bchorn

I love McNeil's show but I would be shocked if they cracked the top 6.

I think it's going to be difficult for McNeil to crack the top 6...but that doesn't necessarily mean McNeil took a step back over last year. It'll be difficult because this year TMC will have IMO this most competitive lineup TMC has had since the pandemic. There's going to be some good bands this year who would have qualified for finals at prior contests who will not qualify for finals this year. So McNeil making finals THIS YEAR will be a big accomplishment...and I think they will do it.

Way to go McNeil for getting first place in 6A!!!

It was a narrow win last year and then McNeil beat Churchill at Area. So I would say the bands are even at this point until a head to head matchup happens.

Not sure this is what you're looking for but here's my stab at it. First off, I was at finals and I can say the scores and the score gaps I think were pretty spot on. Here's how I would classify the bands Tier 1 84.75 Dripping Spring Tier 2 83.2 Bowie Tier 3 81.9 McNeil 81.75 Moe & Gene Johnson 81.65 Louis D Brandies 80.9 Hendrickson 78.3 CTJ Tier 4 74.25 Peiper 74.0 Lockhart 73.65 William B Travis 72.85 Liberty Hill 71.55 A&M Consolidated I though CTJ's score was a little low. They seemed worthy of being in the top 6. I would also say it was a toss up between all the bands in tier 3...and different judges would give a different order.

I think they had a great show this year as well. The score placements for them have been very puzzling.

How on earth did McNeil beat Westlake, Leander, Moe & Gene Johnson, and Lake Travis (in prelims) at TMC? That finish for McNeil is looking more and more like an fluke/outlier.

Texas is on a whole another planet when it comes to marching bands right now. Remember that Westwood finished 3rd at the St Louis Super Regional and yet couldn't even finish in the top 14 at the this Super Regional...despite 5 of last year's finalists not returning. It's insane how good the bands are in Texas right now.

No...just do it all at once so we don't overload the server with refreshes hearing 14 finalists.

Not really. It's just two different scales for the same range. It's like comparing 10 one dollar bills and 100 dimes and saying one is worth more than the other.

Honestly, rather than debate the Area D finalists with each other, I'm much more interested in debating the strength of the Area D finalists as a whole compared to other Areas. So I'm very interested to see how all the Area D finalists do at BOA San Antonio next week. We'll get a good idea of how strong this Area is against the rest of the best.

Looking at this prelim scores Churchill (56) was closer to Hutto (57) and Weiss (60) than they were with McNeil (46).

What must be frustrating for McNeil is despite improving all around (from show design to music to drill) over the last 3 years that they've continually finished 9th place in Area each one of those 3 years. I definitely feel for them.

I spoke with some Westwood parents last night and yes...they were planning on doing all three if they made state. 😱

Yeah, I am not a fan of lumping all parents from a particular band together with a few parents someone sat next to. Yes, there may be some new parents who aren't familiar with the contest etiquette. But lets not disparage the entire band because of a tiny few.

McNeil was a bit of a surprise to me though. They beat Dripping Springs by 1 place last week at TMC but this week there was big separation between the two. They beat Moe & Gene Johnson by 4 places at TMC but this week Johnson lapped them. Last week their music scores tied Round Rock in the prelims and this week there was even bigger separation between the two.

Cedar Ridge had two judges that didn't like them. One music judge had them at 7th and one visual judge had them at 9th. On the flip side they had another put them at 2nd. Honestly, there were only three bands that got consistent ordinals from the judges: Reagan (1st), McNeil (9th), and Churchill (10th). So I chalk up 2nd-8th as being pretty close together to create wild fluctuations.

Can the OP or an admin add the year to the thread title please. 😀

Oh yeah...Leander ISD split off from the Austin ISD/RR ISD area a while ago. Its crazy how many really good bands are in Austin.

I'm confused. None of the bands I mentioned are Leander ISD. In fact, all of the bands I mentioned are in Area D and will be competing against each other on Saturday night.

Area D is going to be insanely competitive this year with Westwood, McNeil, Hutto, and Churchill stepping it up. Throw in the usual state contenders (Round Rock, Reagan, CTJ, Dripping Springs, Bowie, and Cedar Ridge) and you can see there's going to be some really deserving bands of state that unfortunately won't go to state.

Stony Point made a huge leap over last year. I actually like their show! I hope they continue their upward trajectory.

So I pointed something out about BOA Austin that I think people overlooked. Some judges are hestitant to give out big scores earlier in finals than later. This is why the lower block of finals performs first and then the higher block performs second. The same is true within a block as well. Vandy performed 1st in the upper block at BOA Austin finals...and Rouse performed last in the upper block. And think this performance order hurt Vandy (but only a little) and helped Rouse (but only a little). And the result was an extremely narrow win by Rouse. And if you look at BOA Austin prelim results from earlier that day, you see that Vandy had a 1.45 lead over Rouse. https://marching.musicforall.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/09/Austin-Prelims-1.pdf

Why haven't they posted score breakdowns yet? Grr...

Rouse was definitely good. In fact, I liked their show the best. I'm just pointing out that they beat Vandy...who was also really good...by a razor thin margin (0.15 points). Last three winning margins were 0.6 (2022), 0.25 (2021), and 1.45 (2019).