bubble (we try and have more teams in the first in and bubble combined than the number of bids to reflect a wider range of teams that could qualify) is filled by the teams that we think have the best chances of being the upset teams that move up, even if the historical numbers don't rate them as strongly. We aren't saying that the possible upset teams are on the same historical level as the other teams from the bubble, just that they have the best shot out of the teams that aren't on that level.

TheRealMockProdigy wrote:
UT Dallas A got moved to Norman. I would expect them tone competitive there.

Yep! we added them to the bubble.

I mean, I understand what is meant by "on the bubble" and I don't dispute that CMO and Arkansas aren't guaranteed out. But you said that the Oklahomas were "not far off" from CMO and Arkansas, which I think undersold how good both of those teams are (especially CMO). Not really that big of a disagreement, but I was interested in hearing your rationale there.

I think "not far off" may be a slight understatement, but I think Oklahoma and OCU definitely deserve attention, particularly Oklahoma, who if memory serves had a strong group of freshmen last year and have consistently been right on the edge of getting through to ORCS. They definitely put on a strong showing at the Houston Invite, with favorable splits against Texas, SMU, and one of the Rice teams. I think OCU may be a bit more of a stretch though--they are motivated but still seem fairly new and definitely still have a lot to prove.

As for UCM and Arkansas, I definitely think they're the favorites out of the bubble (moreso than UTD as well, who didn't send a team to ORCS last year), but it can be tough to tell with these teams who rarely hit top competition. At the best invite UCM went to this year (Arch, an invitational that Rhodes D won with a perfect record), neither of the two teams broke even. Even though these are consistent ORCS qualifiers, I hesitate to put much faith in teams that never face consistent top competition until ORCS and then typically are out of the running before Round 4. Arkansas's showing, as you mentioned though, was particularly impressive at last year's ORCS (moreso than UCM's) so they might be underrated depending on how many people they're retaining.

CMO also went to the Indy Mock Hundred and went 4-4, splitting with Chicago and Miami, who were both unstacked. Still pretty impressive.

First peek at the Claremont Regional Tournament Packet.

First of all, the tournament dates are as listed on the AMTA website. This is a 3-day tournament, which feels super weird. I've never actually been to one of those, so I guess I'll find out how that goes. 1 round on Friday afternoon, 2 rounds on Saturday, and the last round on Sunday morning.

This could present some issues for teams coming from far away. At most tournies, far away teams drive up on Friday after classes and get the night to sleep. Then they take a relatively short drive to the tournament site the next morning. With a late friday start, some teams might try to make the drive day-of. Not only that, they're driving in Los Angeles California during a weekday. If you haven't been to LA much, you might not realize what that really entails. UCSB might feel pretty close until you consider the potential for spring mudslides to cut off the coastal routes. Get ready for one team to lose a car to traffic or an accident.

Having a short drive to me feels like a big advantage. Claremont McKenna, Scripps and Pomona all don't even need to drive to get there. Cal Poly Pomona, Chaffey, and Redlands are pretty close and mostly avoid the big traffic spots. UCLA, Occidental, UCSB, Fresno, Mt. St. Mary's and maybe SLO are all in the death-zone. They have to hit LA regional traffic and they're all close enough to try leaving on Friday.

Also, interesting to note from this tournament packet is that there is an added team not listed on the AMTA website: Fresno D. I think the tournament packet is right on this one. Fresno D is not listed for any other regional on the AMTA website. Fresno D entering the fray doesn't change any of my predictions, but it does remove the Bye-Bust.

Last note about the Claremont tournament packet. Remember how AMTA listed UCLA B for Claremont with UCLA D's number? Here's the tournament packet's listing for UCLA:

1267 UCLA A
1267 UCLA B

I am way too amused by this.

10 12/2/2019 1123 Fresno State D moved from Tempe to Claremont

the Fresno D move was in the change log, just not updated in the actual list

The UCLA B vs. D one is a pretty big difference, but B (both number and name) are assigned to Tempe so I feel like Claremont is definitely D

Hey how often will these regional analyses be posted?

According to the AMTA change logs, Pomona B and Pomona A have switched. Now Pomona A is at Tempe and Pomona B is at Claremont.

Personally, I would consider Pomona B to still be on the bubble, though of course this still lowers the overall competitiveness of what is already one of the least competitive Regionals. Pomona B had a solid 4-4 run with a high CS at Claremont last year. They were the only ones to take a ballot off of Berkeley B at that tournament, and managed to grab a ballot off of SLO A and sustain a narrow loss against UCLA D.

Edit/Aaaannnnddd, they switched back. And AMTA deleted their initial change off of the logs instead of a second change indicating their switch back.

So looking at the tab for Orlando I think the biggest omission that stands out to me is FIU. They went 4-4 but had the 4th highest PD. They won their 4 ballots by a combined 74 points and lost 4 by a combined 8 points. That’s brutal. Round 3, it looks like they got swept by a talented, young GTech D team by a total of 3 points. But in round 4, they hit one of the tournament favorites, FSU A and split them dead even +3, -3; which almost served no other reason than to nearly keep FSU out. Looks like their B team might have done enough for an open bid, so it’ll be interesting to see how they might re-stack, or if they might pick one team over the other, should they move on. They were kind of my Cinderella team for the year.