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Could it happen?


azul

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So since it's band season now that corps is over I was looking through some archives of some Southern California band competitions and noticed something odd. On November 21st of the fall 2010 season a band won the entire show but did NOT win a single caption that night including guard and percussion. A different group won each of the captions and only one had 2 captions taken. That said, the winner placed 2nd in each caption high enough to take out the competition and win the show. Granted in this marching band circuit known as SCSBOA (Southern California Band and Orchestra Association) does not include guard and drums in the overall score but as their own separate captions instead. Now this got me thinking and you math wizzes out there can probably help me out here. Could it be possible to have a champion that didn't win one caption in DCI scored high enough second place numbers to overtake everyone in the overall score?

Example of a possible scenario:

BD takes guard, Crown takes brass, Cadets take GE, SCV takes Drums, Cavaliers take vis GE, Boston takes music GE, and Scouts take music ensemble and someone else takes vis performance but Bluecoats take the title because their overall score was higher. Just something to think about since we're bored here in the off season.

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Hasn't this happened before? i seem to remember sometime in the 80s that someone won without winning a caption.

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Hasn't this happened before? i seem to remember sometime in the 80s that someone won without winning a caption.

Not in the 80s....I just look through From The Pressbox, and every winner won at least 1 caption, usually more.

I can see it happening, but only if the winning corps was a VERY close 2nd in ALL captions and the other corps were very inconsistent in their captions (like winning GE, but tanking in horns or drums...*cough cough...84 Garfield 7th in drums cough*)

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Didnt Star 91 come close to doing this?

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The reason this isn't likely to happen in DCI isn't the math. The math is easy. The reason this isn't likely to happen in DCI is the top corps are too good at too many things. In any given year, BD is likely in the hunt for the brass, guard and drum titles (if not visual too). Similarly, Cadets are a fair bet in those categories. Cavies usually press on guard, drums and visual. If you start with the premise that one of those three will figure in the title (why wouldn't you, they've figured in every title for the past 21 years?), then it seems highly likely they'll win one or more captions. What's more, any corps likely to beat them would have to win captions to do so.

The math is the math. It's possible. But don't bet on it.

HH

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As far as DCI Finals are concerned, I thought I recalled hearing Michael Cessario and Steve Rondinaro say that one of the championship corps did not win any of the captions in one of their intro to a Legacy DVD, and I thought it was 1991 when Star took the title, but "From the Pressbox" does not support this and as much as I'd love to, I can't watch drum corps DVD's all day long to find which intro made this claim, if in fact any did.

Numerically it is possible for a corps to not win any captions but still win finals, but I would think three factors would have to be in place. First the corps would have to place no lower than second in any category, and would have to be within a tenth of a point from a tie in that caption. Second, the other corps in the top four or five would have to have a very weak Achilles heel in a category. Third, no corps could win more than one caption that year. However, while possible I believe this is unlikely to happen and I think that in 2012 we saw what it will take to win a championship. Crown had an incredibly strong show as did Phantom and Cadets. Each show had strengths and each show was appealing. Blue Devils of 2012 was more of an acquired taste, but love it or hate it, it nailed or came close to nailing each category and the weaker elements were not serioualy deficient or all that far behind the stronger elements. My guess is that the days when a strong horn or drum line or marching show can make up for other deficiencies are gone.

Edited by Tim K
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