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2024 Regionals Analysis Weeks 1 and 2
Fri Dec 29, 2023 8:16 pm
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
Chestnut Hill: (26 Teams) ‘Highway to Hill’ (MAIMD Ranking 14/30)
-1 teams in top 50, 2 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
Harvard A
Dartmouth A
Bubble:
Harvard B
Boston College A
UMass Lowell A
Dartmouth B
Tufts C
Amherst A
Initial Thoughts:
Leafy streets lined with stately historic mansions and not-so-stately modern mansions. Picturesque avenues of antique shops, art galleries, and farmers’ markets. For a New England family looking to send their toddler to a pretentious pre-school, Chestnut Hill Massachusetts is a dream come true. But for a very niche group of 20-something college students who are extremely invested in LARPing Law and Order, Chestnut Hill Massachusetts is no walk in the park: it’s the Highway to Hill. Statistically, Chestnut Hill isn’t a monster of a Regionals (based on our rankings, it’s actually pretty middle-of-the-road) but even the least mock-knowledgeable freshman would grow concerned after a brief glance at this field. That’s in no small part due to Chestnut Hill’s fiercest contender–two-time NCT finalists Harvard A. There’s a lot to say about Harvard A, but if their history, roster, and pre-season performance tell us anything, it’s that we’ll have plenty of time to say it later on this spring. Harvard A is going to bid from the Chestnut Hill Regionals–that’s all you need to know.
In the–admittedly massive–Crimson shadow cast by our first-in team, there’s a number of teams who will be trying to get up onstage to take home these other five bids. Most notably, Dartmouth A, our other-first in, will be a tough draw for bid hopefuls. Dartmouth is the black sheep of the mock trial Ivies– they usually comfortably muster an ORCS attendance but fail to make it to the top 40. This past season, however, they bid both A and B directly and kept the margins in their brutal R1 Harvard A matchup to a tight -2,-3 margin. While the Big Green (we’ve noticed between the Crimson and the Big Green that Chestnut Hill is a very Christmas-y Regional) did lose a number of the seniors who spearheaded that push last season, they’ve retained all-National Attorney Paige Pattison and added first-year award-winning witness Carlo Guerrini-Madraidi. The puzzle pieces are there, maybe even for both teams, if Dartmouth is up for putting them together. While we’re on the topic of lower teams with a real shot, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also throw in Harvard B and Tufts C. Tufts often doesn’t get credit for how deep it manages to be, especially as a student run program, and we can’t forget that it was a hybrid B-C team that took the podium at NCT for the Jumbos this spring. Similarly, Harvard B isn’t always an ORCS attendee, but last season they were not only AT the New Rochelle ORCS, but there to secure the bid that their A team just missed out on. Boston College is always a bit of a wild card–last year they bid their D team to ORCS but also..only their D team. Similarly, UMass Lowell has the Regionals record of a sinusoidal curve, ping-ponging from a 2-6 to a 7-1 record in the span of the past two seasons; it’s anyone’s guess what will be going down for them this year. We do want to give a quick shoutout to the River Hawks’ one and only award winner this fall–Attorney David Levenson, who took home a near-perfect 19-rank award just a few weeks into the season. If this is going to be a 7-1 kind of season for UMass Lowell, you can bet Levenson will have a large part in it. Last but not least, we have to say we refuse to count out Amherst A, self proclaimed as “Amherst College’s best club for however long we’ve existed.” While Amherst A might not be New England’s best program for however long they’ve existed, they usually bring a solid performance at Regionals that occasionally turns into a podium placement when the tab cards line up their way. There’s a real chance they’ll manage to make it through the weekend with some hardware to show for it. All in all, this Regional isn’t going to give us the most exciting East Coast matchups of the season, but there’s more here than meets the eye. We’ll see who leaves Massachusetts as the Beasts of the East (coast).
Team to Watch: Boston College A
What do we say about the home court advantage? Here at MAIMD, we know that that home court can go two ways. When you play in a familiar place, you’re either Draymond Green or the unlucky center on the other team, Jason Statham or the Meg, George Santos on Cameo or George Santos on Capitol Hill. No matter where they wind up, be sure to keep your eye on the owners of the third worst Boston Green Line stop to fill one of these roles, because it’s never entirely clear which it will be. A few years ago, BC was a big fish in the AMTA pond, consistently arriving at NCT at the end of the season. Recently….not so much. Last year only Boston College D saw the inside of an ORCS classroom courtroom. But maybe this is the year things turn around. With a respectable invitational record this season – placing finishes at Viking, Capital Clash, and Brandeis, all with over 6 ballots – one wonders if this might be one of the Eagles’ up years. Keep an eye out for captain this year and powerhouse attorney Andrew Hoffman. They’ve also got a heavy bout of newcomers on the program this year, one of whom, Jacqueline Higgs – not named after the elementary particle used in the CERN LHC, we assume – has already awarded with a hefty 18 ranks at Brandeis. That alone makes us sure the Eagles have the talent to do well– but historically talent has not always held out for BC. Last year, they showed potential in their invitational season, and then sputtered at Regionals. Will this be the year they reclaim their glory? Will they swim on? Or will they make like the Meg and produce a season that ends with the display of “Fin”? Watch on in January to find out, folks.
Chapel Hill : (23 Teams) ‘All Gas No Breaks’ (MAIMD Ranking 2/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 5 teams in top 100, 9 teams in top 200
First In:
Patrick Henry A
Duke A
Bubble:
UMBC A
Liberty A
William & Mary A
UMBC B
Liberty B
Patrick Henry C
Maryland C
Initial Thoughts:
It's a good thing this Regional takes place in Chapel Hill, because every team here will be praying for pairing luck with only 6 bids on the line. Ironically, they’ll likely be praying to avoid the team that says a prayer before every round: Patrick Henry. Make no mistake, in a deep and competitive regional stocked with mid-atlantic powers, Patrick Henry stands as the titan of this tournament. But it’s not just the All-National Attorney Caleb Knox and perfect-rank Attorney Trinity Klomparens led A team that you’ll want to avoid. Patrick Henry is a group that has regularly sent its C team all the way to the Nationals podium. The C squad may be younger, but they’re just as sharply coached and wickedly talented.
But while Patrick Henry may be the clearest danger of the field, there are two teams in the mix that could take this Regional from dangerous to down right deadly: Duke and UMBC. Just a few short years ago, these were programs competing for–and winning–both NCT and TBC. Now, we’re not so sure where they fall. The last time we saw the Blue Devils on a big stage, they split round 4 at the Greenville ORCS with hosts Furman, a result that proved devastating for both teams. UMBC, meanwhile, fell far short of holding serve with the NCT-bound Fordham LC. This year, GAMTI’s results may prove predictive. The Blue Devils managed a competitive result against some of our nation’s best teams. UMBC, meanwhile, finished an alarming 0-12. Can Fadil Adeite’s UMBC squad put the pieces back together? Can Jacob Hervey lead a still star-studded Duke team back to past-glory? If they can, this Regional might be one with 4 or more NCT teams - a nearly unthinkable challenge for a 6-bid tournament.
Rounding out the group of favorites are two teams that have lately fallen just a few ballots short of reaching the National Championship: William & Mary, and Liberty. William & Mary has summitted the mountain before, and this reloaded roster led by Victoria Smith and Alayna Knapp may be ready to do it again. Liberty, meanwhile, has kept a low profile thus far this season. However, year over year as a program they have steadily climbed the ladder towards NCT. We have no doubt that the Eagles will be hungry to finally take the last step behind senior All-National attorney Emma Scharstein.
And with only 6 bids, if chalk holds, that might just be it: the 6 aforementioned teams, 5 of them coming off recent NCT trips, the other finishing 5-3 at last year's ORCS. All of them would be favored to bid individually and yet Vegas oddsmakers would tell us that at least one is likely to falter. And if that happens, we’ve got some plus-odds picks for you. Obviously we can’t ignore the C/D teams from blue blood programs like Maryland and Georgetown, which could always contain hidden young talent. But how about UMBC B, a team that broke through to ORCS for the first time and held their ground well in 2023? Or Liberty B, a squad that’s managed to get to ORCS 3 times in a row, despite struggling mightily on arrival? Or Virginia Tech, a program behind senior president William Smith that comes from a school with a profile that suggests it should eventually develop a powerful squad? Odds are, someone is going to pull off that magical upset. The only question is, who?
Team to Watch: Radford University A
In a regional with powerhouse programs like Patrick Henry, Duke and UMBC, you might be surprised to learn that our team to watch is an unranked team who didn’t win a single award this fall. But we are actually quite optimistic about the Highlanders and it’s for one reason: #AllGasNoBreaks. Not only is this the slogan for Radford University Mock Trial, but it actually seems like that’s the trajectory they’re on too. Granted, this a bit of an outside-of-the-box pick. Radford didn’t have what most programs would consider a great fall season, with an 0-8 at Colonial Classic and a meager 2.5 wins at Red Devil Sleeping Bowtie. But according to instagram, that 2.5 is the best invitational record in program history. A fact like that means two things. First, it's really cool that the Highlanders were able to beat their record this year, and second, it means this team is getting better than they’ve ever been. It’s also not those numbers alone that give us hope. If you noticed, this was Radford’s best invitational record. At regionals last year, they went 4-4. So if they’re doing better in the invites, that 4-4 could turn into a 5-3 quick, and the Highlanders could be competing at ORCS for the first time in… ever! Now don’t get us wrong: this Regional is hard. But Radford does have a strong network of alumni who help support them, including the recent donation of a rare on campus classroom-courtroom space. So who knows? Maybe this is Radford A’s year for their best-ever Regional record. All they’ve gotta do is put the work in–and we’ve certainly seen them put that. If their instagram tells us anything, it’s that Radford University A is putting on the gas and the breaks aren’t coming anytime soon. Led by veterans Emmie Maurer and Hailey Rodriguez, we’re excited to see if Radford can zoom on into a winning record this year in Chapel Hill.
Claremont: (22 Teams) ‘WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?’ (MAIMD Ranking 10/30)
-2 teams in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
UCSB A
Arizona State A
USC A
Bubble:
UCLA C
Arizona State C
UCSB B
Claremont McKenna A
Scripps A
Initial Thoughts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRMH5XuJfr4
Here at MAIMD, we truly do our best to keep up with the times. Whether we’re checking tab summaries, program websites, or even your personal Instagram, it’s always important to us that we get things right. But, as some of our past pieces might have also indicated, we work based on limited information; when teams have a lot of turnover, we can get left in the dark. And that’s where we’re left with a lot of teams in Claremont. Take, for example, UCSB A. Sure, this is a team that is historically strong. Names like Tannenwald, Whalen, and Young echo as decorated competitors at the top of the field, but all have gone the way of the dodo, the newspaper, and Nick Ramos. It’s up to a new generation to pick up where they left–but we feel UCSB is equipped to do it. They’ve got talent like Alina Champon, a standout sophomore who has racked up some hardware for her excellent attorney skills this season, and who might just be ready to step into the big cowboy boots left to fill by her predecessors. With UCSB’s program strength, and coaches like Hunter Wright and Maddie Whalen, we expect the Gauchos will be strong contenders. But we haven’t really seen the proof yet.
Joining UCSB in our First In are the Sun Devils of Arizona State A, a program that went 5 for 5 in earning bids out of regionals this past year. But who is left from this Arizona State team? From the two teams sent to Santa Monica in March, only one of their awards winners remains: All-National Double Threat Linus Ros. Again, we expect continued success here. Their program depth is impressive, and this season, they have picked up 18 individual awards and 4 team placements (as pictured in their very nicely designed Instagram graphic). Leading the pack this year has been Emma Wymore, who’s picked up a slew of witness awards, alongside Matt Crothers, a double threat who’s been racking up hardware. So while this team may have experienced some shake ups, we are confident placing them first in.
Joining them is USC A. Leading the Trojans is junior Aishat Tiamiyu, who racked up All-Regional honors as an attorney and a witness before capturing an All-National Witness award as part of the program’s second consecutive bid to Nationals. Alongside her will be Hannah Croviet, a standout sophomore who’s racked up 4 awards so far this season, and already has Nationals experience under her belt. The trick for USC in this field will be avoiding our other First-In competitors. USC’s mock trial team seems to follow the same trend as their football team: consistently good early, but a bit of a letdown against top competition. Take this past year: 7-1 in Tempe, 7-1 in Santa Monica, but 4-8 in Memphis. Usually that isn’t a problem this early in the season. But questions about their ability to compete with the best of the best matter when some of the best of the best are being shipped off to Claremont too.
And then we have the bubble. Keeping with the theme of this region, most of the teams here are those which are likely to have had a lot of turnover since they were last here. As with many West Coast fields, the middle is packed with B and C teams from top programs that tend to change quite a bit from year to year–making them not entirely consistent. But we also think you should keep your eye on two schools from the famous Claremont Colleges consortium: Scripps and Claremont McKenna. Scripps is recovering from last year’s Regionals, where they left with the kind of painful 4-4 record we all dread. They picked up four ballots by truly enormous margins–most weekends with two +22 ballots are good ones–but then lost narrowly in the rounds that really mattered against teams that bid. This year, we will see if they can make it over that last hurdle and pick up the last few points against ORCS level teams. Claremont, meanwhile, was a big success last year. They went 7-1 at this regional. But they have been up and down over recent years, so we are excited to see if they can hold on to their success.
Good luck to the Sagehens of Pitzer College, our new team in this region!
Team to Watch: Arizona State C
In the words of the late sword-wielding maniac Nick Ramos, “I’d rather be lucky than good”. This is the year where Arizona State proves whether in 2023 they were lucky, good, or both– and it starts with Arizona State C. In 2022 we wrote about ASU B as a team to watch and said “Arizona State can be described by one word: consistent. As one of the few teams to field an F team last year, ASU showed a consistent strength from A to F with an average of 4.5 wins per team.” Like some of you out there, Arizona State treated that writeup as prophecy. Last year the Sun Devils were once again consistent. Get ready folks because we’re about to hit you with some numbers. Last year, ASU averaged 6.1 wins per team, earning 5 bids and showed all of AMTA that they’re a power house west coast program. But the story of their success isn’t that simple. Across those 5 teams, they only played 4 teams that earned a direct bid to ORCS and went 2-5-1 in those rounds with a PD of -62. Then at ORCS, both A and B went 4-4, losing seven of their eight ballots to their A and B bracket groups with a PD of -87 and winning seven of their eight ballots to their C and D bracket groups with a PD of +88. So what do all of those numbers say about ASU? It shows us that when they play a lower level team, they dominate, often winning ballots by double digits. But when it's against one of these top teams, it's often double digits against them. Something that they are doing just doesn’t play well with top teams and while we don’t know exactly what it is, we do know that this creates a problem. Claremont is very top heavy. Two nationals returning teams, five teams in the top 100 TPR. ASU A has historically been better at competing against these top teams so we’re less worried about them, but the question for ASU C is what happens if they end up playing USC A or UCSB A, or even UCLA C or UCSB B. If they do, history tells us those ballots might not turn out pretty and they might not be going #5for5 again.
Colorado Springs: (13 Teams) ‘Rookie Rocky Rumble’ (MAIMD Ranking 30/30)
-0 teams in top 50, 1 teams in top 100, 3 teams in top 200
First In:
Colorado College A
Bubble:
UT Dallas A
Denver A
Colorado Boulder A
Air Force A
Initial Thoughts:
Colorado Springs
Regionals Write-ups are hard
Haikus are simple
A Northern Landscape
A weak field of fake lawyers
Three bids, and few teams
The hosts will triumph
Names like Fenn, Anderson, Whitmore
Will prevail again
In March, in St. Paul
These Tigers nearly captured
a bid to Memphis
Down in the bubble
A bigger question awaits
Who else will bid too?
Texas Dallas A
Is driving way too far north
Our condolences
Air Force won last year
They only lost one ballot
Can they win again?
Two new teams are here
Colorado State Rams and
Boise State Broncos
We wish everyone
The best of luck in breaking
Through this open field
Team to Watch: UT Dallas A
What if I told you in the sleepy regionals of Colorado Springs, there lies a hidden threat? What if I told you this team was on the verge of making a historic Nats run last year? What if I told you this team has proven they can hang with the top names on the AMTA circuit? Would that change your mind about the Colorado regionals being an absolute joke? Probably not. But, no matter what regionals they were at, we would tell y’all to keep your eye on UT Dallas A. Picture this: it is week 1 of ORCS last season. UT Dallas B is getting their teeth kicked in out in Santa Monica while UT Dallas A is going crazy out in Arlington. They split with the Cinderella story of 2022, Dillard A, then pull off a +11 -10 split against Rhodes A. A double digit pull on one of the biggest names in Mock has them riding high. Going into their C and D bracket rounds, they feel confident. Then, two tied ballots later, they are just shy of the podium. One more point on either of those ballots, and these Temocs would have been in Memphis. We imagine Dallas is hungry for more this season. Going into regionals, Dallas has something these teams in Colorado don’t: experience hitting top teams. Two teams to ORCS last year means UT Dallas has been exposed to high level mock. They know what separates winners from losers and a 6-2 finish at Rice shows they are taking the lessons to heart. In short, we are hopeful UT Dallas can soar here. Because if they can’t take off in Colorado in February, they probably won’t be flying to Chicago in April.
Dayton: (25 Teams) ‘Bubble Blowout’ (MAIMD Ranking 7/30)
-1 team in top 50, 4 teams in top 100, 11 teams in top 200
First In:
Ohio State A
Bubble:
UT Chattanooga A
Vanderbilt A
Pittsburgh A
Michigan C
Northwestern C
Northwestern D
Dayton A
Duquesne A
Eastern Kentucky A
Kentucky A
Initial Thoughts:
Only having one first-in team isn’t a call we usually make lightly, but for Ohio State, it just makes sense. They’ve got one of the best lineups they’ve ever had on their A team this season– with names like Drew Polito, Jon Hubbard, Michael Ragnone, Abigail Cohen, and Leah Salit rounding out their roster, they’ve given us a hell of a show in the fall. First and second at Illini, first and fourth at Spartan, third and fourth on their home court, and most recently an impressive fifth place at GAMTI–with a 2-1 victory over the eventual GAMTI champs, Virginia. We’ll have more to say down the line when it comes to what Ohio State will be up to in April, but suffice it to say the Buckeyes will bid. If they don’t we’ll be clutching our pearls.
But that’s where the near certainties (and our truncated First In list) end. At the top of the bubble we have a few teams in interesting spots this year. First off, we have UT Chattanooga, a nationals returner with a big question mark next to their name. Last year they scraped through to nationals after ending up on the open bid list on their way to ORCS. Now, they’ve got an A team with almost no returning members from that Memphis squad–which could mean that UT is back to the drawing board and back to the open bid list. With a green team and no impressive records so far, we’re unsure if they’ll build on their scramble to success from last year, or if this season will have to be focused on rebuilding. That’s not to say that the Mocs don’t have some stars in the making: witness Justin LaPorta and attorney Stephen Scott have both earned individual hardware this past fall, and they’ll surely be looking to add to their collection in Dayton.
Moving down the Bubble, we find another team that has also lost some of their old A-team members: Vanderbilt. Competitors Maddie Lorenz and Chris Ochoa are sure to be missed, but any returners on the Commodores may manage to make up for their absence with zeal. They’re sure to be hungry after last year’s disappointing finish– a brutal 6-2 ORCS record that just wasn’t good enough in Geneva for a ticket to Memphis. More likely than not, they’re working overtime to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and their lineup is stacked with consistently impressive performers like Anavi Jain, Rebecca Weintraub, Lizzie Tucker, Tanner Davis, and Jessica Peng. This is definitely a team to be scared of.
There are a lot of good teams in this region that might be able to take their place on the podium beside OSU A, so we can’t cover them all– but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention our hosts at Dayton. Dayton A gained a lot of traction (and a lot of blogosphere attention) last year with their star attorney and TBC competitor Arabella Loera. But Loera (and her laundry list of awards) isn’t here anymore. Instead we have Nino LaCorte and Taryn Mitchell double threats who have amassed a small collection of awards between them. Who knows if Dayton is reeling from the Loera loss, or if they’ll be able to snag a trophy and a bid. After all this is Dayton: just a few hours away from the Rock and Roll Hall of fame (this writer has limited Ohio knowledge). Anything could happen.
Good luck to the Norse of Northern Kentucky as they attend their first regionals!
Team to Watch: Eastern Kentucky A
They walk among us. You see them everywhere–in class, in the world, if you’re very, very lucky even in your program’s info session. People who are no question, fantastic beyond fantastic–the kind of voice and presence that can step into a well and steal ranks of a fourth-year competitor with perfect content by just opening their mouth and making a baseless 403 objection. Some people with that kind of raw talent go into programs that take their abilities and strap them to a script and a technical knowledge that make them all-time, once in a generation unbeatable–UMBC’s Sydney Gaskins or Yale’s Dan Stern come to mind. Eastern Kentucky’s frontman double-closer, Parker White, is one of those honest-to-goodness born mock superheroes. He has god-given charisma and a fantastic presence in the well, which he utilizes for evocative closing arguments and crier crosses that sometimes manage to be a highlight moment of the round. But unlike Gaskins or Stern, Parker White isn’t from a program that regularly makes the NCT podium. He doesn’t have a mock mastermind like Ben Garmoe to show him the ropes. While EKU’s faculty coaches, Thomas C. Parker and Lynnette S. Noblitt did have enough mock ability to spawn the zygote that would go on to become famed spotify rapper and Yale mocker Everett Parker Noblitt, they don’t appear to do enough oversight to ensure their team writes crosses with signposts. And so a matchup against EKU is…strange. They won’t be firing back your objections with an exact and cutting understanding of the rules of evidence. Their scripts will be haphazard, cliched, sometimes even ill-memorized. Don’t expect EKU’s standout upperclassmen witnesses like expert Carly Frost or crier cowboy Will Lampert to fight your cross points with poise and energy–expect them to haggle tooth and nail like they’re from an out-and-out unranked program. Don’t expect Parker ‘has dropped one rank between three tournaments this season’ White to have exhaustive and perfect knowledge of the rules of evidence–expect him to make a poorly-timed 802 objection and still sway the judges. Believe it or not, this is exactly the thing that makes Eastern Kentucky one to keep an eye on in Dayton. For one, because their shirking of top 48 mock technical skill isn’t always enough to lose them a ballot to teams that are following inside-baseball mock rules, especially with a judging field like regionals. But for another, EKU is a team that is only a few technical tweaks away from getting to play in the big leagues. If they’re going to make that happen. It’ll happen in Dayton. We wish them the best of luck.
South Bend: (24 Teams) ‘Secretary of Transportation’ (MAIMD Ranking 3/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 5 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
WashU St. Louis A
Notre Dame A
University of Illinois A
Bubble:
Michigan State A
Case Western A
Notre Dame B
Northern Illinois A
IUPUI A
DePaul A
Purdue A
Initial Thoughts:
Any way you slice it, this is a hard regional. To start off we've got the back-to-back heavy hitters of Wash U A and Notre Dame A, both coming off Nationals appearances and both of whom have started off strong this season. WashU in particular has been having a standout fall, with multiple invitational wins and a 7th place GAMTI showing. Expect to see names like Sarah Rosen, Gavin Cohen, and Elijah Weisman on the South Bend tab summary come February. Our regional host Notre Dame isn't one to be written off either - though they've graduated some talent, they're returning TBC competitor Charles Stock and rounding out their team with rising stars like MacKenzie Stewart and Ella Cain.
What really makes this Regional dangerous, though, is that it doesn't stop at the Nats returners. After missing out on Nats by a CS tiebreaker not just once but two years in a row, we expect that Illinois is chomping at the bit to prove they belong on the big stage. With a GOT win and thirteen individual awards under their belt since stack, we wouldn't put it past them to slice through the field in South Bend like a hot knife through a pat of butter. And then you've got the two crops of Spartans: Case Western, a team full of up-and-coming superstars eager to break through, and Michigan State, yet another team with a winning record at ORCS last season and a strong tournament win this fall (BRIC). Truly any of these teams would be First Ins at most other regionals, and we're both excited and nervous to see how the matchups shake out for them in two months. In case you thought this regional needed more depth to go along with its high-end strength, we also have to keep in mind the B team for the Fighting Irish, as well as former powerhouse NIU and frequent ORCS threats like Purdue, IUPUI, and DePaul.
One of the few silver linings in South Bend is the relatively high number of unranked teams relative to other regionals. But even this is somewhat undercut by the presence of multiple C and D teams from competitive programs that could be threatening despite their official TPR invisibility. First example, while they didn't make our bubble list because they have not been impressive in the past, it's worth noting that this regional includes the C team of a program that last year qualified both A and B to Nats (Hillsdale). And if there’s a time when such a C team might suddenly make the jump into relevance, it’s a year like this one.
We don't envy the competitive path for the teams at South Bend, but we're sure they're looking forward to some fantastic mock trial.
Good luck to the Screaming Eagles of Southern Indiana in their very first regional as a program!
Team to Watch: Case Western A
“If you replace every part of a (mock trial team), one by one, until none of the original parts remain… will it be the same (mock trial team)?”
At the end of every season, the AMTA community has to say goodbye to a class of talented, dedicated graduating seniors. Let me tell you, dear reader: we at Mock Analysis Is My Dullur recognize the significance of the loss Case Western took when their Class of 2023 graduated. With the departure of competitors like Zoe Swenson, Enya Eettickal, and Prateek Dullur, Case Western lost all but two of the rest of their A Team competitors to the tragedy of low mock retention and went into the 2023 season with an A team that is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a newborn squirrel. Case Western’s A Team is a face that consistently appears at ORCS – and that, combined with their new look, new experience A Team composition makes them the team to watch in South Bend. The Spartans, having initiated the most confusing fake-hostage scenario in AMTA history at their invitational, will look to continue their streak of ORCS appearances at one of the hardest regionals in the country. They have the talent to do just that. Attorney Aashka Gupta is a brilliant performer who has awarded at every invite she’s appeared at this year, most recently receiving a double award at Badger the Witness. Jay Siva has also picked up a smattering of awards, and will light up Notre Dame’s campus with his personable attitude and excellent expert witness skills. What’s really interesting is that Gupta and Siva are just the returning talent mentioned earlier – Case Western A is mostly defined by the new talent on the team, like versatile witness Meera MacMullen and highly technical attorney Arjun Narsipur. This team has the ability to take ballots off the scariest, stockiest teams at this regional – the question is whether they have the experience to handle the pressure that comes in those moments. Now that Case Western has replaced most parts of their regionals-bid-winning machine… are they still the same team?
State College: (26 Teams) ‘Contenders, Pretenders, or A Secret Third Thing’ (MAIMD Ranking 13/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
Georgetown A
Juniata A
Bubble:
Dickinson A
Dickinson B
Juniata B
Penn State B
Rochester A
Rochester B
Georgetown B
Wesleyan C
Initial Thoughts:
As a (somewhat) veteran Mock Analyzer at this point, this author feels a bit like a rather unfortunate attorney at their first tournament. You probably know the feeling. Opposing counsel objects to something you hadn’t considered, perhaps a witness says something you didn’t expect, or (God forbid) the judges actually do think that “Blinded by the need to Blame” is just a tad bit unoriginal for a defense theme. All of the teams at this regional seem poised to put us in just such a state of confusion. And that makes it very hard to distinguish whether they’re contenders, pretenders, or a secret third thing.
Perhaps it’s a bit helpful to explain why I’m confused. Take the curious case of Georgetown A. In April, they won 3rd in the Pohlmann division, going 9-3 in a weekend where they hit Chicago A, and Fordham Lincoln Center A, both teams that (despite their difference in resumes) can very much hold their own in a Nationals environment. They headed into this season returning one of their first All-Americans since 2019, Captain Adam Hamdian, so it certainly looks like they’re in good hands. For that reason, we fully expect them to bid out of regionals, and we would ordinarily confidently predict that they would go much further. But this season, Georgetown haven’t exactly gone out and set the world on fire (in line with administration-approved Ignatian spirituality). While the Bulldogs don’t tend to amaze during invite season, this is a program that has (at the time of writing, while I probably should be studying for finals) earned just one (1) winning record this season. One! So this team that should be a contender looks like they may be ready to expose themselves as pretenders. On that topic, it’s important to note that Juniata A is here. We expect that they could fall into one of the above categories, or maybe not. Nobody ever knows what to do with them, certainly not teams that have to deal with their shenanigans at captains meetings.
Moving on to our bubble, consider Dickinson A. Two years ago, this was a team that was almost as loud and intimidating in the courtroom as they are on Mock Trial Confessions . But since then things have changed for Dickinson. They missed out on a bid to Memphis in 2023, going 4-4 in New Rochelle ORCS (to be fair, the absolutely brutal New Rochelle field also felled the notoriously competitive Harvard A as well). This year, we have faith in the Dicks* at least at Regionals, but we will be closely watching their trajectory to see where new leadership like play-in contender and All-American Isaiah Banuelos and Double Threat Daniel Kline take them going forward. Meanwhile, Rochester seems to have escaped their unfortunate pattern of needing an open bid to get to ORCS in the last few years. But the downside for them is that they have also escaped their pattern of converting those open bids to ORCS into direct bids to NCT. So perhaps Rochester should hope to do just a little worse at regionals than last year. If that doesn’t make them a secret third thing, I don’t know what does.
The rest of the bubble is filled out with some strong B sides from programs that tend to reliably move onto March mock trial. But will their B teams as well? It’s all a bit of a question mark for us.
Good Luck to the Gryphons of the University of Guelph and the Cougars of Lehigh Carbon Community College, our new teams in this regional!
*I did not feel like looking up their mascot. Johnathan Woodward be damned.**
**I don’t actually dislike Johnathan Woodward he’s a really nice guy I’m sorry Johnathan
Team to Watch: University of Guelph A
Does this author know anything at all about the University of Guelph? Other than the fact that they have a funny name and a well-groomed Instagram page, not really. But within well-groomed Instagram pages often hide secrets—enough secrets to perhaps elevate Guelph to the category of “secret third thing” themselves. While I will admit I’m not super studied on the ins and outs of Canadian mock trial, I can tell you that it’s a little different from what we of the American Mock Trial Association know as mock trial: there are fewer competitors per team competing in a different tournament format. Our northern neighbors seem to be pretty good at northern mock trial; they recently took a number of awards home from the University of Toronto Cup, including third place and best attorney at the entire tournament for one Noah Boudreault. Guelph even hosts their own invitational—one touted as one of the largest mock trial competitions in Canada—so it’s fair to say they know what they’re doing up there. The question that makes us interested in the University of Good Ole Guelph is whether or not that skill will translate across the border. The State College regional is the first time we’re going to get to see what the Gryphons are capable on this side of Lake Erie, and if you say you’re not even a bit curious to see how they perform (and whether or not that classic Canadian goodwill can bring about a net 0 in vibes at the same regional Juniata is), then YOU might be the pretender.
San Diego: (18 Teams) ‘Fresno Got Harder And Here Is The Proof’ (MAIMD Ranking 27/30)
-1 teams in top 50, 2 teams in top 100, 4 teams in top 200
First In:
UCLA B
Bubble:
Cal Poly SLO A
Pomona A
UCSD A
Arizona State E
UCLA D
Initial Thoughts:
We really do feel bad for our friends on the West Coast. For years, they’ve taken the internet by storm with their barrage of complaints: “Santa Monica is too hard for an ORCS!” “Fresno is too hard for a regionals!” “Can they send Berkeley or UCLA or Irvine somewhere else?” Now, no one will take their complaints seriously. Because if there was ever a regionals to call a cakewalk, San Diego is the ultimate bakery stroll.
So let’s start doing a 5 bid countdown. Bid #1 goes to our third place team from Nats this last year: UCLA B. After being in our Bubble on every single write-up last year, they’ve broken through to first-in favorites for 2023. If history is any indicator, we don’t predict they’ll have any problems getting up to the podium. Last AMTA season, the (B)ruins only dropped four ballots–one at ORCS, one at Regionals, and two at NCT, leaving them with a heartbreaker of a 2nd place finish in their division and nearly giving us a UCLA on UCLA final round. They’ll be looking to repeat that feat in February. Keep an eye out for everyone’s favorite double-threat leprechaun Kole Alfonso to put on a show for the fine folks of San Diego.
This is the part where we’d count down our predictions for bids #2-#5! The obvious picks for those are… nobody? After UCLA B, we really are at a loss for who to bet on taking home the next bid. You have two teams that have fallen from grace: UCSD A and Cal Poly SLO A. The Tritons made it to Nationals two years back but haven’t left regionals with a record solid enough to muster a bid in the two years since. As for Cal Poly SLO’s mustangs, they were present at NCT in Lancaster but couldn’t quite punch their ticket to Memphis after losing their entire A team bench. Both teams have some real standouts in Jayden Xia and Kyle Barba, so there is a strong chance they put the pieces together this spring and make it to ORCS. After that, it is anyone’s guess.
So there go bids 2(?) and 3(?), what about the rest? You have lower teams from respected programs like UCLA and ASU. Those programs know a thing or two about depth and will probably be in contention for a bid even in the D-F range. Pomona always seems to claw their way into ORCS only to get smacked down by top teams. In a pool like this, we wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them finish in the top five. Also in the mix for a potential trip to Los Angeles is Moorpark, a little known community college in Southern California. While the name might not ring a bell, Moorpark has some more mock pizazz than you might know. After all, All-American and UCLA B coach Riley Shapiro as well as All-American, Gladiator winner, and 2021 Trial By Combat Champion Audrey Shepherd both competed for Moorpark before transferring to UCLA to pick up the laurels they’d go on to be known for. We can’t count them out in San Diego–Moorpark certainly has a history of breeding talent.
We wish we could give you more certainty, but in all honesty we are stumped. UCLA B will make it out, and from there it is anyone’s game. Not only is it a bloodbath of low ranked teams, it is also uncharted territory for a lot of these programs. Unless they’ve attended UCSD’s invitational, most of our competitors are heading into a judge pool they’ve never seen before. So best of luck to our only Regional during week 2! We expect to see sun, and some bubble bursters.
Team to Watch: UC San Diego A
What happened? That’s the question that most people ask on the west coast when they talk about UCSD A. From being a regular attendee at nationals, to missing out the past two seasons, and most recently not even qualifying for ORCS in 2023. Maybe it's turnover. Maybe it’s the transition between zoom and in person. We can’t really say why UCSD hasn’t been one of the powerhouses on the west coast like we’re accustomed to seeing. What we can say, this year, UCSD has come out firing with some incredible individual performances. Jayden Xia is a name you should expect to see all over west coast tab summaries, consistently playing a charismatic and charming array of witnesses. Alongside him are some incredible attorneys. Former gladiator Sammie Morris Beber can hold down both sides of the bench by putting on a masterclass in precision. Then come the dynamite statement givers. Taylor Ireland has been one of the best competitors in the country taking home 4 different individual awards for both her charismatic attorney and lovable character witnesses. And Risa Saulino, a longtime staple of UCSD A seems to have come into her own awarding against some high level competition at Mocktopia this past fall. UCSD has the pieces. Now it’s a matter of gelling them together. While we’re unsure of what surprises this new San Diego regional may hold, UCSD is showing the rumblings of a return to former glory, and it all starts right on their home turf.
Chestnut Hill: (26 Teams) ‘Highway to Hill’ (MAIMD Ranking 14/30)
-1 teams in top 50, 2 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
Harvard A
Dartmouth A
Bubble:
Harvard B
Boston College A
UMass Lowell A
Dartmouth B
Tufts C
Amherst A
Initial Thoughts:
Leafy streets lined with stately historic mansions and not-so-stately modern mansions. Picturesque avenues of antique shops, art galleries, and farmers’ markets. For a New England family looking to send their toddler to a pretentious pre-school, Chestnut Hill Massachusetts is a dream come true. But for a very niche group of 20-something college students who are extremely invested in LARPing Law and Order, Chestnut Hill Massachusetts is no walk in the park: it’s the Highway to Hill. Statistically, Chestnut Hill isn’t a monster of a Regionals (based on our rankings, it’s actually pretty middle-of-the-road) but even the least mock-knowledgeable freshman would grow concerned after a brief glance at this field. That’s in no small part due to Chestnut Hill’s fiercest contender–two-time NCT finalists Harvard A. There’s a lot to say about Harvard A, but if their history, roster, and pre-season performance tell us anything, it’s that we’ll have plenty of time to say it later on this spring. Harvard A is going to bid from the Chestnut Hill Regionals–that’s all you need to know.
In the–admittedly massive–Crimson shadow cast by our first-in team, there’s a number of teams who will be trying to get up onstage to take home these other five bids. Most notably, Dartmouth A, our other-first in, will be a tough draw for bid hopefuls. Dartmouth is the black sheep of the mock trial Ivies– they usually comfortably muster an ORCS attendance but fail to make it to the top 40. This past season, however, they bid both A and B directly and kept the margins in their brutal R1 Harvard A matchup to a tight -2,-3 margin. While the Big Green (we’ve noticed between the Crimson and the Big Green that Chestnut Hill is a very Christmas-y Regional) did lose a number of the seniors who spearheaded that push last season, they’ve retained all-National Attorney Paige Pattison and added first-year award-winning witness Carlo Guerrini-Madraidi. The puzzle pieces are there, maybe even for both teams, if Dartmouth is up for putting them together. While we’re on the topic of lower teams with a real shot, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also throw in Harvard B and Tufts C. Tufts often doesn’t get credit for how deep it manages to be, especially as a student run program, and we can’t forget that it was a hybrid B-C team that took the podium at NCT for the Jumbos this spring. Similarly, Harvard B isn’t always an ORCS attendee, but last season they were not only AT the New Rochelle ORCS, but there to secure the bid that their A team just missed out on. Boston College is always a bit of a wild card–last year they bid their D team to ORCS but also..only their D team. Similarly, UMass Lowell has the Regionals record of a sinusoidal curve, ping-ponging from a 2-6 to a 7-1 record in the span of the past two seasons; it’s anyone’s guess what will be going down for them this year. We do want to give a quick shoutout to the River Hawks’ one and only award winner this fall–Attorney David Levenson, who took home a near-perfect 19-rank award just a few weeks into the season. If this is going to be a 7-1 kind of season for UMass Lowell, you can bet Levenson will have a large part in it. Last but not least, we have to say we refuse to count out Amherst A, self proclaimed as “Amherst College’s best club for however long we’ve existed.” While Amherst A might not be New England’s best program for however long they’ve existed, they usually bring a solid performance at Regionals that occasionally turns into a podium placement when the tab cards line up their way. There’s a real chance they’ll manage to make it through the weekend with some hardware to show for it. All in all, this Regional isn’t going to give us the most exciting East Coast matchups of the season, but there’s more here than meets the eye. We’ll see who leaves Massachusetts as the Beasts of the East (coast).
Team to Watch: Boston College A
What do we say about the home court advantage? Here at MAIMD, we know that that home court can go two ways. When you play in a familiar place, you’re either Draymond Green or the unlucky center on the other team, Jason Statham or the Meg, George Santos on Cameo or George Santos on Capitol Hill. No matter where they wind up, be sure to keep your eye on the owners of the third worst Boston Green Line stop to fill one of these roles, because it’s never entirely clear which it will be. A few years ago, BC was a big fish in the AMTA pond, consistently arriving at NCT at the end of the season. Recently….not so much. Last year only Boston College D saw the inside of an ORCS classroom courtroom. But maybe this is the year things turn around. With a respectable invitational record this season – placing finishes at Viking, Capital Clash, and Brandeis, all with over 6 ballots – one wonders if this might be one of the Eagles’ up years. Keep an eye out for captain this year and powerhouse attorney Andrew Hoffman. They’ve also got a heavy bout of newcomers on the program this year, one of whom, Jacqueline Higgs – not named after the elementary particle used in the CERN LHC, we assume – has already awarded with a hefty 18 ranks at Brandeis. That alone makes us sure the Eagles have the talent to do well– but historically talent has not always held out for BC. Last year, they showed potential in their invitational season, and then sputtered at Regionals. Will this be the year they reclaim their glory? Will they swim on? Or will they make like the Meg and produce a season that ends with the display of “Fin”? Watch on in January to find out, folks.
Chapel Hill : (23 Teams) ‘All Gas No Breaks’ (MAIMD Ranking 2/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 5 teams in top 100, 9 teams in top 200
First In:
Patrick Henry A
Duke A
Bubble:
UMBC A
Liberty A
William & Mary A
UMBC B
Liberty B
Patrick Henry C
Maryland C
Initial Thoughts:
It's a good thing this Regional takes place in Chapel Hill, because every team here will be praying for pairing luck with only 6 bids on the line. Ironically, they’ll likely be praying to avoid the team that says a prayer before every round: Patrick Henry. Make no mistake, in a deep and competitive regional stocked with mid-atlantic powers, Patrick Henry stands as the titan of this tournament. But it’s not just the All-National Attorney Caleb Knox and perfect-rank Attorney Trinity Klomparens led A team that you’ll want to avoid. Patrick Henry is a group that has regularly sent its C team all the way to the Nationals podium. The C squad may be younger, but they’re just as sharply coached and wickedly talented.
But while Patrick Henry may be the clearest danger of the field, there are two teams in the mix that could take this Regional from dangerous to down right deadly: Duke and UMBC. Just a few short years ago, these were programs competing for–and winning–both NCT and TBC. Now, we’re not so sure where they fall. The last time we saw the Blue Devils on a big stage, they split round 4 at the Greenville ORCS with hosts Furman, a result that proved devastating for both teams. UMBC, meanwhile, fell far short of holding serve with the NCT-bound Fordham LC. This year, GAMTI’s results may prove predictive. The Blue Devils managed a competitive result against some of our nation’s best teams. UMBC, meanwhile, finished an alarming 0-12. Can Fadil Adeite’s UMBC squad put the pieces back together? Can Jacob Hervey lead a still star-studded Duke team back to past-glory? If they can, this Regional might be one with 4 or more NCT teams - a nearly unthinkable challenge for a 6-bid tournament.
Rounding out the group of favorites are two teams that have lately fallen just a few ballots short of reaching the National Championship: William & Mary, and Liberty. William & Mary has summitted the mountain before, and this reloaded roster led by Victoria Smith and Alayna Knapp may be ready to do it again. Liberty, meanwhile, has kept a low profile thus far this season. However, year over year as a program they have steadily climbed the ladder towards NCT. We have no doubt that the Eagles will be hungry to finally take the last step behind senior All-National attorney Emma Scharstein.
And with only 6 bids, if chalk holds, that might just be it: the 6 aforementioned teams, 5 of them coming off recent NCT trips, the other finishing 5-3 at last year's ORCS. All of them would be favored to bid individually and yet Vegas oddsmakers would tell us that at least one is likely to falter. And if that happens, we’ve got some plus-odds picks for you. Obviously we can’t ignore the C/D teams from blue blood programs like Maryland and Georgetown, which could always contain hidden young talent. But how about UMBC B, a team that broke through to ORCS for the first time and held their ground well in 2023? Or Liberty B, a squad that’s managed to get to ORCS 3 times in a row, despite struggling mightily on arrival? Or Virginia Tech, a program behind senior president William Smith that comes from a school with a profile that suggests it should eventually develop a powerful squad? Odds are, someone is going to pull off that magical upset. The only question is, who?
Team to Watch: Radford University A
In a regional with powerhouse programs like Patrick Henry, Duke and UMBC, you might be surprised to learn that our team to watch is an unranked team who didn’t win a single award this fall. But we are actually quite optimistic about the Highlanders and it’s for one reason: #AllGasNoBreaks. Not only is this the slogan for Radford University Mock Trial, but it actually seems like that’s the trajectory they’re on too. Granted, this a bit of an outside-of-the-box pick. Radford didn’t have what most programs would consider a great fall season, with an 0-8 at Colonial Classic and a meager 2.5 wins at Red Devil Sleeping Bowtie. But according to instagram, that 2.5 is the best invitational record in program history. A fact like that means two things. First, it's really cool that the Highlanders were able to beat their record this year, and second, it means this team is getting better than they’ve ever been. It’s also not those numbers alone that give us hope. If you noticed, this was Radford’s best invitational record. At regionals last year, they went 4-4. So if they’re doing better in the invites, that 4-4 could turn into a 5-3 quick, and the Highlanders could be competing at ORCS for the first time in… ever! Now don’t get us wrong: this Regional is hard. But Radford does have a strong network of alumni who help support them, including the recent donation of a rare on campus classroom-courtroom space. So who knows? Maybe this is Radford A’s year for their best-ever Regional record. All they’ve gotta do is put the work in–and we’ve certainly seen them put that. If their instagram tells us anything, it’s that Radford University A is putting on the gas and the breaks aren’t coming anytime soon. Led by veterans Emmie Maurer and Hailey Rodriguez, we’re excited to see if Radford can zoom on into a winning record this year in Chapel Hill.
Claremont: (22 Teams) ‘WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?’ (MAIMD Ranking 10/30)
-2 teams in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
UCSB A
Arizona State A
USC A
Bubble:
UCLA C
Arizona State C
UCSB B
Claremont McKenna A
Scripps A
Initial Thoughts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRMH5XuJfr4
Here at MAIMD, we truly do our best to keep up with the times. Whether we’re checking tab summaries, program websites, or even your personal Instagram, it’s always important to us that we get things right. But, as some of our past pieces might have also indicated, we work based on limited information; when teams have a lot of turnover, we can get left in the dark. And that’s where we’re left with a lot of teams in Claremont. Take, for example, UCSB A. Sure, this is a team that is historically strong. Names like Tannenwald, Whalen, and Young echo as decorated competitors at the top of the field, but all have gone the way of the dodo, the newspaper, and Nick Ramos. It’s up to a new generation to pick up where they left–but we feel UCSB is equipped to do it. They’ve got talent like Alina Champon, a standout sophomore who has racked up some hardware for her excellent attorney skills this season, and who might just be ready to step into the big cowboy boots left to fill by her predecessors. With UCSB’s program strength, and coaches like Hunter Wright and Maddie Whalen, we expect the Gauchos will be strong contenders. But we haven’t really seen the proof yet.
Joining UCSB in our First In are the Sun Devils of Arizona State A, a program that went 5 for 5 in earning bids out of regionals this past year. But who is left from this Arizona State team? From the two teams sent to Santa Monica in March, only one of their awards winners remains: All-National Double Threat Linus Ros. Again, we expect continued success here. Their program depth is impressive, and this season, they have picked up 18 individual awards and 4 team placements (as pictured in their very nicely designed Instagram graphic). Leading the pack this year has been Emma Wymore, who’s picked up a slew of witness awards, alongside Matt Crothers, a double threat who’s been racking up hardware. So while this team may have experienced some shake ups, we are confident placing them first in.
Joining them is USC A. Leading the Trojans is junior Aishat Tiamiyu, who racked up All-Regional honors as an attorney and a witness before capturing an All-National Witness award as part of the program’s second consecutive bid to Nationals. Alongside her will be Hannah Croviet, a standout sophomore who’s racked up 4 awards so far this season, and already has Nationals experience under her belt. The trick for USC in this field will be avoiding our other First-In competitors. USC’s mock trial team seems to follow the same trend as their football team: consistently good early, but a bit of a letdown against top competition. Take this past year: 7-1 in Tempe, 7-1 in Santa Monica, but 4-8 in Memphis. Usually that isn’t a problem this early in the season. But questions about their ability to compete with the best of the best matter when some of the best of the best are being shipped off to Claremont too.
And then we have the bubble. Keeping with the theme of this region, most of the teams here are those which are likely to have had a lot of turnover since they were last here. As with many West Coast fields, the middle is packed with B and C teams from top programs that tend to change quite a bit from year to year–making them not entirely consistent. But we also think you should keep your eye on two schools from the famous Claremont Colleges consortium: Scripps and Claremont McKenna. Scripps is recovering from last year’s Regionals, where they left with the kind of painful 4-4 record we all dread. They picked up four ballots by truly enormous margins–most weekends with two +22 ballots are good ones–but then lost narrowly in the rounds that really mattered against teams that bid. This year, we will see if they can make it over that last hurdle and pick up the last few points against ORCS level teams. Claremont, meanwhile, was a big success last year. They went 7-1 at this regional. But they have been up and down over recent years, so we are excited to see if they can hold on to their success.
Good luck to the Sagehens of Pitzer College, our new team in this region!
Team to Watch: Arizona State C
In the words of the late sword-wielding maniac Nick Ramos, “I’d rather be lucky than good”. This is the year where Arizona State proves whether in 2023 they were lucky, good, or both– and it starts with Arizona State C. In 2022 we wrote about ASU B as a team to watch and said “Arizona State can be described by one word: consistent. As one of the few teams to field an F team last year, ASU showed a consistent strength from A to F with an average of 4.5 wins per team.” Like some of you out there, Arizona State treated that writeup as prophecy. Last year the Sun Devils were once again consistent. Get ready folks because we’re about to hit you with some numbers. Last year, ASU averaged 6.1 wins per team, earning 5 bids and showed all of AMTA that they’re a power house west coast program. But the story of their success isn’t that simple. Across those 5 teams, they only played 4 teams that earned a direct bid to ORCS and went 2-5-1 in those rounds with a PD of -62. Then at ORCS, both A and B went 4-4, losing seven of their eight ballots to their A and B bracket groups with a PD of -87 and winning seven of their eight ballots to their C and D bracket groups with a PD of +88. So what do all of those numbers say about ASU? It shows us that when they play a lower level team, they dominate, often winning ballots by double digits. But when it's against one of these top teams, it's often double digits against them. Something that they are doing just doesn’t play well with top teams and while we don’t know exactly what it is, we do know that this creates a problem. Claremont is very top heavy. Two nationals returning teams, five teams in the top 100 TPR. ASU A has historically been better at competing against these top teams so we’re less worried about them, but the question for ASU C is what happens if they end up playing USC A or UCSB A, or even UCLA C or UCSB B. If they do, history tells us those ballots might not turn out pretty and they might not be going #5for5 again.
Colorado Springs: (13 Teams) ‘Rookie Rocky Rumble’ (MAIMD Ranking 30/30)
-0 teams in top 50, 1 teams in top 100, 3 teams in top 200
First In:
Colorado College A
Bubble:
UT Dallas A
Denver A
Colorado Boulder A
Air Force A
Initial Thoughts:
Colorado Springs
Regionals Write-ups are hard
Haikus are simple
A Northern Landscape
A weak field of fake lawyers
Three bids, and few teams
The hosts will triumph
Names like Fenn, Anderson, Whitmore
Will prevail again
In March, in St. Paul
These Tigers nearly captured
a bid to Memphis
Down in the bubble
A bigger question awaits
Who else will bid too?
Texas Dallas A
Is driving way too far north
Our condolences
Air Force won last year
They only lost one ballot
Can they win again?
Two new teams are here
Colorado State Rams and
Boise State Broncos
We wish everyone
The best of luck in breaking
Through this open field
Team to Watch: UT Dallas A
What if I told you in the sleepy regionals of Colorado Springs, there lies a hidden threat? What if I told you this team was on the verge of making a historic Nats run last year? What if I told you this team has proven they can hang with the top names on the AMTA circuit? Would that change your mind about the Colorado regionals being an absolute joke? Probably not. But, no matter what regionals they were at, we would tell y’all to keep your eye on UT Dallas A. Picture this: it is week 1 of ORCS last season. UT Dallas B is getting their teeth kicked in out in Santa Monica while UT Dallas A is going crazy out in Arlington. They split with the Cinderella story of 2022, Dillard A, then pull off a +11 -10 split against Rhodes A. A double digit pull on one of the biggest names in Mock has them riding high. Going into their C and D bracket rounds, they feel confident. Then, two tied ballots later, they are just shy of the podium. One more point on either of those ballots, and these Temocs would have been in Memphis. We imagine Dallas is hungry for more this season. Going into regionals, Dallas has something these teams in Colorado don’t: experience hitting top teams. Two teams to ORCS last year means UT Dallas has been exposed to high level mock. They know what separates winners from losers and a 6-2 finish at Rice shows they are taking the lessons to heart. In short, we are hopeful UT Dallas can soar here. Because if they can’t take off in Colorado in February, they probably won’t be flying to Chicago in April.
Dayton: (25 Teams) ‘Bubble Blowout’ (MAIMD Ranking 7/30)
-1 team in top 50, 4 teams in top 100, 11 teams in top 200
First In:
Ohio State A
Bubble:
UT Chattanooga A
Vanderbilt A
Pittsburgh A
Michigan C
Northwestern C
Northwestern D
Dayton A
Duquesne A
Eastern Kentucky A
Kentucky A
Initial Thoughts:
Only having one first-in team isn’t a call we usually make lightly, but for Ohio State, it just makes sense. They’ve got one of the best lineups they’ve ever had on their A team this season– with names like Drew Polito, Jon Hubbard, Michael Ragnone, Abigail Cohen, and Leah Salit rounding out their roster, they’ve given us a hell of a show in the fall. First and second at Illini, first and fourth at Spartan, third and fourth on their home court, and most recently an impressive fifth place at GAMTI–with a 2-1 victory over the eventual GAMTI champs, Virginia. We’ll have more to say down the line when it comes to what Ohio State will be up to in April, but suffice it to say the Buckeyes will bid. If they don’t we’ll be clutching our pearls.
But that’s where the near certainties (and our truncated First In list) end. At the top of the bubble we have a few teams in interesting spots this year. First off, we have UT Chattanooga, a nationals returner with a big question mark next to their name. Last year they scraped through to nationals after ending up on the open bid list on their way to ORCS. Now, they’ve got an A team with almost no returning members from that Memphis squad–which could mean that UT is back to the drawing board and back to the open bid list. With a green team and no impressive records so far, we’re unsure if they’ll build on their scramble to success from last year, or if this season will have to be focused on rebuilding. That’s not to say that the Mocs don’t have some stars in the making: witness Justin LaPorta and attorney Stephen Scott have both earned individual hardware this past fall, and they’ll surely be looking to add to their collection in Dayton.
Moving down the Bubble, we find another team that has also lost some of their old A-team members: Vanderbilt. Competitors Maddie Lorenz and Chris Ochoa are sure to be missed, but any returners on the Commodores may manage to make up for their absence with zeal. They’re sure to be hungry after last year’s disappointing finish– a brutal 6-2 ORCS record that just wasn’t good enough in Geneva for a ticket to Memphis. More likely than not, they’re working overtime to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and their lineup is stacked with consistently impressive performers like Anavi Jain, Rebecca Weintraub, Lizzie Tucker, Tanner Davis, and Jessica Peng. This is definitely a team to be scared of.
There are a lot of good teams in this region that might be able to take their place on the podium beside OSU A, so we can’t cover them all– but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention our hosts at Dayton. Dayton A gained a lot of traction (and a lot of blogosphere attention) last year with their star attorney and TBC competitor Arabella Loera. But Loera (and her laundry list of awards) isn’t here anymore. Instead we have Nino LaCorte and Taryn Mitchell double threats who have amassed a small collection of awards between them. Who knows if Dayton is reeling from the Loera loss, or if they’ll be able to snag a trophy and a bid. After all this is Dayton: just a few hours away from the Rock and Roll Hall of fame (this writer has limited Ohio knowledge). Anything could happen.
Good luck to the Norse of Northern Kentucky as they attend their first regionals!
Team to Watch: Eastern Kentucky A
They walk among us. You see them everywhere–in class, in the world, if you’re very, very lucky even in your program’s info session. People who are no question, fantastic beyond fantastic–the kind of voice and presence that can step into a well and steal ranks of a fourth-year competitor with perfect content by just opening their mouth and making a baseless 403 objection. Some people with that kind of raw talent go into programs that take their abilities and strap them to a script and a technical knowledge that make them all-time, once in a generation unbeatable–UMBC’s Sydney Gaskins or Yale’s Dan Stern come to mind. Eastern Kentucky’s frontman double-closer, Parker White, is one of those honest-to-goodness born mock superheroes. He has god-given charisma and a fantastic presence in the well, which he utilizes for evocative closing arguments and crier crosses that sometimes manage to be a highlight moment of the round. But unlike Gaskins or Stern, Parker White isn’t from a program that regularly makes the NCT podium. He doesn’t have a mock mastermind like Ben Garmoe to show him the ropes. While EKU’s faculty coaches, Thomas C. Parker and Lynnette S. Noblitt did have enough mock ability to spawn the zygote that would go on to become famed spotify rapper and Yale mocker Everett Parker Noblitt, they don’t appear to do enough oversight to ensure their team writes crosses with signposts. And so a matchup against EKU is…strange. They won’t be firing back your objections with an exact and cutting understanding of the rules of evidence. Their scripts will be haphazard, cliched, sometimes even ill-memorized. Don’t expect EKU’s standout upperclassmen witnesses like expert Carly Frost or crier cowboy Will Lampert to fight your cross points with poise and energy–expect them to haggle tooth and nail like they’re from an out-and-out unranked program. Don’t expect Parker ‘has dropped one rank between three tournaments this season’ White to have exhaustive and perfect knowledge of the rules of evidence–expect him to make a poorly-timed 802 objection and still sway the judges. Believe it or not, this is exactly the thing that makes Eastern Kentucky one to keep an eye on in Dayton. For one, because their shirking of top 48 mock technical skill isn’t always enough to lose them a ballot to teams that are following inside-baseball mock rules, especially with a judging field like regionals. But for another, EKU is a team that is only a few technical tweaks away from getting to play in the big leagues. If they’re going to make that happen. It’ll happen in Dayton. We wish them the best of luck.
South Bend: (24 Teams) ‘Secretary of Transportation’ (MAIMD Ranking 3/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 5 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
WashU St. Louis A
Notre Dame A
University of Illinois A
Bubble:
Michigan State A
Case Western A
Notre Dame B
Northern Illinois A
IUPUI A
DePaul A
Purdue A
Initial Thoughts:
Any way you slice it, this is a hard regional. To start off we've got the back-to-back heavy hitters of Wash U A and Notre Dame A, both coming off Nationals appearances and both of whom have started off strong this season. WashU in particular has been having a standout fall, with multiple invitational wins and a 7th place GAMTI showing. Expect to see names like Sarah Rosen, Gavin Cohen, and Elijah Weisman on the South Bend tab summary come February. Our regional host Notre Dame isn't one to be written off either - though they've graduated some talent, they're returning TBC competitor Charles Stock and rounding out their team with rising stars like MacKenzie Stewart and Ella Cain.
What really makes this Regional dangerous, though, is that it doesn't stop at the Nats returners. After missing out on Nats by a CS tiebreaker not just once but two years in a row, we expect that Illinois is chomping at the bit to prove they belong on the big stage. With a GOT win and thirteen individual awards under their belt since stack, we wouldn't put it past them to slice through the field in South Bend like a hot knife through a pat of butter. And then you've got the two crops of Spartans: Case Western, a team full of up-and-coming superstars eager to break through, and Michigan State, yet another team with a winning record at ORCS last season and a strong tournament win this fall (BRIC). Truly any of these teams would be First Ins at most other regionals, and we're both excited and nervous to see how the matchups shake out for them in two months. In case you thought this regional needed more depth to go along with its high-end strength, we also have to keep in mind the B team for the Fighting Irish, as well as former powerhouse NIU and frequent ORCS threats like Purdue, IUPUI, and DePaul.
One of the few silver linings in South Bend is the relatively high number of unranked teams relative to other regionals. But even this is somewhat undercut by the presence of multiple C and D teams from competitive programs that could be threatening despite their official TPR invisibility. First example, while they didn't make our bubble list because they have not been impressive in the past, it's worth noting that this regional includes the C team of a program that last year qualified both A and B to Nats (Hillsdale). And if there’s a time when such a C team might suddenly make the jump into relevance, it’s a year like this one.
We don't envy the competitive path for the teams at South Bend, but we're sure they're looking forward to some fantastic mock trial.
Good luck to the Screaming Eagles of Southern Indiana in their very first regional as a program!
Team to Watch: Case Western A
“If you replace every part of a (mock trial team), one by one, until none of the original parts remain… will it be the same (mock trial team)?”
At the end of every season, the AMTA community has to say goodbye to a class of talented, dedicated graduating seniors. Let me tell you, dear reader: we at Mock Analysis Is My Dullur recognize the significance of the loss Case Western took when their Class of 2023 graduated. With the departure of competitors like Zoe Swenson, Enya Eettickal, and Prateek Dullur, Case Western lost all but two of the rest of their A Team competitors to the tragedy of low mock retention and went into the 2023 season with an A team that is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a newborn squirrel. Case Western’s A Team is a face that consistently appears at ORCS – and that, combined with their new look, new experience A Team composition makes them the team to watch in South Bend. The Spartans, having initiated the most confusing fake-hostage scenario in AMTA history at their invitational, will look to continue their streak of ORCS appearances at one of the hardest regionals in the country. They have the talent to do just that. Attorney Aashka Gupta is a brilliant performer who has awarded at every invite she’s appeared at this year, most recently receiving a double award at Badger the Witness. Jay Siva has also picked up a smattering of awards, and will light up Notre Dame’s campus with his personable attitude and excellent expert witness skills. What’s really interesting is that Gupta and Siva are just the returning talent mentioned earlier – Case Western A is mostly defined by the new talent on the team, like versatile witness Meera MacMullen and highly technical attorney Arjun Narsipur. This team has the ability to take ballots off the scariest, stockiest teams at this regional – the question is whether they have the experience to handle the pressure that comes in those moments. Now that Case Western has replaced most parts of their regionals-bid-winning machine… are they still the same team?
State College: (26 Teams) ‘Contenders, Pretenders, or A Secret Third Thing’ (MAIMD Ranking 13/30)
-3 teams in top 50, 3 teams in top 100, 7 teams in top 200
First In:
Georgetown A
Juniata A
Bubble:
Dickinson A
Dickinson B
Juniata B
Penn State B
Rochester A
Rochester B
Georgetown B
Wesleyan C
Initial Thoughts:
As a (somewhat) veteran Mock Analyzer at this point, this author feels a bit like a rather unfortunate attorney at their first tournament. You probably know the feeling. Opposing counsel objects to something you hadn’t considered, perhaps a witness says something you didn’t expect, or (God forbid) the judges actually do think that “Blinded by the need to Blame” is just a tad bit unoriginal for a defense theme. All of the teams at this regional seem poised to put us in just such a state of confusion. And that makes it very hard to distinguish whether they’re contenders, pretenders, or a secret third thing.
Perhaps it’s a bit helpful to explain why I’m confused. Take the curious case of Georgetown A. In April, they won 3rd in the Pohlmann division, going 9-3 in a weekend where they hit Chicago A, and Fordham Lincoln Center A, both teams that (despite their difference in resumes) can very much hold their own in a Nationals environment. They headed into this season returning one of their first All-Americans since 2019, Captain Adam Hamdian, so it certainly looks like they’re in good hands. For that reason, we fully expect them to bid out of regionals, and we would ordinarily confidently predict that they would go much further. But this season, Georgetown haven’t exactly gone out and set the world on fire (in line with administration-approved Ignatian spirituality). While the Bulldogs don’t tend to amaze during invite season, this is a program that has (at the time of writing, while I probably should be studying for finals) earned just one (1) winning record this season. One! So this team that should be a contender looks like they may be ready to expose themselves as pretenders. On that topic, it’s important to note that Juniata A is here. We expect that they could fall into one of the above categories, or maybe not. Nobody ever knows what to do with them, certainly not teams that have to deal with their shenanigans at captains meetings.
Moving on to our bubble, consider Dickinson A. Two years ago, this was a team that was almost as loud and intimidating in the courtroom as they are on Mock Trial Confessions . But since then things have changed for Dickinson. They missed out on a bid to Memphis in 2023, going 4-4 in New Rochelle ORCS (to be fair, the absolutely brutal New Rochelle field also felled the notoriously competitive Harvard A as well). This year, we have faith in the Dicks* at least at Regionals, but we will be closely watching their trajectory to see where new leadership like play-in contender and All-American Isaiah Banuelos and Double Threat Daniel Kline take them going forward. Meanwhile, Rochester seems to have escaped their unfortunate pattern of needing an open bid to get to ORCS in the last few years. But the downside for them is that they have also escaped their pattern of converting those open bids to ORCS into direct bids to NCT. So perhaps Rochester should hope to do just a little worse at regionals than last year. If that doesn’t make them a secret third thing, I don’t know what does.
The rest of the bubble is filled out with some strong B sides from programs that tend to reliably move onto March mock trial. But will their B teams as well? It’s all a bit of a question mark for us.
Good Luck to the Gryphons of the University of Guelph and the Cougars of Lehigh Carbon Community College, our new teams in this regional!
*I did not feel like looking up their mascot. Johnathan Woodward be damned.**
**I don’t actually dislike Johnathan Woodward he’s a really nice guy I’m sorry Johnathan
Team to Watch: University of Guelph A
Does this author know anything at all about the University of Guelph? Other than the fact that they have a funny name and a well-groomed Instagram page, not really. But within well-groomed Instagram pages often hide secrets—enough secrets to perhaps elevate Guelph to the category of “secret third thing” themselves. While I will admit I’m not super studied on the ins and outs of Canadian mock trial, I can tell you that it’s a little different from what we of the American Mock Trial Association know as mock trial: there are fewer competitors per team competing in a different tournament format. Our northern neighbors seem to be pretty good at northern mock trial; they recently took a number of awards home from the University of Toronto Cup, including third place and best attorney at the entire tournament for one Noah Boudreault. Guelph even hosts their own invitational—one touted as one of the largest mock trial competitions in Canada—so it’s fair to say they know what they’re doing up there. The question that makes us interested in the University of Good Ole Guelph is whether or not that skill will translate across the border. The State College regional is the first time we’re going to get to see what the Gryphons are capable on this side of Lake Erie, and if you say you’re not even a bit curious to see how they perform (and whether or not that classic Canadian goodwill can bring about a net 0 in vibes at the same regional Juniata is), then YOU might be the pretender.
San Diego: (18 Teams) ‘Fresno Got Harder And Here Is The Proof’ (MAIMD Ranking 27/30)
-1 teams in top 50, 2 teams in top 100, 4 teams in top 200
First In:
UCLA B
Bubble:
Cal Poly SLO A
Pomona A
UCSD A
Arizona State E
UCLA D
Initial Thoughts:
We really do feel bad for our friends on the West Coast. For years, they’ve taken the internet by storm with their barrage of complaints: “Santa Monica is too hard for an ORCS!” “Fresno is too hard for a regionals!” “Can they send Berkeley or UCLA or Irvine somewhere else?” Now, no one will take their complaints seriously. Because if there was ever a regionals to call a cakewalk, San Diego is the ultimate bakery stroll.
So let’s start doing a 5 bid countdown. Bid #1 goes to our third place team from Nats this last year: UCLA B. After being in our Bubble on every single write-up last year, they’ve broken through to first-in favorites for 2023. If history is any indicator, we don’t predict they’ll have any problems getting up to the podium. Last AMTA season, the (B)ruins only dropped four ballots–one at ORCS, one at Regionals, and two at NCT, leaving them with a heartbreaker of a 2nd place finish in their division and nearly giving us a UCLA on UCLA final round. They’ll be looking to repeat that feat in February. Keep an eye out for everyone’s favorite double-threat leprechaun Kole Alfonso to put on a show for the fine folks of San Diego.
This is the part where we’d count down our predictions for bids #2-#5! The obvious picks for those are… nobody? After UCLA B, we really are at a loss for who to bet on taking home the next bid. You have two teams that have fallen from grace: UCSD A and Cal Poly SLO A. The Tritons made it to Nationals two years back but haven’t left regionals with a record solid enough to muster a bid in the two years since. As for Cal Poly SLO’s mustangs, they were present at NCT in Lancaster but couldn’t quite punch their ticket to Memphis after losing their entire A team bench. Both teams have some real standouts in Jayden Xia and Kyle Barba, so there is a strong chance they put the pieces together this spring and make it to ORCS. After that, it is anyone’s guess.
So there go bids 2(?) and 3(?), what about the rest? You have lower teams from respected programs like UCLA and ASU. Those programs know a thing or two about depth and will probably be in contention for a bid even in the D-F range. Pomona always seems to claw their way into ORCS only to get smacked down by top teams. In a pool like this, we wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them finish in the top five. Also in the mix for a potential trip to Los Angeles is Moorpark, a little known community college in Southern California. While the name might not ring a bell, Moorpark has some more mock pizazz than you might know. After all, All-American and UCLA B coach Riley Shapiro as well as All-American, Gladiator winner, and 2021 Trial By Combat Champion Audrey Shepherd both competed for Moorpark before transferring to UCLA to pick up the laurels they’d go on to be known for. We can’t count them out in San Diego–Moorpark certainly has a history of breeding talent.
We wish we could give you more certainty, but in all honesty we are stumped. UCLA B will make it out, and from there it is anyone’s game. Not only is it a bloodbath of low ranked teams, it is also uncharted territory for a lot of these programs. Unless they’ve attended UCSD’s invitational, most of our competitors are heading into a judge pool they’ve never seen before. So best of luck to our only Regional during week 2! We expect to see sun, and some bubble bursters.
Team to Watch: UC San Diego A
What happened? That’s the question that most people ask on the west coast when they talk about UCSD A. From being a regular attendee at nationals, to missing out the past two seasons, and most recently not even qualifying for ORCS in 2023. Maybe it's turnover. Maybe it’s the transition between zoom and in person. We can’t really say why UCSD hasn’t been one of the powerhouses on the west coast like we’re accustomed to seeing. What we can say, this year, UCSD has come out firing with some incredible individual performances. Jayden Xia is a name you should expect to see all over west coast tab summaries, consistently playing a charismatic and charming array of witnesses. Alongside him are some incredible attorneys. Former gladiator Sammie Morris Beber can hold down both sides of the bench by putting on a masterclass in precision. Then come the dynamite statement givers. Taylor Ireland has been one of the best competitors in the country taking home 4 different individual awards for both her charismatic attorney and lovable character witnesses. And Risa Saulino, a longtime staple of UCSD A seems to have come into her own awarding against some high level competition at Mocktopia this past fall. UCSD has the pieces. Now it’s a matter of gelling them together. While we’re unsure of what surprises this new San Diego regional may hold, UCSD is showing the rumblings of a return to former glory, and it all starts right on their home turf.
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