Vintense: I know that I'm not able to evaluate teams that haven't played in the NQ's; I just don't know how to do it. JT faces the same issues when he compares High School teams that play only in their state to other teams that travel, and he generally gives an edge to those that play against a broader spectrum of good teams. Doing the computer thing, you'd have to have regional results for everyone, which is not readily available even if you were able to spend the time. There are attempts to do this at the high school level, and those are dependent on people entering results into the database. But even then, the ratings tend to be okay within an area but not so much nation wide.

I didn't have an inkling how all this worked and what it meant last year. I realized I didn't know what I didn't know, but I knew there was a lot to it, and I set about educating myself. Doing these computer rankings for 14's is part of that ongoing education process. Here are some things I believe to be true:

A. Spending money to attend multiple NQs has huge impact on whether you qualify for Open. Look at the results and this becomes obvious. This is not a positive thing. Go JVDA.

B. If your goal is an Open bid, you have to learn the artform knows as "NQ selection". Either that, or have pockets so deep, and time so infinite, that you can attend them all.

C. Those that have the Open bids are not necessarily the top 28 teams in the country. There will be teams in the National division that could compete in the Open division equally as well as some of the teams with bids.

D. As a result of C, you can't just say that the winner of the National Division is "#29".

E. Because there are so many teams competing, winning Club division at an NQ (and of course at Nationals) is extremely difficult and should be considered a huge achievement. It has a different kind of difficulty than winning Open, but is 'similarly tough'. Keeping the fires burning and winning every match against teams you know you would beat say 8 out 10 times is not easy. It's much easier to fire up for a team you know can spank you hard. At least it is for our girls.

So how your team really fits in is hard to say, just as it is hard to compare "my" team (Arizona Storm 14 Thunder) with other teams that placed similarly at different NQ's, with your team, or with teams that have done well at the club level at the NQs. Dallas will provide some answers, but there will of course be great teams that never meet across the net.

Don't know if this is helpful or not...

The initial post is updated to include all of the FarWest results; looking forward to seeing what happens at Northern Lights! I think it will become reasonably clear which teams deserve the 2 at large berths, but who knows what will happen.

Okay folks, so who do think deserves the at-large bids, and who do you think will actually get them? My money is on these two:

NorthShore VBC - Wood
Uno Elite 14-1