An Inspirational Pinecone

As someone who loves mindlessly staring at stats and then completely forgetting them afterwards this was awesome to look at, thanks for making this!

I'd also like the recaps

So I'd say it's pretty well known that scores took a MASSIVE leap in 2017, which at the time was considered the most competitive San Antonio competition ever, and that level of competition has been repeated over and over the last 5 years. I wanted to know why the scores inflated outside of it being more competitive? Because it's all the same bands outside of Avon in 2017, and it's not like the bands that scored an 82 to 86 in 2016 suddenly jumped 8 points in 2017. Did the judges buy into the hype that year and the current scores are the repercussions of that? Really curious what y'all think the reason is. Top Halves: 2022 - 95.29 2021 - 94.16 2019 - 95.37 2018 - 95.44 2017 - 95.15 Avg - 95.08 2016 - 90.65 2015 - 91.41 2014 - 91.2 2013 - 90.79 2012 - 90.51 Avg - 90.91 Bottom Halves: 2022 - 90.36 2021 - 89.69 2019 - 89.62 2018 - 90.16 2017 - 90.55 Avg - 90.08 2016 - 85.3 2015 - 86.47 2014 - 85.94 2013 - 87.15 2012 - 85.53 Avg - 86.08

When I was at TWHS 16-19 we got like the first part and maybe a little extra in May and then learned the rest as the season went on. All music was learned by early to mid October, I'd say. It's probably much different now with access to online musical programs that allow directors to test their students not in person

I know someone was making a drive of all the recordings they had in prelims, does that exist for finals as well?

We don't find out prelims scores until after finals scores are announced. We do get to see prelims scores before finals in UIL, though

The jump the Woodlands predictions made from prelims to finals is insane.. before it was anywhere from 7th to 11th and now they're sitting in 2nd. Reminds me of 2016 when Flower Mound played my favorite show oat and swept captions.

Pearland by this point is a consistent finalist for a while now, I've considered them a lock for finals after they made it last year

Here's my finals predictions: 1. 95.85 - Hebron (GE, Music) 2. 95.3 - Vandergrift 3. 95.25 - CTJ (Visual) 4. 94.4 - Flower Mound 5. 94.05 - Ronald Reagan 6. 93.7 - Marcus 7. 92.65 - The Woodlands 8. 92.6 - Vista Ridge 9. 92.5 - Cedar Park 10. 91.8 - Cedar Ridge 11. 90.6 - Hendrickson 12. 90.3 - Round Rock 13. 89.95 - Cy-fair 14. 89.7 - Pearland If you're upset about my predictions know I literally know nothing about these bands, just having fun lol. I didn't watch a single band these last couple days so this is purely based on yalls comments. ALSO I fully believe all these bands plus a few more will score 90+ in prelims Edit: I guess this is also my finals bands predictions 😅

So I'm more of a casual fan of marching band and DCI so I can confidently say I had never heard of MG Johnson until I saw that they were going to Grand Nats. I wasn't sure what to expect from them because Texas is SO competitive but holy... reminds me of Vista in 2018 cause I had never heard of them before either and they came out of nowhere and took State. Excited for them to go to Indy and represent Texas!

Congrats to Cedar Ridge! The scores this year feel low compared to the last few years, any reason for that or is it just the judges?

Recaps are up and a closer look at BA's score... 19.9 and 19.8 music GE, 19.8 vis GE. Only .5 away from a perfect GE score. I don't think that'll ever get touched for the rest of time.

Insane scores all around, congrats to BA for the new record, congrats to my alum TWHS on the insane score (extremely proud of them). Gotta say I'm still upset at BOA's inconsistency when it comes to scores across competitions. CTJ and Ronald Reagan both somehow dropped by 3 points between SA and GN? I know for a fact it wasn't this hard to jump from bottom half to top half cause DB pushed us out back in 2017. Also Vista at 12th? And below a 90?

This might cement Pearland as a consistent finalist, glad to see another Houston band at the top

I'm also excited cause I know they'll blow past everyone's expectations. I'm expecting a top 5 finish from them

Really worried about TWHS after tonight. Not a fan of the ballad changes, also not a fan of how they sounded but I'll blame that on the cold. I don't think I've ever enjoyed something this much just to see it get completely changed before San Antonio before.

I thought people complained because there weren't enough long distance bands traveling to GN. Imagine if every Texas band + Tarpon, BA, DB, BS, and Wando went one year. Only regular faces you'd see from the area in finals are Avon and Carmel, maybe William Mason.

I'm honestly more worried for my alum cause before there were 5 contenders for first but now it feels like it's anyone's game. Still a firm believer in them and their banger of a show but there's a lot more competition

It's crazy to me how people seem to fall off the Vista hype at the start of each year just to bounce right back on as soon as they start performing well again. They did the exact same thing 2018 and 2019 but it's like people forget. Lots of talks about how they could be a bottom half band competing with Marcus and CP for that 7th spot. I know this is UIL and the judging is completely different and that this might not reflect BOA scores at all but still. I heard that The Woodlands used to be a band that cleaned like crazy in the later parts of the season but I think that title goes to VR now.

Wow those top 3 are incredibly close, all within 2 points. Oak Ridge not far behind at all just 3 from 3rd.

I've been thinking about that for a bit, like I do with everything you say, and I think the reason this show is so well designed is because they meant to do Chicago in 2020. Things happened and they went with West Side Story but that meant that they had over a year to think of ideas for this show.

Sorry for being ignorant but are any of them going to SA or State?

I know this is St Louis/Indy weekend but TWHS finally got a chance to perform their full show today and it is easily my favorite from them. They haven't performed the opener since boa Conroe and my god the visuals are clean. There's that one part in the opener that's kinda shaky when they get to the double tounging but I'm sure it'll get fixed. They have been working on the closer and it seems to change every show but it's gotten very colorful. Seems like the effect is too sudden and there's not a lot of impact coming from it but maybe it's just unpolished.

Yeah the ending feels very short. Saw a video of it and I'm glad they now have the woodwinds involved. I'm not too worried about the ending because I feel like they know it needs to be bigger.

Whole thing sounds like the Marcus Wall or Great Wall of Marcus or whatever it was called back when they dominated in Texas. Heard stories of them not budging or even moving their eyes when the results were over. Stood completely still during retreat too.