Qualifying for the CCCT

CCCT logo

Teams interested in competing at the Community College Championship Tournament (CCCT) should arrange to attend one of the Community College Sectional Championship Tournaments (CC SCTs) held in January of the same year. Essentially all qualification for the CCCT is done via performance at that year’s CC SCTs.

Invitations

Participating schools should keep in mind that schools, and not individuals or teams, receive invitations to the CCCT. A school that receives an invitation may send any eligible players even if they did not compete at a Sectional, competed at a Sectional on a team that did not qualify, or competed at a Sectional on a different team that did qualify. This is true even if a school receives multiple bids; there is no requirement that the same players who earned those bids play on the same teams (or play at all) at the CCCT.

Qualification Criteria

The overall champion from each CC SCT with at least four teams receives an automatic invitation.

The remaining teams that competed at CC SCTs will be ordered according to a calculated statistic (the “D-Value”) and the remaining invitations will be issued in order from the highest value to the lowest value. These invitations are issued without regard to the Sectional attended.

The teams that competed but did not receive original invitations will form a waitlist for the CCCT; they will be invited in the order specified by their D-Values if teams decline their invitations. These invitations are also issued without regard to the Sectional attended. Note that the waitlist is different from the standby list.

Hosts of CC SCTs do not receive automatic bids to the CCCT; this is different from NAQT’s four-year program.

D-Values

The D-Value system combines statistical measures of tossup performance and bonus performance and includes corrections for opponent strength.

Wildcard Invitations

NAQT accepts wildcard applications from schools that did not qualify by the above criteria but whose teams have demonstrated a high quality of play in academic competition throughout the year. Particular consideration will be given to schools that, for geographical reasons, had difficulty attending NAQT tournaments.

NAQT reserves the right to accept wildcard applications at any time after they have been submitted; that is, NAQT may accept particularly strong applications immediately but may postpone making a decision on others until further tournaments have completed or it has a better idea how many CCCT spots will be taken by automatic qualifiers. Teams may inquire as to the status of their request at any time. NAQT understands that wildcard teams need to know whether or not they can attend the tournament as soon as possible and will make every effort to contact teams as soon as a final decision has been made about their request.

Standby Teams

Teams located near the tournament site may be interested in attending on a standby basis. Standby teams are not guaranteed a spot in the field, but if there is a last-minute cancellation, they’ll replace the missing team without paying a registration fee.

Other

NAQT may decline to issue, rescind, or attach additional conditions to an invitation, if it finds that one of more of the recipient school’s players, coaches, or other affiliates engaged in conduct inconsistent with Section K of the Official NAQT Rules. This may be applied to conduct that occurred at quiz bowl tournaments (regardless of whether the tournaments used the Official NAQT Rules and/or NAQT questions) or outside of tournaments.

Questions

Questions, comments, or suggestions may be directed to NAQT at ccct@naqt.com.