2024 NCT Review

Our Predictions

We begin, as usual, with an evaluation of our predictions. Here are the top 10 from each division:

Clarence Darrow Division
Hillsdale
Michigan
Texas*
UCLA
Chicago
Rhodes B**
Princeton*
Boston University
Georgia
Southern California**

Myra Bradwell Division
Virginia
Rhodes*
Ohio State
Emory**
UCLA B
Yale
Florida
Michigan State**
Harvard
Patrick Henry

* Bubble
**Unpredicted Placement

We think we did pretty well. Both of the final round teams were in our final round favorites category. We accurately called 80% of the teams that placed. Every single one of our teams from the final round favorite or expect to place category ended up in honorable mention or better (with all but one placing). 50% of the All Americans were on our All American watch (and that number gets better when you account for situations where we highlighted one person from the school who ended up getting an All American and then other people from the school also All American-ed). We told you in our division write up that the biggest determining factor for which of our final round favorites made the championship in the Darrow division would be schedule because they all have a bad habit of splitting with each other. And, indeed, UCLA and Chicago were each the nail in the other’s coffin with a win-loss-tie against each other in round three, and Hillsdale broke from the over-crammed field by making it through with the lowest CS out of all of the placing teams (hey, you can only play the teams you’re paired against). We told you that the luck associated with pairing in a congested field would make space for at least one of our “expect to place teams” to leapfrog some of our final round favorites, and Michigan placed second after a schedule that involved only one of our favorites.

More objectively, if you rank the field 1-48 based on their performance at nationals, TPR’s predicted placement would have been 9.02 places off. Our predicted placements would have been only 8.25 places off. So our predictions were somewhat better than TPR. Our best two calls relative to TPR were Georgetown and Princeton. We predicted that Georgetown would be having a bit of a weak year relative to their past performances and we got 11 places closer than TPR, although we still rated them a little too high. We predicted that Princeton would significantly outperform their TPR after a strong showing all year, and got 10 places closer than TPR, although they outdid even our expectations.  Our worst calls were overrating Alabama and Virginia B. In both cases TPR predicted they would do quite poorly. In both cases we predicted they would do better. In reality both teams ended up placing somewhere between TPR and us but closer to TPR.

Tournament Reflections:

The Case
This year’s NCT case was deceptively difficult in ways that may have affected the outcome. It required the P side to, among other things, explain how blood thinners work, explain what compounded drugs are, explain what a compounding pharmacy is, explain how insurance can be exploited for a ‘kick-back scheme,’ lay out a complex conspiracy involving at least three witnesses who potentially are not in trial, and figure out a portrayal of either Robinson or Aggarwal that required a more nuanced and developed characterization than the typical Crier/Character/Expert role demands–all in 25 minutes total, and all while balancing that fact dump with having their witnesses act and speak like human beings. The D side had potential alt suspect crosses, a very tough defendant to play, and a lot of objections eliminated by the pretrial order.

The public sentiment when it first came out was that this case was pretty flat and relatively straightforward. Given the limitation on available objections and relatively few theory options, a lot of teams felt like there was much less challenge than other years. Having watched it as competitors, spectators, and judges, we disagree completely. It just put a premium on different things than many past years’ cases, and that caught a lot of teams off guard. Some cases reward teams that can build off the drama. Some cases reward teams that can adapt to new theories on their feet. Some cases reward teams that are simply willing to do an insane amount of work. This case put a premium on being able to explain a lot of very complicated ideas as simply and efficiently as possible. More than anything it rewarded teams that could strip the case to its essentials, dumb down the facts, and present what remains as cleanly as possible. Anyone who failed at that was left with a jury that could not see past their confusion about what was happening in order to appreciate the showmanship, or the drama, or the jokes.

This preference for a certain style of play showed itself in the results. Classically flashy, over performative, and dramatic teams suffered a bit at the hands of teams that specialize in deliberate presentation and simplicity. It is not a surprise that UVA won nationals this year (though this should not be taken as a slight on the tremendous amount of work it took them to achieve that status; more on that below), nor, in hindsight, is it a surprise that this is the year Rhodes made a return to placing two teams in the top 10. Similarly it is perhaps not surprising in hindsight that flashier and more technical teams like those we have seen in the last few finals struggled.

The Bias
Beyond style, the other big thing this case brought was a massive side bias. By our quick count, the case ran 57% P biased. It was 53% P biased in the Bradwell Division and a whopping 62% P biased in the Darrow division (and we were counting just what the judges put on the ballots, before factoring in CIC penalties). In Rounds 3 and 4 across both divisions the case had a P bias of 64%.

This produced weird results. For example, UVA dropped its round 3 to Rhodes while playing defense. It is rare for the national champion to have dropped a round, both because dropping a round usually allows your opponents to place above you and because the national champion is usually untouchable. But with a bias this strong, UVA (playing P) was able to turn around and sweep the third place OSU, while Rhodes (playing D) couldn’t sweep the tenth place Patrick Henry. This might make us indignant on behalf of Rhodes who had to fight the side bias in that determinative round. But, then again, UVA had to fight the bias when the two hit head to head in round three.

In the other division, meanwhile, our top three teams all emerged with a solid lead after round three. All three sported 8-1 records, two ballots ahead of the nearest challenger. But all three were playing defense. The questions simply became who survived the defense round best. Not one of our three front runners was able to pull out a win on the defense side. The laurels eventually went to Hilldale because they managed a 1-1-1 tie whereas the other two lost outright.

So, while normally we stand by AMTA’s methods of case balancing, this time we have to say: MTC, you were right all along; AMTA really does hate D attorneys.

The CIC
We want to take a moment to reflect on the second year of the CIC’s In-Tournament Review. While we’re not keen to wade into AMTA’s most controversial topic, it’s hard to deny that In-Tournament Review is becoming a major factor in how teams approach NCT. At times, our contributors saw actual lines out the door for the committee. Some teams at NCT complained every round they competed in. That makes some sense. Knowing that a successful complaint could flip ballots in their favor, teams are incentivized to find something to bring to the committee, with limited downside if their complaint doesn’t pan out. For this year, AMTA implemented a frivolous complaint rule, but the rule was narrowly defined and never enforced this weekend (or ever). Teams also seemed unconcerned about the reputational hits they might take in the eyes of the CIC (or, for that matter, their opponents) for bringing meritless complaints. Instead, teams seemed willing to gamble on making any complaint they could think of in the hope that something would stick. Effectively, it appears that In-Tournament Review is being used as a competitive mechanism, not just a means of enforcing the rules.

Nor do we expect the rate of complaints to slow down anytime soon. Three teams got point bonuses based on CIC complaints (doubling the number of teams that have successfully changed the outcome of ballots in the history of AMTA). One team placed because of one of these bonuses who would not have placed had the CIC not given them extra points. Teams may see this as setting a precedent that complaining to the CIC will work. On the other hand, it doesn’t work all the time. Perhaps the fact that there were only three point deductions, despite long lines of complaining teams, shows that the CIC took an overall conservative approach. We know, for instance, that the CIC issued several warnings instead of point deductions after finding violations. Either way, the fact remains that there seemed to be little to deter teams from complaining, and  the fact that it worked in some cases may spur increased use of the CIC going forward

But even setting aside how teams are handling In-Tournament Review, we want to give people who weren’t there a sense of how AMTA was using the rule. We aren’t going to wade into the merits of any of the complaints or what the rule should be, but we will discuss the process.

One thing we saw pretty consistently was the strain that CIC review put on the already stressed out teams at NCT. Teams often had very little time to respond to complaints. Far from the 72 hours teams are normally given, teams at NCT often had 30 minutes or less to respond to technical allegations between rounds (while trying to do all the other things one needs to do between rounds). Suddenly you had teams worried that a process that could affect, not only their chances for the weekend, but potentially their professional reputations down the line (given the anonymity issues discussed below) needed to be completed very quickly before they had a chance to prepare a thorough and thoughtful response. While this system had some obvious benefits—the quick turnaround avoided forcing students to pull all-nighters to respond to complaints during the competition, and ensured that students had closure before the end of the weekend—teams may have found them outweighed by the demerits of this tight timeline.

Even for teams not involved in the complaints, in-tournament review posed an additional challenge for this year’s NCT field. In light of the influx of complaints, the CIC issued an advisory opinion addressing four different inventions in the Captain’s GroupMe under an hour before round start. While—with the risk of sanctions on the line—no team was against additional advice, the opinions being offered weren’t the well-developed paragraphs we’ve seen thus far from the CIC. Instead, they were one-or-two sentences descriptions of rulings that teams had to adapt their scripts to under short notice. To an outside observer, Justin Lee’s final round amnesia Defendant direct—featuring the phrase ‘I don’t remember’ 26 times, by our count—might have seemed like an awkward content decision. But it may well have been the result of a last second alteration to a script that initially allowed the defendant to engage in the decidedly ordinary practice of denying the allegations against him. Hillsdale wouldn’t be the only team that panicked and changed their content very quickly before the high-stakes rounds as a result of a CIC notification that a team had been warned that the defendant could not outright deny allegations when the affidavit was vague on this point. Time will tell if this particular problem was the result of kinks being worked out in a new system, or if the ability to adapt to the CIC’s interpretation of the case materials will become a staple skill set required of NCT teams (effectively creating a situation where you have to be prepared for what feel like case changes mid-tournament).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this year’s NCT brought into focus an issue in the way AMTA has been handling the announcement of point penalties.  Up until last season, AMTA avoided telling anyone who the sanctioned teams had been. The rulebook even still states that “the Secretary shall create a public version of the sanction which, whenever possible, does not identify the sanctioned school or individual by name.” But AMTA seems to have decided that, when it issues point penalties, instead of just quietly changing the tab summary to reflect different PD’s and round outcomes, they need to add a public asterisk to the names of all affected teams and explain that the teams lost points due to violations. This asterisk was also displayed next to the program designation of individual competitors who received an All-American (meaning that it will forever be attached, not just to a team number, but to their name). Because AMTA’s current rulebook still labels material invention of fact as an ‘ethical violation’ (although we at MAIMD know of few if any members of the AMTA community who would seriously regard it that way), publically designating teams as committing those violations and individual competitors as being involved runs the risk of impacting future career or educational opportunities (whether such consequences are remotely deserved or not). As Will Warihay has reminded us, anything published online about a competitor, negative or positive, is potentially accessible by employers or applications committees. So, needless to say, people get a bit scared of the CIC.


The Final
Then we get to the final round. While, as people on Mock Trial Confessions quickly and aggressively pointed out, this wasn’t the flashiest final round there’s ever been, we think both teams have been somewhat underrated online. Virginia’s intricately written and meticulously structured directs and crosses are nothing less than a triumph of content construction, and they were remarkable and exceptional in their success in simplifying the facts—likely, a huge factor in their victory.

We take the time to sing these praises when we’ve passed up the chance in other years because we think Virginia's success highlights an important lesson for the AMTA circuit and the aspiring final round programs. While Virginia did not play jenga or whip out a tape measure or sling fake cocaine around or give us any other dramatic ‘moment’ that sticks out, they did do one of the greatest challenges of the activity—simplifying a 100+ page fact pattern into a coherent and compelling story—better than anyone else in the country. We hope that when teams watch this round, they can observe and highlight what Virginia did here, and imitate it for future cases.

Similarly, we want to give a shoutout to our runners-up, the Chargers of Hillsdale. Since the advent of the new case for Nationals 9 years ago, where we typically delineate the modern era of Mock Trial beginning, there have been 8 teams to have made a final round: Harvard, Yale, Virginia, Miami, Rhodes, UMBC, UChicago, UCLA, and now Hillsdale. Many of these programs have robust resources at their disposal—including an experienced coaching staff or alumni network to assist. Most of these programs have the advantage of having been at most of, if not all, of the 9 new case NCTs to get to re-tool their strategy and re-work how they approach doing high level prep in only a month. There’s a reason the list is so short, and it’s because the task of winning a NCT division is a massive one, and the more help you have in doing so the more possible it really is.

It might not feel to competitors now like Hillsdale is much of an underdog. They were third place at last year’s NCT, and we were able to correctly predict they were knocking on the door of a final this year. It certainly isn’t that they’ve come out of nowhere. But it also wasn’t that long ago that the Chargers flew out to Lancaster for their first-ever NCT, with then-underclassmen Sampson, Davis, and Herbert bright-eyed and bushy tailed for their first taste of the top 48. In the span of how long it typically takes to build powerhouses, Hillsdale has done in three seasons what takes some programs nearly a decade–and what most programs never do at all, and to top it all off they’ve done it from the ground up. If there was ever a team that proved you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it’s the Chargers. Jonathan Church and his band of midwestern menaces have a lot to be proud of.

Final Thoughts:

Finally, we just wanted to comment on a quick thing we’ve observed this past weekend and in the months leading up to it: a seemingly increased attention to our posts and the predictions or observations we make about teams. From the captains parade to the various instagram shoutouts quoting our writeup’s wording, it was really evident how many people care enough to read and remember what we have to say. We are, of course, flattered beyond belief. All our team does this because they love the activity and want to give the community something back, and even though we are far, far from perfect analysts, it really and truly means the world to know that people care in the least about what we have to say. If you have ever read our posts and enjoyed them, thank you: You’re what makes the work it takes to put these writeups and graphs and charts together all worth it.

But in the same vein, we also noticed that there were more than a few teams who—quite justifiably—have taken the time to point out mistakes we’ve made or talent we’ve overlooked. That’s more than fair, and we’re not here to say that anyone is wrong to be frustrated we overlooked a brilliant future All-American or left their team out of our predictions post despite them being an A Bracket group who went on to bid out (sorry UMBC!). But with this increased attention, we do want to emphasize: We are attentive, not omnipotent. Sometimes when you Emu the Emu, you get Emu’d. Sometimes we make wrong calls or mistakes because we overpredict or analyze incorrectly, but far, far more often, it’s simply because we don’t know. If you, your team, or someone on the circuit you love is fantastic and we were bullish on their chances, please know that it likely is not because we’ve judged their ability and found them wanting, but because we just haven’t seen them do what it is they do best. We will, as a team of volunteers, inevitably make similar mistakes going forward. We just want to emphasize that no one should take our errors to heart as an estimation of their team’s worth or skill. When we started this project way, way back in 2017 (when Impeachments was still Perjuries), we wrote at the top of all of our posts that our intent was to start a discussion, not have the final word. If anything, we hope you take the advice we put at the top of most of our writeups, and go ahead and prove us wrong.

On that note, the easiest way to shrink our blind spots and solve the problem of us missing talent is to help us out! Our applications will be opening soon, and if you think there’s a region of the country or a style of mock we just don’t get, then by all means please apply to join us and help us improve! We are anxiously looking for applicants who know where Colorado is on a map.